"The Pity of It All" is a masterful accomplishment of scholarship, insight and tone. It describes the world and history of German Jews before the Holocaust in ways that illuminate the catastrophe that follwed, but with a wise restraint that holds back from glib or pat theories. For instance, Elon is careful to insist that the outcome for Germany's Jews was not inevitable, and that although virulent, persistent anti-semitism was widespread in German culture, Hitler's and Nazism's rise also benefitted from the blunders and complacency of competing politics, and from other random hazards. In focusing on and describing the preceding two centuries of rapid development of a German Jewish community of prosperity and accomplishment, Elon gives these people back their identity and dignity as something other than doomed or pathetic foreshadows of predestination. While the book provides valuable food for thought about the Holocaust, it also, and predominantly, honors and rewardingly brings to our awareness the rich and fascinating parade of Jewish life and individuals in Germany from the mid-18th century forward. ( )

Review by: JEFFERSON S. CHASE

Review by: JEFFERSON S. CHASE

"...To be fair, Elon did not set out to explain the attraction of Nazism. The Pity of It All is written with the primary aim of rescuing a body of cultural achievement from Gold- hagen's best-selling, if ham-fisted, thesis about the inherent anti-Semitism of all Germans - and its implicit assumption of Jewish self- hatred, or at least stupidity. Insofar as this book stimulates American appreciation for writers like- Heinrich Heine, Karl Kraus, and Kurt Tucholsky, it is to be warmly welcomed. But Elon is too concerned with Goldhagen's overhyped and much-criticized argument, and as the book's rather bathetic title sug- gests, he perhaps identifies too closely with his subject to keep perspective. There are other, equally readable, works - Ritchie Robertson's The 'Jewish Question" in German Literature, to name one - that treat German-Jewish cultural history more persuasively. The Pity of It All is ultimately like a painting of a crowd in which individual faces are quite clear but the background is left unfinished."

Source: The American Scholar, Vol. 72, No. 1 (WINTER 2003), pp. 145-147 ( )

הסיפור של יהדות גרמניה הוא בלי ספק סיפור מרתק שראוי לטיפול. עמוס אילון עושה את מלאכתו ביסודיות ובנאמנות גם אם לא בהצלחה מלאה. אולי ההצלחה הי בלתי אפשרית, כי אי אפשר לספר את הסיפור של יהדות גרמניה מבלי לספר את סיפורה של גרמניה, סיפור שהוא כל כך גדול ומורכב ובחלקו כל כך מוכר ובחלקו כל כך לא מוכר שקשה לעשות את שתי המלאכות בספר אחד בן 400 עמוד. התוצאה היאר ספר שלפעמים מרתק, אבל לפעמים מאוד לא ממוקד שקו הסיפור שלו מנותק ובלתי רציף. ( )

A book everyone should read. The Holocaust is a harrowing subject but this book is a celebration of the contribution Jewish people made to the culture of Germany. Felix Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Hannah Arendt and many more famous names all feature in these pages. What happened when the Nazis turned on the Jews of Germany and Europe is heart-breaking, all the more so because of the restraint with which Amos Elon wrote this chronicle of a lost world. ( )

Painful read.

In 1743 when Moses Mendelssohn entered Berlin through "the Jew and Livestock" gate, Germany was comprised of over 100 non-unified states, each with their own rulers and laws. Only Jews who could afford to pay obscene taxes were allowed to live there, and even then their lives were restricted. They weren't allowed to hold military or political office, or practice most professions. Jewish religious leaders maintained strict control over their congregations, remaining separate from their German neighbors in language and culture.

Mendelssohn's publications helped changed that attitude. He followed Maimonides' philosophy that Jews should actively participate in the broader, more secular world without giving up their religious beliefs. The German Jewish community changed significantly over the years after Mendelssohn's death. Yearning to fit into German society, they became cultured, well-read and religiously less observant. Many converted in order to obtain jobs closed to Jews. In many cases conversion didn't guarantee a change in attitude on the part of the Germans then or later (during WWII).

While few Germans accepted Jews, writing and speaking out for their emancipation most felt disgust and hatred toward them regardless of their accomplishments and intentions including the Prussian monarch, Frederick William. The more the Germans displayed their hostility, the harder the Jews tried to really "belong," often blaming their orthodox co-religionists for embarrassing them!

The Jews were a tiny minority in Germany, but for every war or battle the Germans fought, Jews enlisted in large numbers to prove their love. Guess what, it didn't change a thing!

This tiny minority contributed financially to the monarchs of the German states to help fund wars and battles. Nothing changed. German Jewish authors and poets wrote some of the most memorable and beautiful novels, poems, songs and essays while Jewish musicians and Jewish painters contributed stunning works raising German culture to the highest level it had ever reached. The German response was to blame and attack the Jews for Germany losing WWI, for the humiliating Treaty of Versailles, for syphyllis, for inflation, unemployment, etc.

Some Jews were clear-sighted and became Zionists, but few seriously wanted to leave Germany. But fortunately some did as assassinations, and brutal attacks against Jews as well as firing Jews from the military, political office, and university positions, increased after hitler (yimachshimo) was GIVEN power.

Definitely read this very sad history to learn about the evils of hatred, and the importance of staying true to one's identity. ( )