Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars

Summary

The attempt to write an outline of Jewish history in East Central Europe between the wars demands not only considerable learning but also some daring. The author is tackling issues which in many respects concern the history of several nations and a variety of societies. He is thus required to deal with diverse literary and source material, and the linguistic and technical problems involved mean he is unable to make full use of primary sources in every case, or even of the historical literature of particular countries. Mendelsohn is able to refer in part to his own research, carried out with direct reference to original sources; elsewhere he uses historio graphical material in English, Hebrew or Yiddish, as well as published source material in these languages. He does not always succeed in avoiding factual mistakes and sometimes confuses the reader with an inevitable terseness of expression. But all this fades into the background before the undoubtedly valuable features of the book. It does after all constitute the first historical work to attempt a ‘synthetic sketch’ of the problems indicated in the title.

Perhaps ‘sketches’ would be a more accurate description, as the book is divided into chapters dedicated to the individual countries: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Lithuania, with a single chapter on Latvia and Estonia. This does not mean that it is a collection of separate studies that could equally well stand alone. To the book's great advantage, Mendelsohn often approaches his subject - Jewish communities in these countries, governmental politics and patterns of change - in a comparative manner. As a result, and despite the initial impression, the book constitutes a logical whole and is thus all the more useful.

The author's interest lies mainly in the area of specifically Jewish history. He does not, however, treat this in isolation from other historical questions and he also outlines the general conditions experienced by the Jews in each of the countries under discussion. Limited space means that this information is restricted to the most significant facts, but the present reviewer considers his judgement to be accurate as a rule, and the various slips that occur do not adversely affect the basic flow of the work.