Homes Away from Home: Jewish Belonging in Twentieth-Century Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg

by Sarah Wobick-Segev

How did Jews go from lives organized by synagogues, shul, and mikvehs to lives that―if explicitly Jewish at all―were conducted in Hillel houses, JCCs, Katz's, and even Chabad? In pre-emancipation Europe, most Jews followed Jewish law most of the time, but by the turn of the twentieth century, a new secular Jewish identity had begun to take shape. Homes Away From Home tells the story of Ashkenazi Jews as they made their way in European society in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on the Jewish communities of Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. At a time of growing political enfranchisement for Jews within European nations, membership in the official Jewish community became increasingly optional, and Jews in turn created spaces and programs to meet new social needs. The contexts of Jewish life expanded beyond the confines of "traditional" Jewish spaces into sites of consumption and leisure, sometimes to the consternation of Jewish authorities. Sarah Wobick-Segev argues that the social practices that developed between 1890 and the 1930s―such as celebrating holydays at hotels and restaurants, or sending children to summer camp―fundamentally reshaped Jewish community, redefining and extending the boundaries of where Jewishness happened.

312 pages, Hardcover

Published September 11, 2018

Reviews

[Stacy Milacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating book. I haven't read a history book in almost a decade, and not only was this book interesting, it reminded me why I used to love history so much.

[Yonatan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book with some great tales within. A bit too constrained by the ways of academic writing however. (Each chapter doesn't need to end with a "as I have shown in this chapter" section.