The Failed Secular Jewish Messianic Era in Germany

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	• The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 Amos Elon Picador, 2003 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A superb, sad, brilliant book

Amos Elon's book is a masterpiece. I read it cover to cover and could not put it down. Filled with crucial historical data and drawn from a wide variety of sources, it is engrossing while being perhaps the saddest book I ever read. Elon captures the poignancy of the German Jews wish to be true parts of Germany, their heartfelt efforts. Yet throughout, despite the times when it feels like they are on the threshhold of acceptance, you know the end of the story and sense its tragic inevitability.

Alvin Rosenfeld, MD, co-author with Bruno Bettelheim, The Art of the Obvious.

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AN OUTSTANDING WORK OF UNIVERSAL SCOPE

This is one of the finest works of history, in any subject, I have ever read.

Elon transcends "Jewish History" to write a book that is indeed about Jews in Europe - and is thus about Europe, European civilization, and the enlightenment in general. Prior to reading this work, I had no idea of the significance of Napoleon to the Jewish people, nor the horrific conditions under which most Jews lived. The heavy representation of Jews among progressive reformers and visionary intellectuals reflects the yearnings of the elite of an opressed and ostrasized class - and their vital contribution. Anti-semitism co-mingled with economic and political reactionary views in response to both Jewisch emancipation, and social, cultural and political progressive movements in Europe - culminating in the madness and obscenity of the holocaust. Elon traces with regret the degree that Hitler confirmed and gave strength to Jewish sepratists, who viewed the assimilationist and universalist yearnings of generations of European Jews as racial and religious treason.

Elon is a masterful yet unobtrusive historian. Reading his book is like spending a term with a great professor, under whose tutalage the world becomes larger, sadder, and more deeply intelligible. Elon's work itself stands as a statement that the Holocaust and the Nazi movement did not destroy humanity's progressive vision

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The Failed Secular Jewish Messianic Era in Germany

Belief in the coming of the Messiah and a Messianic era of world peace is an integral part of traditional Judaism. Even secularized Jews, starting with Moses Mendelssohn and others, transfer this belief into an attempt to create a worldly utopia in the here and now while abandoning traditional Jewish observance. This explains why various universalist, utopian philosophies, such as Marxism, attracts secular Jews. Similarly, attempts to create an improved "Reform" Judaism, or a quasi-universalist Socialist Zionism attracted Jews who had abandoned belief in the Jewish religious tradition. Amos Elon, a Jew of this type, in this outstanding book, looks back at what seemed at the time, the most successful attempt of the Jews to shed their supposedly "parochial" traditions and to assimilate into what looked like a vital culture, Germany of the 19th and early 20th century which had such a flowering of music, literature, art, science and industry in which Jews played such a major role. Although most Jews abandoned religious tradition in the period, moving upward in the social and economic mileu of Germany, and felt that they were as German as any non-Jewish German, especially after having fought as good patriots in the wars of the 1870 and 1914-1918, the whole edifice of German Jewish assimilation came crashing down, dragging much of Europe into the abyss with it. Many Jews came into prominence in the highest levels of German society and politics, even into the Kaiser's entourage, and yet, when the crunch came with the defeat in 1918, the Kaiser and others blamed "the Jews" for the defeat, even though the Jews were the most loyal of all Germans. As Elon points out, many in Europe admired or feared the Germans, only the Jews loved them. And this love was totally unrequited, as the Germans, as a people, decided that the Jews were responsible for all their problems and that the Jews would have to be annihilated, even if it meant the destruction of their own country in the process.
Elon describes well the adoption of the "kulturreligion", the religion of culture that the German Jews adopted with their almost fanatical devotion to music, literature, art and philosophy, and their blind, fanatical patriotism that burst out in 1914 when even many who would later claim to be pacifists such as Martin Buber expressed bloodthirsty enthusiasm for war and German aggression.
What is especially interesting is how Elon is expressing his own longing for such a secular messianic era. Once an ardent Zionist, who thought a similar Israeli society based on a similar "kulturreligion" would develop in Israel and people like him would be revered as national "philosophers", he, to his horror, saw the revival of traditional Jewish religious observance, bringing him to the decision earlier this year to leave Israel for good. As he stated in a newspaper interview, he used to be able to call the Prime Minister of Israel to arrange a personal meeting, but today, the political elite has no interest in him, so he sees no reason to remain in Israel.
At the end of the book, he express the despair of the good German Jews who loved their country so much. Instead of pointing out how tens of thousands of German Jews made "aliyah" (immigrated) to Israel and enriched the emerging society there, in spite of the inevitable hardships, he instead focuses on all the Jews who committed suicide, unable to live outside their beloved Fatherland which had foresaken them. Elon is giving expression to his own despair that the Jewish state is returning to its own Jewish roots and his alienation from them.
This book is a must for those who want to understand the tragic culmination of Jewish life in Germany and Europe as a whole, and the odyssey of the alienated Jew who simply wants to abandon his own people and tradition, something that the Germans and Europe proved is impossible.

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Elegant and engaging

I am surprised to be the first reviewer of this book. Although the title may suggest that the book is narrow and scholarly, nothing could be further from the truth. By focusing on Germany in the Enlightment and modern periods, Elon has written a microcosm of the history of anti-Semitism and of Europe. Using well-known German Jews, like Heine, and lesser-known figures, Elon brings these 200 years of history to life. He is historically scrupulous, but writes with the ease of a novelist. It's a good read that's good for you.

A Great Historical Perspective

Overall, a well-researched and balanced account of the topic. Without repeating the accolades from others reviewers, let me just add that this book also offers some truly "humorous" quotes (if you can call them as such). My favourite one: [A Jewish man confronted with the choice of converting to Christianity] "How can I believe in Christianity when I don't even believe in Judaism, which is the only true religion?". The wide spectrum of views expressed by German Jews pre-WWII with respect to the level of anti-Semitism in Germany is quite intriguing.

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