The Scholems: A Story of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction

Jay Howard Geller

Published by Cornell University Press 2019

The Scholems

A Story of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction

Jay Howard Geller

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501731570

Overview
Contents

About this book

The evocative and riveting stories of four brothers—Gershom the Zionist, Werner the Communist, Reinhold the nationalist, and Erich the liberal—weave together in The Scholems, a biography of an eminent middle-class Jewish Berlin family and a social history of the Jews in Germany in the decades leading up to World War II.

Across four generations, Jay Howard Geller illuminates the transformation of traditional Jews into modern German citizens, the challenges they faced, and the ways that they shaped the German-Jewish century, beginning with Prussia's emancipation of the Jews in 1812 and ending with exclusion and disenfranchisement under the Nazis. Focusing on the renowned philosopher and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem and his family, their story beautifully draws out the rise and fall of bourgeois life in the unique subculture that was Jewish Berlin. Geller portrays the family within a much larger context of economic advancement, the adoption of German culture and debates on Jewish identity, struggles for integration into society, and varying political choices during the German Empire, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and the Nazi era. What Geller discovers, and unveils for the reader, is a fascinating portal through which to view the experience of the Jewish middle class in Germany.

Author / Editor information

Jay Howard Geller is the Samuel Rosenthal Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, 1945-1953 and co-editor of Three-Way Street.

Reviews

Through studying the biographies of the entire [Scholem] family, Geller has presented us with a fascinating, personalized image of the German-Jewish bourgeoisie before and after World War I, both among those who were totally committed to its values and among those, fewer in number, who in revolutionary fashion abandoned their peers either for a hopeful but problematic Jewish nationalism or for a dubious communist future.

By relating the history of the Scholems in all its complex dimensions—its drama, achievements, and tragedies—Jay Howard Geller has provided us with a nuanced account of a nevertheless very special, albeit typical, German Jewish family as it faced and responded to the tempestuous challenges of its times.

Sheldon Kirshner:

Jay Howard Geller's book is superb...Geller's narrative comprises the heart and soul of The Scholems.

One of the most compelling aspects of Geller's fascinating book is the ease and competence with which he summons historical information

Compelling.... In writing the biography of the Scholem family, Geller has consulted a breathtaking array of sources on several continents and in several languages.

Geller sets out a compelling tale of a diverse group of German Jews in the early 20th century who were broadly representative of the culture and class of a long-lost era.

Excellent.... Well-researched and engagingly written, this is a fine contribution to German-Jewish biography and history.

David Biale, author of Gershom Scholem:

Based on a remarkable excavation of archives from around the world, The Scholems illuminates the lives of the family's famous brothers, as well as their virtually unknown brethren, to provide a social history of the German Jews during a period of earth-shaking change.

George Prochnik, author of Stranger in a Strange Land:

In this richly textured portrait of a German-Jewish family that included the renowned brothers Gershom and Werner Scholem, Jay Geller depicts the rise and fall of the dream of German-Jewish symbiosis and reminds us of how wonderfully vibrant those caught up in the dream actually were—whether they sought to prop up or break free of its tragic illusions.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Map of the Scholems’ Berlin in the 1920s Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Members of the Scholem Family Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Origins: From Glogau to Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
2. Berlin Childhood around 1900: Growing Up in the Growing Metropolis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
3. Things Fall Apart: The First World War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
4. Life in the Time of Revolutions: The Early Weimar Republic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
5. The Gold-Plated Twenties and Beyond: Promise, Prosperity, and Depression in Interwar Germany Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
6. In the Promised Land: A New Home in Jerusalem Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
7. The Maelstrom: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
8. Cresting of the Fifth Wave: Gershom Scholem’s Palestine in the 1930s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
9. Afterlives: Sydney and Jerusalem Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	321

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 348
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 1
- Images: 28
- Other: 26 b&w halftones, 1 map
Keywords: Prussia; Jews; Jewish identity; German culture; WWII

eBook

Published: March 15, 2019
ISBN: 9781501731570