Insiders and Outsiders: Dilemmas of East European Jewry

The essays in this collection look mainly at East European Jews living in Eastern Europe between the World Wars. Cohen (French Jewry studies, University of Jerusalem), Frankel (modern Jewish studies, University of Jerusalem ,emeritus) and Hoffman, a specialist in Russian Jewish history, are not so concerned here with governmental and social ostracism but in the ways that Jews defined themselves as insiders or outsiders, particularly in times or places of greater possibility for assimilation. Articles look at individuals who chose to identify themselves as Jewish and preferred not to assimilate and the "non-Jewish Jews" who identified themselves with a cause or a country, often separating themselves entirely from the faith. Other scholars examine the different towns and regions, asking if it was possible to be Jewish and Polish or Jewish and Bolshevist. The conflict some felt between the desire to come home to Israel and the knowledge that, in doing so, they were uprooting others is discussed through the eyes of one displaced writer. The essays as a whole demonstrate the sliding scale of what it meant to be Jewish in Eastern Europe. One was not inside or outside, but often stuck in the doorway. Distributed in the US by ISBS Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)