Synopses & Reviews
andlt;Iandgt;On the Eve andlt;/Iandgt;is the portrait of a world on the brink of annihilation. In this provocative book, Bernard Wasserstein presents a new and disturbing interpretation of the collapse of European Jewish civilization even before the Nazi onslaught. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;In the 1930s, as Europe spiraled toward the Second World War, the continentand#8217;s Jews faced an existential crisis. The harsh realities of the ageand#8212;anti-Semitic persecution, economic discrimination, and an ominous climate of violenceand#8212;devastated Jewish communities and shattered the lives of individuals. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;The Jewish crisis was as much the result of internal decay as of external attack. Demographic collapse, social disintegration, and cultural dissolution were all taking their toll. The problem was not just Nazism: In the summer of 1939 more Jews were behind barbed wire outside the Third Reich than within it, and not only in police states but even in the liberal democracies of the West. The greater part of Europe was being transformed into a giant concentration andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;camp for Jews. Unlike most previous accounts, andlt;Iandgt;On the Eve andlt;/Iandgt;focuses not on the anti-Semites but on the Jews. Wasserstein refutes the common misconception that they were unaware of the gathering forces of their enemies. He demonstrates that there was a growing and widespread recognition among Jews that they stood on the edge of an abyss. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;andlt;Iandgt;On the Eve andlt;/Iandgt;recaptures the agonizing sorrows and the effervescent cultural glories of this last phase in the history of the European Jews. It explores their hopes, anxieties, and ambitions, their family ties, social relations, and intellectual creativityand#8212;everything that made life meaningful and bearable for them. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Wasserstein introduces a diverse array of characters: holy men and hucksters, beggars and bankers, politicians and poets, housewives and harlots, and, in an especially poignant chapter, children without a future. The geographical range also is vast: from Vilna (the and#8220;Jerusalem of the Northand#8221;) to Amsterdam, Vienna, Warsaw, and Paris, from the Judeo-Espagnol-speaking stevedores of Salonica to the Yiddish-language collective farms of Soviet Ukraine and Crimea. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Wassersteinand#8217;s aim is to and#8220;breathe life into dry bones.and#8221; Based on comprehensive research, rendered with compassion and empathy, and brought alive by telling anecdotes and dry wit, andlt;Iandgt;On the Eve andlt;/Iandgt;offers a vivid and enlightening picture of the European Jews in their final hour.
Review
and#8220;A bright, hard glimpse at the final thriving days of European Jewryand#8230;[s]traightforward, scholarly and tidily organizedand#8230;[a] wide-ranging, marvelously complete overview of a diverse, teeming civilization poised for ruin."
Review
and#8220;A substantive, perceptive, and highly valuable kaddish for lost lives and lost worlds.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Wasserstein chronicles European Jewry in the decade before the war, boldly exploring problems within the community as well as the external pressures of anti-Semitismand#8230;I suspect that we think we know all there is to know about this subject, but we donand#8217;t; Wasserstein should have us covered. Important.and#8221;
Review
"Meticulous, closely researched, movingly evocative....As an encyclopaedic record of Jewish life before the second world war, Wasserstein's book is nothing less than a marvel. Nothing escapes his gaze....As he shows, Jewish society had a cultural richness and diversity to match any in Europeand#8230;.Wasserstein's great achievement is to show just how far Jewish life in Europe was embattled even before war broke out in 1939. This was not some lost golden age.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Enthralling, heartbreakingand#8230; Wasserstein commands an intensive and incisive knowledge of the Jewish subculture and#8230;and, as may be seen, the ability to write about it evocatively.and#8221;
Review
"At last, we have a comprehensive, richly textured account of Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust. Bernard Wasserstein is unsparingly honest in his portrayal of a highly diverse, highly accomplished community, weakened by internal divisions and demographic decline as a much larger disaster loomed. andlt;iandgt;On the Eveandlt;/iandgt; is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the world that was about to disappear."
Review
and#8220;The Holocaust lingers in the memory not just because of the scale of the terror visited on Europe's Jews but because of the many, many questions the event has raised that remain unanswered. Wasserstein creates a kaleidoscopic portrait of the many different ways Jews lived from France into Russia. An important study with an important message.and#8221;
Review
"Takes the reader step by step through the history of the Jews of Europe between the two world wars and provides a comprehensive survey of their situation throughout the continent. It is a rare and excellent introduction, an evaluation that furnishes a deeper understanding of the events of the Holocaust."
Review
and#8220;Wasserstein . . . is not only an expert about his subject matter but also a lucid writer. . . . superband#8221;
Review
and#8220;Judicious and comprehensive . . . in the process of covering such a wide chronological and geographic scope, Wasserstein frequently brings in the lives and experiences of specific individuals, thereby offering the reader a sense of life as it was lived.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;An enlightening and moving evocation of the richness and heterogeneity, both vast and under-documented, of Jewish life in pre-war Europe.and#8221;
Synopsis
On the Eve is the portrait of a world on the eve of its destruction. Bernard Wasserstein’s original and provocative book presents a new and disturbing interpretation of the collapse of European Jewish civilization even before the Nazi onslaught.Wasserstein shows how the harsh political and social realities of the age devastated the private lives of individuals and families. He demonstrates that, by 1939, the Jews faced an existential crisis that was as much the result of internal decay as of external attack.
From Vilna (the “Jerusalem of Lithuania”) to Salonica with its Judeo-EspaÑol-speaking stevedores and singers, and from the Soviet Jewish “homeland” of Birobidzhan to Amsterdam (the “Jerusalem of the west”), the book explores the mindsets of wealthy bankers and far-left revolutionaries, of ultra-orthodox yeshiva bokhers and militant atheists, of cultural revivalists and radical assimilationists.
Describing the predicament of the Jews in a continent suffused with anti-Semitism, Wasserstein’s focus is squarely on the Jews themselves rather than their persecutors. His aim, he writes, is to “breathe life into dry bones.” Based on vast research, written with compassion and empathy, and enlivened by dry wit, On the Eve paints a vivid and shocking picture of Europe’s Jews in their final hour.
About the Author
andlt;bandgt;Bernard Wassersteinandlt;/bandgt; is Ulrich and Harriet Meyer Professor of Modern European Jewish History at the University of Chicago. His many previous books include andlt;iandgt;The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincolnandlt;/iandgt;, which was awarded the Golden Dagger for Non-Fiction by the Crime Writersand#8217; Association, and andlt;iandgt;Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Timeandlt;/iandgt;.