Bohemia's Jews and Their Nineteenth Century

"This welcome study by Toman (Slavic languages and literature, Univ. of Michigan) treats the 1820s to the 1880s, examining the Jewish experience in Bohemia (the Czech lands) by analyzing a wide variety of sources and genres. Overviews of and concluding summaries to each chapter facilitate readers' understanding of the author’s arguments. Among the themes he treats are the complexities of ghetto images, how to understand the famous Jewish cemetery in Prague, whether Jewish fortunes were best served by reference to their inclusion in the Habsburg empire or by more narrow identification with the Czech lands, which context best expressed the Jewish experience (idealistic or realistic), and how Jews should or could respond to their legal equality in the Czech lands after 1867. Issues such as whether the German or Czech language should frame Jewish identify are expertly handled. Some of the authors Toman treats are probably not familiar to an Anglophone audience, but his close and skillful analyses make their works come alive. He is especially good at dealing with anti-Semitism, and his revisionist treatment of Jan Neruda as an anti-Semite is powerfully argued. The volume is enhanced by 15 well-chosen illustrations." * Choice *