{"product_id":"a-chosen-few-isbn-9780345448149","title":"A Chosen Few","description":"\u003cb\u003eA POWERFUL, DEEPLY MOVING NARRATIVE OF HOPE REBORN \u003cbr\u003eIN THE SHADOW OF DESPAIR\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFifty years after it was bombed to rubble, Berlin is once again a city in which Jews gather for the Passover seder. Paris and Antwerp have recently emerged as important new centers of Jewish culture. Small but proud Jewish communities are revitalizing the ancient centers of Budapest, Prague, and Amsterdam. These brave, determined Jewish men and women have chosen to settle–or remain–in Europe after the devastation of the Holocaust, but they have paid a price. Among the unexpected dangers, they have had to cope with an alarming resurgence of Nazism in Europe, the spread of Arab terrorism, and the impact of the Jewish state on European life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDelving into the intimate stories of European Jews from all walks of life, Kurlansky weaves together a vivid tapestry of individuals sustaining their traditions, and flourishing, in the shadow of history. An inspiring story of a tenacious people who have rebuilt their lives in the face of incomprehensible horror, \u003ci\u003eA Chosen Few \u003c\/i\u003eis a testament to cultural survival and a celebration of the deep bonds that endure between Jews and European civilization.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Consistently absorbing . . . \u003ci\u003eA Chosen Few\u003c\/i\u003e investigates the relatively uncharted territory of an encouraging phenomenon.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–Los Angeles Times \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“I can think of no book that portrays with such intelligence, historical understanding, and journalistic flair what life has been like for Jews determined to build lives in Europe.”\u003cbr\u003e–SUSAN MIRON\u003cbr\u003e   \u003ci\u003eForward\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“This book is a fascinating review of the changing life of Jews and Judaism and Europeans in general since the Second World War.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–Rocky Mountain News\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kurlansky does an astonishingly informative job here, covering a vast array of individuals and communities throughout Europe, chronicling the economic, political, and cultural trends that reshaped and often played havoc with their lives and destinies. His descriptions of life in Antwerp, Paris, Budapest, and Amsterdam are superb, while his chapters on Poland are among the best I’ve read.”\u003cbr\u003e–SUSAN MIRON\u003cbr\u003e   \u003ci\u003eForward\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A richly descriptive and insightful survey of post-Holocaust European Jewry . . . With a novelist’s eye for irony and description, [Kurlansky] offers many moments of transcendence and humor; entertaining culture clashes between communists and capitalists, religious and secular, Zionists and diasporists. . . . A lively, penetrating follow-up to Holocaust readings that speaks volumes about the resiliency of the Jewish people.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–Kirkus Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kurlansky’s collection of case histories unfolds like a novel.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–The Jewish Advocate\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMark Kurlansky\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eSalt\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eThe Basque History of the World\u003c\/i\u003e; the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eCod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eA Continent of Islands: Searching for the Carribean Destiny\u003c\/i\u003e; and a collection of stories, \u003ci\u003eThe White Man in the Tree\u003c\/i\u003e. He is a regular contributor to the \u003ci\u003ePartisan Review\u003c\/i\u003e. He has also written for the \u003ci\u003eInternational Herald Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHarper’s\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications. He lives in New York City.Anti-Semitism has proven to be one of the most enduring concepts in European civilization. In a 1927 book called \u003ci\u003eThe Wandering Jew\u003c\/i\u003e, about the struggles of poor eastern European Jews, Viennese Jewish novelist Joseph Roth concluded that anti-Semitism would vanish from the world, ended by the Soviet Union. He wrote of anti-Semitism, \"In the new Russia, it remains a disgrace. What will ultimately kill it off is public shame.\" He noted virulent outbursts in Russia but dismissed them as the death struggles of dinosaurs resisting the inevitable future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRoth even speculated that \"If this process continues, the age of\u003cbr\u003eZionism will have passed, along with the age of anti-Semitism--\u003cbr\u003eand perhaps even that of Judaism itself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday the Soviet Union has been gone for a decade but anti-Semitism\u003cbr\u003eis still here. So for that matter, is Judaism. \"The Jewish\u003cbr\u003equestion\"--I have never been certain what the question is--that\u003cbr\u003eRoth predicted would be put to rest with Russian leadership, has\u003cbr\u003eendured.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lesson to be learned from Roth, aside from a warning to\u003cbr\u003ewriters not to publish predictions in books, is that both Judaism\u003cbr\u003eand anti-Semitism have deep and permanent roots in Europe.\u003cbr\u003eThough Judaism is a less European idea than anti-Semitism, for\u003cbr\u003emany Jews, Jewish culture is European--or was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause of the Holocaust, Europe is no longer the most Jewish\u003cbr\u003econtinent. It may have remained the most anti-Semitic, though\u003cbr\u003eAfrica and Asia, with their Muslim populations are certainly vying\u003cbr\u003efor the title. It is difficult to be certain because anti-Semitism is\u003cbr\u003emore difficult to quantify than Judaism. As the nations of the former\u003cbr\u003eSoviet bloc struggle for acceptance in the West--admission\u003cbr\u003einto Western clubs such as NATO and the European Union--\u003cbr\u003eJewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress have\u003cbr\u003eurged that progress towards democracy in these nations be measured\u003cbr\u003eby the way they are treating their Jews. This is not as skewed\u003cbr\u003ea perspective as it at first sounds. Anti-Semitism, whether in Hungary,\u003cbr\u003eGermany, or France, has usually been tied to undemocratic\u003cbr\u003emovements. The growth of anti-Semitism in France, from the\u003cbr\u003eDreyfus case to World War II collaboration, was tied to monarchists,\u003cbr\u003efascists, and other groups that did not support republicanism.\u003cbr\u003eThe Soviet Union was in principle opposed to anti-Semitism,\u003cbr\u003eand even outlawed its outward manifestations. But as that nation\u003cbr\u003egrew increasingly repressive, it also became increasingly anti-Semitic.\u003cbr\u003eThe \"anti-zionist campaign\" in Poland in the late 1960s\u003cbr\u003ewas the precursor to general repression.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut a more subtle anti-Semitism is allowed to breathe and grow\u003cbr\u003eeven in the setting of democracy. Now in the early twenty-first\u003cbr\u003ecentury when so much urgency is given to fighting international\u003cbr\u003eterrorism, it is useful to remember that in the late twentieth century\u003cbr\u003eJews feared Arab gunmen and bombs in Paris, Antwerp,\u003cbr\u003eMunich--much of western Europe. No European Jew went to a\u003cbr\u003eJewish restaurant or a synagogue without calculating the risk of\u003cbr\u003eattack. These attacks against social organizations, restaurants,\u003cbr\u003eschools and synagogues were met with official statements of outrage\u003cbr\u003eand very little else. Almost no effort was made to capture or\u003cbr\u003epunish the perpetrators, even when Israeli intelligence offered information\u003cbr\u003ethat could lead to their capture. Today when wondering\u003cbr\u003ehow international Arab terrorism could have become so brazen,\u003cbr\u003ewe should note that twenty years ago they were allowed to kill\u003cbr\u003eJews in western Europe with impunity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the decade that has passed since I researched \u003ci\u003eA Chosen Few\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003cbr\u003ethe standing in Europe of both Judaism and anti-Semitism has\u003cbr\u003ebarely changed. This is not surprising, but what is surprising is\u003cbr\u003ethat none of the countries about which I wrote in this book has\u003cbr\u003emoved one step further away from World War II. Europe, sixty\u003cbr\u003eyears after the Holocaust, has achieved no more closure than had\u003cbr\u003eEurope fifty years after. Dariusz Stola, a historian of the twentieth\u003cbr\u003ecentury at the Polish Academy of Sciences, said in a lecture delivered\u003cbr\u003ein June 2001 at the University of Warsaw, \"The Holocaust is\u003cbr\u003enot a problem of the past. It is a problem of the present. I can\u003cbr\u003ehardly find a European country without a World War II problem\u003cbr\u003efrom Germany, French collaboration, Swiss banks, the role of the\u003cbr\u003eVatican. If you do not have problems with World War II, you are\u003cbr\u003enot European.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe World War II problem, the Jewish question--these are distinctly\u003cbr\u003eEuropean debates. It would have been logical to imagine\u003cbr\u003ethat these issues had to be resolved, before the Jews would return.\u003cbr\u003eBut in fact they returned before there was any resolution and now\u003cbr\u003echildren, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren of survivors,\u003cbr\u003elive their lives half citizen and half metaphor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Jews have an irrefutable claim on what all Europeans\u003cbr\u003ewant--standing as World War II victims. Everyone was either--\u003cbr\u003ein the words of Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg--a victim, a\u003cbr\u003ebystander, or a perpetrator. The worst fate has become the best\u003cbr\u003estatus. Just as Jews have always been envied and resented for\u003cbr\u003ewhatever they had, they are envied today for their victim status.\u003cbr\u003eEuropeans need to show that they too, not just Jews, were the victims\u003cbr\u003eof World War II. The French and Dutch accomplish this\u003cbr\u003ewith some difficulty. The Poles stubbornly fight for their victim\u003cbr\u003estatus. Even the Germans hope that somehow Dresden gives\u003cbr\u003ethem a chance for victim status.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Jews of Dresden in the former East Germany have recently\u003cbr\u003efound their real life in Germany and their metaphorical one at\u003cbr\u003ecross purposes. Across the wide and curving Elbe, in the Baroque\u003cbr\u003ehistoric city center, where blackened sandstone fairies cavort from\u003cbr\u003eancient rooftops, workers waddle by, clearing debris with wheel-barrows.\u003cbr\u003eThe city is finally digging out from the famous Febru-ary\u003cbr\u003e13, 1945, British RAF bombing run followed the next morning\u003cbr\u003ewith an attack by the U.S. Army Air Force. Initially, the German\u003cbr\u003epolice claimed 18,000 dead. But in subsequent years the count has\u003cbr\u003ewavered between 30,000 and 130,000.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGermany fell, and with little chance for recrimination against\u003cbr\u003ethe rest of the world, Germans have, for a half century, denounced\u003cbr\u003ethe bombing of Dresden as cruel and unnecessary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore it was bombed into a ruin, Dresden, the capital of Saxony,\u003cbr\u003ehad been one of the prized centers of Germany. The old walled\u003cbr\u003emedieval town reached its golden age in the eighteenth century.\u003cbr\u003eA Protestant church with a huge dome defining the city skyline,\u003cbr\u003ethe Frauenkirche, became the symbol of Dresden--like an Eiffel\u003cbr\u003eTower or an Empire State building. Bach gave the Frauenkirche's\u003cbr\u003efirst organ concert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut for forty-five years after the 1945 bombing, the view across\u003cbr\u003ethe Elbe was of the piles of stone, staircases overgrown with\u003cbr\u003ebushes, wall fragments silhouetted against the sky, the skeleton of\u003cbr\u003eone burned-out dome sticking out above overgrown rubble piles\u003cbr\u003eamid a huge vacant lot that had been cleared with bulldozers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1949, when the Cold War began with Germany splitting into\u003cbr\u003eWest and East, East Germany, the German Democratic Republic,\u003cbr\u003efound a perfect convergence of political rhetoric and economic\u003cbr\u003ereality. They did not have the money to completely rebuild their\u003cbr\u003ecities, but in leaving central Berlin with bullet holes and crumbling\u003cbr\u003ewalls and Dresden with its charred remains, they were creating\u003cbr\u003emonuments to the horror the fascists had brought on the\u003cbr\u003eGerman people. Fascists were the perpetrators and Germans were\u003cbr\u003ethe victims.With a new introduction by the author Author of Cod and The Basque History of the World","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301164929253,"sku":"NP9780345448149","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345448149.jpg?v=1767720352","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-chosen-few-isbn-9780345448149","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}