Continental Britons: German-Jewish Refugees from Nazi Germany

by Marion Berghahn

Overview

"...a scholarly yet readable book...pioneering work" Journal of Jewish Studies

Based on numerous in-depth and personal interviews with members of three generations, this is the first comprehensive study of German-Jewish refugees who came to England in the 1930s. The author addresses questions such as perceptions of Germany and Britain and attitudes towards Judaism. On the basis of many case studies, the author shows how the refugees adjusted, often amazingly successfully, to their situation in Britain. While exploring the process of acculturation of the German-Jews in Britain, the author challenges received ideas about the process of Jewish assimilation in general, and that of the Jews in Germany in particular, and offers a new interpretation in the light of her own empirical data and of current anthropological theory.

Marion Berghahn, Independent Scholar and Publisher, studied American Studies, Romance Languages and Philosophy at the universities of Hamburg, Freiburg and Paris. These subjects, together with history, later on formed the basis of her scholarly publishing program.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845450908
Publisher:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/01/2007
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Marion Berghahn, Independent Scholar and Publisher, studied American Studies, Romance Languages and Philosophy at the universities of Hamburg, Freiburg and Paris. She went on to receive an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, followed by a PhD in Sociology from the University of Warwick. These subjects, together with history, later on formed the basis of her scholarly publishing program.

Table of Contents

Introduction

• I. Problems of Identity
• II. Concepts of Assimilation and Ethnic Identity

1. The Process of Jewish Assimilation in Germany

• The Debate of German-Jewish Assimilation
• Towards a Re-definition of German-Jewish Ethnic Identity

2. Life Under the Threat of Nazism

• The Crisis of the German-Jewish Identity
• A Period of Re-orientation
• The Significance of the Eastern European Jewish Immigrants
• Aspects of Jewish-Gentile Relationships in the 1930s
• Effects of the Nazi Policies on the German-Jewish Community

3. Emigration

• Academics
• The Medical Profession
• The Legal Profession
• Artists
• Business People
• November 1938

4. Search for New Roots

• The Burden of the Past
• German-Jewish Institutions

5. The Ambiguities of Ethnic Identification

• England—A New Haven?
• Germany—A Winter’s Tale

6. ‘Continental’ Britons

• Problems of Identity
• Elements of Continental Ethnicity
• Encounters with Anglo-Jewry
• The Third Generation

Conclusions

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"...a scholarly yet readable book...pioneering work." - Journal of Jewish Studies

From the Publisher