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Michael Goldfarb

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Emancipation: How Liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance Hardcover – November 3, 2009

by Michael Goldfarb (Author)

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For almost 500 years the Jews of Europe were kept apart, confined to ghettos or tiny villages in the countryside. Then, in one extraordinary moment in the French Revolution, the Jews of France were emancipated. Soon the ghetto gates were opened all over Europe. The era of Emancipation had begun. What happened next would change the course of history.

Emancipation tells the story of how this isolated minority emerged from the ghetto and against terrible odds very quickly established themselves as shapers of history, as writers, revolutionaries, social thinkers, and artists. Their struggle to create a place for themselves in Western European life led to revolutions and nothing less than a second renaissance in Western culture.

The book spans the era from the French Revolution to the beginning of the twentieth century. The story is told through the lives of the people who lived through this momentous change. Some are well-known: Marx, Freud, Mahler, Proust, and Einstein; many more have been forgotten. Michael Goldfarb brings them all to life.

This is an epic story, and Goldfarb tells it with the skill and eye for detail of a novelist. He brings the empathy and understanding that has marked his two decades as a reporter in public radio to making the characters come alive. It is a tale full of hope, struggle, triumph, and, waiting at the end, a great tragedy.

This is a book that will have meaning for anyone interested in the struggle of immigrants and minorities to succeed. We live in a world where vast numbers are on the move, where religions and races are grinding against each other in new combinations; Emancipation is a book of history for our time.

Print length

432 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster
Publication date

November 3, 2009
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

1416547967
ISBN-13

978-1416547969
See all details

Aaron J. Hahn Tapper
47
Paperback
21 offers from $23.16

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

French Jews gained full citizenship during the Revolution, and as Napoleon conquered territories across Europe, ghetto gates were thrown open and Jewish emancipation became an unstoppable force, writes NPR correspondent Goldfarb. Emancipation set off an explosion of Jewish achievement, and Jews played an increasingly important if still conflicted role in Europe. For instance, Heinrich Heine, who converted to Christianity in 1825 to further a law career, worked out his Jewish identity crisis through poems that mirrored the national identity crisis of his young German contemporaries. When Damascus Jews were tortured during an 1840 blood libel, the Rothschilds successfully interceded, involving the British Parliament and forcing a French prime minister to resign. The forced baptism and abduction of the Bolognese Jewish child Edgardo Mortara helped catalyze the movement for Italian unity, while the Dreyfus affair ultimately led to the creation of Israel. Goldfarb's history of European Jewish persecution and assimilation (after Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace) is lively and perceptive, but also becomes unfocused and uneven, biting off more than it can chew as he tries to fathom the meaning of emancipation, its causes and its price. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"This is a fascinating book that describes how the French Revolution and then Napoleon's military excursions throughout Europe brought about the liberation of Jews from the segregated ghettos that had constrained them for half a millennium. Ironically, the ghetto experience enabled the Jews to play a dramatic role in a changing European economy as the power of land ownership diminished and money and trade began to rule and was echoed by the American immigrant experience and the push for assimilation and identity. But hatred of the Jews led Theodor Herzl, among others, to conclude that only a Jewish state could provide for the security of the Jews. In today's environment, this is a must-read." -- MORT ZUCKERMAN

"The experience of the Jewish people has been so darkened by horror for them and shame for humanity that the brighter chapters and themes of their story are sometimes eclipsed. In this book, Michael Goldfarb offers a corrective that is brilliant, concise, and vigorously argued, while at the same time suffused with one of history's cruelest ironies: the Jews were beneficiaries of -- and contributors to -- the Age of Reason in the 18th and 19th centuries only to become the principal victims of genocidal madness in the 20th." -- STROBE TALBOTT, author of The Great Experiment

"In Emancipation, Michael Goldfarb offers a well-researched and beautifully written masterwork that reveals the liberating impact that the French Revolution and Napoleon's forces had on the Jews of Europe. Once the legal barriers that had confined them were torn down, ossified, isolated communities became laboratories of human creativity, brimming with knowledge and learning. No longer disconnected from the wider world, Jews were able to make extraordinary contributions in the realms of science, ideology, culture, philosophy, education, and more. In turn, the Jewish religion was itself transformed, creating new branches that quickly intertwined with mainstream societies and social movements. At a time when global xenophobia is too much with us, it is rewarding and even nourishing to read about how the closed doors of divisiveness can be opened wide, even when the key turns out to be held in unexpected hands." -- VARTAN GREGORIAN, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York

"One of those marvelous books that not only illuminates an important chain of historical events, but provides timeless -- and especially timely -- lessons for our own age." -- The Washington Times

"Masterful." -- St. Louis Post Dispatch

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; First Edition (November 3, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1416547967
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416547969
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.45 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #259,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #40 in Talmud (Books)
- #209 in History of Judaism
- #605 in Jewish History (Books)

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Michael Goldfarb

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Michael Goldfarb is an award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster.

A native New Yorker he moved to London in 1985 and spent many years covering conflicts and conflict resolution from Northern Ireland to Bosnia to Iraq for public radio.

His life as a reporter led directly to writing books. He wrote his first, "Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq," following his experiences as an unembedded reporter in Kurdistan during the first phase of the war. It was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2005.

A Kindle edition is now available.

His journalism has won the highest honors on both sides of the Atlantic including the DuPont-Columbia Award and Overseas Press Club's Lowell Thomas Award in America and the Sony Gold award in Britain. He has also been a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press and Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

His most recent book is Emancipation: How Liberating Europe's Jews From the Ghetto led to Revolution and Renaissance.

Michael Goldfarb can be reached at Michael-Goldfarb. You can listen to his recent radio work at https://soundcloud.com/michael-goldfarb-1

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4.4 out of 5

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M Brown

There is so much to learn !

Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2010

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What an interesting, and for me a revealng and well written book. I admit I knew far too little of this period in my tribe's history. Clearly, it is about only a slice of the greater story of the "emancipation" of the proletariat in Europe at the time, but a very important and large slice. This book is easy to read, hard to put down and very well constructed.

Like Goldfarb's story of his ancestor leaving Odessa and making it to NY, my forbears left the Poznan region in Prussia (at the time) around 1850 and went to live in the slums of Whitechapel in East End of London and then eventually on to Australia. The report on Heine's visit and impression of poverty of Jews living in Poznan was a revelation for me. I always figured Whitechapel was a hell hole but perhaps it was an improvement on Poznan!

However, this book also made me think of the emancipation of blacks in the USA and the rough road they have travelled. There are parallels here in regard to the continuing struggle to make it into the mainstream and the undercurrent discrimination from which they still suffer. We now have a black US President, albeit not of those same roots, but what will it take for full "freedom" in the land of the free?

The other striking point is the interesting disparity in the comments from Amazon readers. We even have one person managing to read into Goldfarb's text an admission to Jewish culpability for the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror! Sounds a bit like the split in the German community under Bismarck. Surely this is "finding facts" to support a predisposition.

3 people found this helpful

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P. Mikell

Who knew....

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2009

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This is a fascinating read for non-Jews .... maybe even for members of the tribe. It is well written and hard to put down and I find that an unusual thing to say about a history, but If more history were written this way there would be more people reading it. I bought it on Kindle, a great device with a limited catalog, and would very much like to hear it read by Goldfarb, an occasional radio presenter and reporter for NPR and the BBC.

It gave me a better understanding of European history from middle ages till the present and I will likely to re-read it. It is information rich and lends itself to some study especially by those of us who are only casually informed about the history of the Hebrew people - outside of the Bible - and European Liberalism.

12 people found this helpful

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Jerry Newman

Emancipation by Goldfarb

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2014

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We are reading this book for a discussion group on Jewish Philosophy. All of us agree after reading the first few chapters that Goldfarb's writing is very approachable and understandable. So far we found that he gives background for each subject. One comment is that we would have liked references to be more clearly cited instead of just being listed at the back of the book.

2 people found this helpful

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mal

A possibility for equality

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2013

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M. Goldfarb writing illuminates the history of Europe in 18 and 19 century cohesively and directly The events, people, and currents of history that explain the transformation of European prejudices into the daring concepts of equlity are becoming evident to an everage reader and not historian.
The Jewish minority struggle for the rights in Europe led to a great intellectual emancipation for the Christian as well .The minority Christian leaders of France and Germany were able to look deeply into their Christian teachings and apply them without prejudice across their lands .
Admirable research and a well written history that many people are not familiar with and in my opinion is a MUST read.

One person found this helpful

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Old Man Weiss

A Timely History - Written for Page Turning

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2014

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To have found this book was a joy. It connects all the dots in the last 300 years of western history up to the early 20th century. Events are not isolated but connected. We build on the efforts of those before us and in this book we find out who they are...

The Jewish contribution to western culture is extraordinary... When for the first time they were allowed to flourish and not be killed or isolated, all society advanced.... Remarkable what happens when all are allowed to contribute.

Given current events this is an important read as we try to understand how we have arrived where we are.

Thank you to Mr. Goldfarb the fine work.

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Carl Ian Schwartz

Emancipation--essential reading for today

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2013

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While this beautifully-written history concentrates on the emancipation of Jews in Europe from before the French Revolution through Napoleon and the 19th-century, it also gives valuable insights into the structure of social change, whether revolutionary (which is NOT a sudden thing) to evolutionary.

Americans who are convinced that the problems in this country can be tied to one class of people (other than themselves!), one religious group, one sexual identity, etc., would do well to read this book. Scapegoating does not work, and only results in new scapegoats when one effort fails.

One person found this helpful

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Ethan S. Burger

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2015

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Goldfarb is ver insightful.

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N/A

Well Researched and EVERYTHING New

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2010

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Even among the well educated, very few people know the history of the Jewish people in Europe. The author has done an amazing job of writing a very readable, interesting and insightful accounting of this time. My hat is off to him. This is an excellent book.

I am married to a Jewish woman, I have been to Israel several times, many of my good friends are Jewish. I knew nothing. Thank you Michael Goldfarb.

7 people found this helpful

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MaryAnn DeVlieg

fascinating social and political history that eerily echoes with our time

Reviewed in Italy on January 23, 2022

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Yes, it’s a history of Jews, Jewish struggles and the obstacles that others threw up and reinforced along the centuries. But it’s also a grim reminder that haters will hate and recruit others along with them, that hate does not forget but lingers and festers. Despite this, it’s a story of dogged faith in progress and dignity, steps both small and giant, that lead to, well, emancipation.

James Galloway

Jewish Liberation:A View from the Inside

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 2, 2016

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''For amost 500 years the jews of Europe were kept apart,confined to ghettos or tiny villages in the countryside.Then in one extraordinary moment in the French Revolution,the jews of France were emancipated.The era of emancipation had begun.''I came across this book by way of a BBC World Service item in which Michael Goldfarb explained his motivation for writing it,and I am glad I did as I found it most engrossing and quite a learning experience.The book is remarkable for the amount of detailedhistory it contains,covering an era around the French Revolution to the beginning of the 20th century.During the French Revolution,jews in France were emancipated and their freedoms were expanded under Napoleon who by both treaty and conquest,in the heartland of Ashkenazic jewry,jews in Prussia,northern Germany,Poland,were set free.But with the demise of Napoleon,jewish rights were systematically withdrawn and it was left to others to press for emancipation of the jews and this is the heart of the story he has to tell.Long passages are given to Moses Hess,Heinrich Heinne,Moses Mendelssohn,Gabriel Riesser,Ferdinand Lassaille,and others who gave up their lives for the cause,and by 1846 Theodor Herzel had published his pamphlet,The Jewish State:An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish problem.Also discussed is the role of Karl Marx who saw jewish liberation as part of the socialist process and the liberation of workers internationally.The Dreyfus affair is dealt with and the book moves on to introduce the role of jews in more recent times:Freud.Bergson,Mahler,Einstein,Wittgenstein,Kafka,are amongst those who have,with their modern methods of thought,changed the world.What makes this book so impressive and convincing is that it is by writer whos family is a product of the very subject of which he writes,so that every passage is of relevance and full of meaning.

2 people found this helpful

D. Förderer

a good read even for a non Professional

Reviewed in Germany on November 2, 2014

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A very good Story of the Emancipation. Accessible Even for a non Professional.
I learned very much. The next Book necessary would be a History of the Processing which led to the Installation of the Ghettos.

Alison M. G. Finch

Emancipation - gripping narrative history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2010

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As a non Jew but with an interest in European history, I found the book really gripping. It is well written, pacy and full of fascinating vignettes of Jewish life from the late 18th century to the rise of the National Socialists in Germany in 1933. It is reminiscent of Simon Schama in the way that it takes individuals and uses their lives and experiences to illustrate what was happening in whole communities across the continent, following the emancipation of the Jews after the French Revolution. The book depicts how you get from a family of peddlars and mystics to intellects like Freud or Schoenberg in 3 generations, how the Jews grasped the opportunities offered them with both hands and made the leap, both psychologically and materially, from the Dark Ages and into the 20th century, dragging most of Europe along with them. The parallels between the Jewish community in Vienna in the mid-19th century and the Jewish community in New York 50 years later is plain, and the author also makes the reader think about what this means for immigrant communities in contemporary Europe, for Islamic, Chinese, Africans, who strive for greater things whilst living in exile in their own countries.

8 people found this helpful

Gettheebehindme+

What an achievement. Gripping account of the emergence of ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2015

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What an achievement. Gripping account of the emergence of European Jewry from the Ghetto. Learned a lot I didn't know of the divisions within French Jewry. Was brought to this from Goldfarb's appearances on Dateline on BBC News channel.

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Emancipation: How Liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance Hardcover – November 3, 2009

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