Description
An exploration of Jewish responses to the political and social challenges of early 20th-century Europe through analysis of the life of Arnost Frischer, the key Czech-Jewish activist.
About the Author
Jan Lanicek is Lecturer in Jewish history at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is the author of Czechs, Slovaks and the Jews, 1938-1948 (2013) and a co-editor of Governments-in-Exile and the Jews during the Second World War (2013).
Reviews
Basing his book on extensive archival research in Czechoslovakia and in Canada, Israel, Switzerland, Great Britain, and the US; the contemporary German, Jewish, and Czech press; and a large array of published materials, and including useful maps and illustrations, Lanicek (Univ. of New South Wales, Australia) not only describes the evolution of Frischer's ideas and strategy on behalf of Czech Jewry but also traces the difficult history of this small, fragmented population whose leadership was divided by language, religious observance, nationalism, and Zionism and was decimated during WW II and by the communist coup in 1948. Frischer's persistent struggle for Jewish minority rights against the nationalizing projects of successive Prague governments forms the core of this fascinating political and personal portrait. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *
This pioneering study of Arnost Frischer works at two levels. It is at once the political biography of a well-intentioned activist who sought to give Czechoslovak Jews a voice before, during and after the Shoah and an analysis of state attitudes towards Jews in Central Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. Lanicek's historical research is second to none: every page of this book is scrupulously researched and objectively presented. Lanicek's clear-eyed, unflinching approach to some of the most sensitive moments in Czechoslovak history - before, during and immediately after the Second World War -- make him one of the most authoritative and reliable historians writing on the plight of the Jews in Central Europe today. * Mary Heimann, Cardiff University, UK *
This comprehensive biography of Arnost Frischer (1887-1954), one of the leading Zionists in Czechoslovakia and a member of the Czechoslovak National Council (the exiled parliament) in London during the Second World War, provides a unique insight into the history of the Jews of the Czech lands and independent Czechoslovakia. It shows how this relatively small community responded to the rise of Czech nationalism and the worsening international climate of the 1930s. It is essential reading for all those interested in the response of Jews in Central Europe to the rise of German Nazism and to its ever-intensifying campaign against European Jewry culminating in the Holocaust. * Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, USA *
Book Information
ISBN 9781350070998
Author Dr Jan Lanicek
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 399g