Jews in contemporary East Germany : the children of Moses in the land of Marx /

Following her first moving encounter with the Jewish community of East Berlin, sociologist Robin Ostow obtained unprecedented official permission to conduct ten interviews with selected individuals concerning their lives as Jews in the GDR. A Holocaust survivor, several postwar returnees from capitalist countries, a party member, an artist, the community's president, and a recent emigre to West Berlin give evidence of lingering anti-Semitism, the strains of maintaining a Jewish identity under an orthodox Marxist regime, and the paradoxically dominant role of the Judische Gemeinde (Jewish community organization) in Jewish life. The personal statements of this small, relatively privileged minority, a frail, diminished element of the once-strong and influential Berlin Jewry now isolated from Western Europe, North America, and Israel, illuminate a revealing aspect of contemporary East Germany. Excellent photographs, informative notes, an extensive bibliography, and a helpful glossary accompany these concise, poignant testimonies. Undergraduate and general readers. -C. Fink, University of North Carolina at Wilmington