$9.99 on Kindle, Nook, Apple Books, Kobo, Google PlayA Community on Trial: The Jews of Paris in the 1930s by David H. Weinberg (102,000 words)
“A Community on Trial is an in-depth study of the organized Paris Jewish community of the 1930s. It examines demographic, social, cultural, and political aspects of French Jewish behavior. It describes the two very different Jewish populations: the wealthier, acculturated, native French Jews, and the recently arrived Eastern European Jews... Weinberg describes a myriad of separate religious, political, social, and ideological organizations of native Jews and of immigrant Jews... Weinberg’s study is based on French- and Yiddish-language periodicals, the archives of several Jewish organizations — the consistory, the Bund, the Alliance Israélite — and personal interviews and correspondence with people active in the community during the 1930s. It is painstakingly researched, well written, and beautifully documented. The many long notes make almost as interesting reading as the text itself. The book is a rare example of excellence in Jewish community studies.” — Phyllis Cohen Albert, The American Historical Review
“David Weinberg’s pioneering study A Community on Trial: The Jews of Paris in the 1930s... documented the evolution of Parisian Jewry during the 1930s and took sharply to task the native-born French Jews for showing little compassion toward and understanding of the large East European immigration and for failing to build bridges to the newcomers at a time when French anti-Semitism was on the rise. Moreover, Weinberg regarded the native Jews’ hesitancy to counteract the growing anti-Semitic trends in French society, their exaggerated patriotism, and increasing alienation from the East European Jews as an ominous portent of the future behavior during the war years.” — Richard I. Cohen, Jewish Quarterly Review