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New Library Acquisitions

kruse_berlin-1933
In the 1920s, Berlin was not only the third largest city in the world, but also a dazzling metropolis that attracted many people, almost like magic, with its avant-garde cultural and art scene, legendary nightlife, and modernity. By 1933, all that was quickly over. Hitler's appointment as German Chancellor on January 30, 1933 marked the beginning of Berlin's transformation from a modern, liberal, cosmopolitan city to the Nazi headquarters. What exactly happened in Berlin in this "fateful year"? The book describes the political events and traces the lives of many prominent Berliners. While some emigrated, others suffered from exclusion and isolation and retreated into domestic relocation, still others adapted and waited. And then there were those who found opportunities for themselves under the changed political circumstances.
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fritsche_hausern-und-menschen
A street in Berlin-Schöneberg: In the richly decorated houses built at the turn of the century, citizens of the 1930s live as socialist writers, modern painters, resistance fighters or simply as Jews, and are first excluded from bourgeois society, then ultimately persecuted. They emigrate, live in hiding, choose suicide, are deported, and murdered. Neighbors sometimes come to their aid, while others denounce them.
After 1945, the survivors and relatives of the victims struggle to return to the bourgeois world. Postwar society makes it difficult for them.The houses - some of which are all but destroyed - have become homes for other tenants, including those who found refuge on the street. As if under a magnifying lens, the stories of these people come together to form history.
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brod_reuchlin
Max Brod, actually more a narrator than a historian, devoted himself intensively to the history of the life of Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522), the courageous defender of the Talmud, and pieced it together into an intellectual panopticon. "Of the miracle-working word" - this title of Johannes Reuchlin's first book on Kabbalah can stand as a motto for his entire life, and in its manifold meanings. As a judge of the Swabian Confederation, he believed in the righteousness of words, and as a diplomat in the service of Count Eberhard he forged alliances with words.
In this biography, Max Brod sheds light on the life and work of this important humanist. Written in 1965, under the effects of the Shoah and his exile in Palestine, this book nevertheless testifies to a love of the German language, a respect for a German who stood by the Jews. Moreover, his pride in the new Hebrew and state presence becomes clearer.
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tolle_nachbarn
Gertrud Tölle already compiled the history of the Jews in Bad Wünnenberg some time ago. Now the second edition of the documentation volume "We were neighbors" has been published. The book gives deeper insights into the common history of the last centuries, especially with regard to the Jewish population and their coexistence despite different religious affiliations. The book also explains, for example, in which houses the Jewish families lived and what is known about the synagogue, the cemetery, and the Jewish school.
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mendelsohn_buildings-projects
Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953) was one of the most versatile architects of the 20th century. His work reconciles the opposites of organic and rational building, of technological innovation and a regionalist attitude, of individual form and universal expression. He fled from Germany in 1933 via England and Palestine to the USA, and his work remains influential to this day.
This comprehensive monograph documents all 70 of Mendelsohn's known completed buildings through text and images. In two essays, it also looks at his design approach and his life. A newly compiled register lists all of his unbuilt projects The publication also contains numerous new photographs by Carsten Krohn, newly drawn plans and historical illustrations.
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applebaum_habsburg-sons
Habsburg Sons describes Jewish participation in the Habsburg Army, 1788-1918, concentrating on World War I. Approximately 300,000-350,000 Jews fought in the Austro-Hungarian Armies on all fronts; of these, 30,000–40,000 died of wounds or illness, and at least 17% were taken prisoner in camps all over Russia and Central Asia. Many soldiers were Orthodox Ostjuden, and over 130 Feldrabbiner (chaplains) served among them. Antisemitism was present but generally not overt. The book uses personal diaries and newspaper articles (most available in English for the first time) to describe their stories, and compares the experiences of Jews in German, Russian, and Italian armies.
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lubich_exilerfahrung-exilforschung
A festschrift in honor of Guy Stern (b. 1922), centenarian professor of German literature and culture and member of the Ritchie Boys, a group of German and Austrian men - some Jewish - who escaped Nazi Germany only to return during the war as elite U. S. intelligence officers. Over 80 contributors pay tribute to Stern as a "transatlantic builder of bridges" or write about a topic in the rich history of German and Austrian exile literature.
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baron_undercover-wrestler
Based on true events, The UNDERCOVER WRESTLER is a "semi-fictional" espionage spy-thriller novel set in post-World War II Czechoslovakia, telling the incredible story of my grandfather, Zalman Unreich, a highly regarded wrestler and undercover spy from Israel. His adventurous "career" first began in the streets in Bratislava, then later in Palestine and eventually Israel, negotiating the Czechoslovakian Arms Deal that helped the State of Israel defend itself during its early days of war. While working as an Israeli diplomat (and a master of deceit), Zalman helped the victims of the Communist anti-Jewish “show-trials” and he smuggled many people across the Iron Curtain in Europe, risking his life on a daily basis. Zalman was a consummate professional, who left little traces of his work, and as a result, his story is untold -- until now. (David M. Baron).
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schostak_weg-der-mikwe
Whereas at the beginning of the 19th century the mikvah was still considered the "women's spa" belonging to a social fringe group - cold, unhealthy, and no longer appropriate for the times - at the end of the period considered here, the modern ritual spa of an emancipated minority was created. In her study, the author traces those social, political, cultural, and religious factors that in their interplay shaped this transformation. Both the spatial layout and the understanding of the ritual itself were renewed in various ways and thus adapted to the conditions of a bourgeois lifestyle. In doing so, the focus is always on both sides: The German public perceived the mikvah mainly through the doctors as a medical concern, whereas the Jewish community sought to fit old traditions into a new horizon of values in the broader process of reform.
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leetz_marischa
Raised in Lodz, Maria König (1921-2019), called Marischa, survived the ghetto as well as several camps as a young woman. When she is liberated in Theresienstadt, her entire family has been murdered. With her husband Adi, also a Holocaust survivor, she finally settles in the GDR as a staunch socialist and lives a long and - as she says - happy life there.
By the time Antje Leetz encourages her to speak her memories into a microphone so that they will not be lost, Maria König is almost 100 years old and living in a retirement home. The two have known each other for a long time, are familiar with each other. And so Marischa recalls what she has experienced - sometimes for the first time. She struggles to put her thoughts into words, searches for images that have long been repressed, bubbling up and then submerging again. In the telling, her story of survival unfolds - full of loss and pain, but also gratitude, joie de vivre, and humor - and a fascinating panorama of time.
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berghahn_israel-jacobson
This biographical synopsis of the Jewish reformer Israel Jacobson outlines his work and his impact on Reform Judaism worldwide. As a banker and rabbi in Braunschweig, Israel Jacobson (b. 17 October 1768, Halberstadt) became a leading figure on the path to equal rights for Jews and a champion of the Jewish Reform movement in the wake of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah). The educational reform promoted by him and his comrades-in-arms, for which he created an educational institution active well into the 20th century with the founding of a Jewish free school in Seesen, advanced to become the starting point for the participation of Jews in bourgeois society. Jacobson's reform of Jewish worship, which he implemented in the Jacob Temple in Seesen, laid the foundations for the ideas of Reform Judaism that are still practiced and discussed all over the world today.
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wolfert_charlotte-charlaque
The life of the German-American Charlotte Charlaque (1892-1963) leads her across the Atlantic several times - from Moravian Schönberg via Berlin, to San Francisco and Prague, and back to New York. As a Jew, Charlaque left Nazi Germany in 1934. Eight years later, she made the life-saving "leap" to the USA. In New York, she became a dazzling celebrity as the uncrowned queen of the Brooklyn Heights waterfront. She fondly called herself Charlotte von Curtius. But not even her closest friends knew that her new last name was a reference to her old birth name. Because when Charlotte Charlaque was born, her parents assumed she was a boy and gave her the name Curt...
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The LBI Library collects publications related to the history and culture of German-speaking Jews as outlined in its Collection Development Policy. A rotating selection of recent highlights from among our new acquisitions are featured on this website, as well as a link to a comprehensive list of new acquisitions in our catalog.

Books from the LBI Library Collection can be used onsite in the Lillian Goldman Reading Room at the Center for Jewish History, currently by appointment. The reading room is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Visits must be scheduled in advance through a research account and book requests need to be placed in advance . If you are not sure whether an on-site visit is necessary for your research interests or for visit updates, please reach out! The reading room librarians are available at inquiries@cjh.org.  

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