Berlin for Jews: A Twenty-First-Century Companion

Berlin for Jews: A Twenty-First-Century Companion

What is it like to travel to Berlin today, particularly as a Jew, and bring with you the baggage of history? And what happens when an American Jew, raised by a secular family, falls in love with Berlin not in spite of his being a Jew but because of it?Â The answer is Berlin for Jews. Part history and part travel companion, Leonard Barkanâ€™s personal love letter to the city shows how its long Jewish heritage, despite the atrocities of the Nazi era, has left an inspiring imprint on the vibrant metropolis of today.Â

Barkan, voraciously curious and witty, offers a self-deprecating guide to the history of Jewish life in Berlin, revealing how, beginning in the early nineteenth century, Jews became prominent in the arts, the sciences, and the cityâ€™s public life. With him, we tour the ivy-covered confines of the SchÃ¶nhauser Allee cemetery, where many distinguished Jewish Berliners have been buried, and we stroll through Bayerisches Viertel, an elegant neighborhood created by a Jewish developer and that came to be called Berlinâ€™s â€œJewish Switzerland.â€Â We travel back to the early nineteenth century to the salon of Rahel Varnhagen, a Jewish society doyenne, who frequently hosted famous artists, writers, politicians, and the occasional royal. Barkan also introduces us to James Simon, a turn-of-the-century philanthropist and art collector, and we explore the life of Walter Benjamin, who wrote a memoir of his childhood in Berlin as a member of the assimilated Jewish upper-middle class.Â Throughout, Barkan muses about his own Jewishness, while celebrating the rich Jewish culture on view in todayâ€™s Berlin.Â

A winning, idiosyncratic travel companion, Berlin for Jews offers a way to engage with German history, to acknowledge the unspeakable while extolling the indelible influence of Jewish culture.

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Country	USA
Author	Leonard Barkan
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9780226010830
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	University of Chicago Press
Manufacturer	University of Chicago Press
NumberOfPages	256
PublicationDate	2016-11-04
Publisher	University of Chicago Press
ReleaseDate	2016-11-04
Studio	University of Chicago Press

Berlin for Jews: A Twenty-First-Century Companion

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