Bøger af Joshua M. Karlip

In 1939, a new Yiddish journal was published in Paris under the name »Oyfn sheydveg« (At the Crossroads). The Authors, primarily Eastern European emigrés, embarked on a quest for an intellectually appropriate response to the political events unfolding before their eyes. Many contributors who were active two decades earlier as Diaspora Nationalists in diverse Eastern European Jewish political parties and institutions now explored new avenues. These included Zionism and Territorialism, but also a return to religious tradition and even to a pre-modern »ghetto life.« Unlike hardly any other literary document, »Oyfn sheydveg« sheds light on the profound crisis of these Jewish intellectuals and on the conclusions they drew in the face of the looming catastrophe.

The Tragedy of a Generation is the story of a failed ideal: an autonomous Jewish nation in Europe. It traces the origins of two influential strains of Jewish thought—Yiddishism and Diaspora Nationalism—and documents the waning hopes and painful reassessments of their leading representatives against the rising tide of Nazism and the Holocaust.