The Wandering Jews

by Joseph Roth, Mavis Gallant, Michael Hofmann (Translator)

A masterpiece of twentieth-century history, only recently rediscovered in Germany, appears for the first time in English. Every few decades, a book is published that shapes Jewish consciousness. One thinks of Elie Wiesel's Night or Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz. In 1927, however, before these works were written, Joseph Roth (1894-1939) composed The Wandering Jews. At the time a correspondent in Berlin, emotionally ravaged by the whirlwind events of Weimar Germany, Roth examined the concept of Jewish identity and questioned what lay in store for it. Whether writing of the schism between Eastern and Western Jews, warning of the false comforts of assimilation, or eerily foreseeing the horrors posed by Nazism, The Wandering Jews remains as unforgettably vital today as it was when first published.

Genres: History, Jewish, Nonfiction, Classics, German Literature, Judaica, Essays

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Joseph Roth, journalist and novelist, was born and grew up in Brody, a small town near Lemberg in East Galicia, part of the easternmost reaches of what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire and is now Ukraine. Roth was born into a Jewish family. He died in Paris after living there in exile.

http://www.josephroth.de/

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

What We All Lost

This is a short book, but also a long, if unwitting, epitaph; a heart-breaking celebration of a culture on the verge of its destruction.

The Jews of Eastern Europe - Poland, Lithuania, Russia and Romania - had the misfortune to have settled, usually by invitation, sometimes by coercion, in one of the most fought-over pieces of real estate on the planet. They were rarely under anyone's rule long enough to establish a political position or a collective voice or even recognition as human beings: "...fatherland for them is whatever country decides to conscript them."

Their culture was profoundly religious. "They are not rare visitors to God, they live with him...There is no other people that lives on such a footing with their God...They know that while they may be punished they will never be abandoned." The more his religious zeal is mocked, the more the Jew of Galicia and the Pale insists on an appearance that marks him out as 'God's Jew': untrimmed beard, scholarly intensity befitting the importance of the Torah, a second home in the prayer house, devotion to the rabbi who advises him and intercedes on his behalf. His culture does not run on money, of which there is little, but on prayer, of which there is an abundance. His is an economy of prayer lying under a layer of material poverty.

Isolated by law for centuries from the Christian inhabitants of these Christian countries, the Jews of Eastern Europe were also isolated by culture from the assimilated Jews of Germany and Western Europe. Despised by both Christians and Jews, they learned to despise themselves and their unique culture. They knew nothing of nationality, Jewish or otherwise. With no rights, only obligations, they yearned for escape, not from their culture but from their oppression. They wanted to escape to anywhere, as long as it was West.

But culture and oppression are linked in a sort of ecological dependence. Like the Native Americans, and the tribes of the Amazonian jungle, culture dissipates without the pressure of oppression and its provocation to resistance. To escape is to lose the need to resist, and therefore to assimilate into the culture which simply doesn't care about culture.

Religious indifference is a new sort of oppression which the emigrant Jew doesn't know how to deal with. Now he is despised because he is poor and merely strange. So he becomes part of a nation, to the benefit of neither the Jew nor the West:

"Anyone deserves the West who arrives with fresh energy to break up the deadly, antiseptic boredom of its civilisation, prepared to undergo the quarantine that we prescribe for immigrants. We do not realise that our whole life has become a quarantine, and that all our countries have become barracks and concentration camps, admittedly with all the modern conveniences. The immigrants - alas -do not assimilate too slowly, as they are accused of doing, but if anything much too quickly to our sorry way of living."

Wandering Jews learn French, Italian, and English (but not Spanish, Spain is not welcoming to Jews); they forget their native Yiddish. They do well because they work at it and they know how to 'read the country'. This is a skill honed by oppression. If they can get the necessary exit papers and if they can get into the quota, they go to America: "America signifies distance. America signifies freedom." Every Eastern Jew has a relative in America. In America he can still speak Yiddish, he thinks, just because of all the Jews there already!

In the preface to the 1937 edition, Roth notes the dismal fact that it is the German Jews who now must learn again to wander, either rounded up into ghettos or forced abroad like their Eastern brethren by the Nazi Nuremberg Laws. His apocalyptic final observation is, "There can be no European or European- Christian morality so long as the principle of 'noninvolvement' [by other countries in German anti-Semitism] is respected." "A chilly sort of family," he says, "this 'family of nations!'" Indeed, it was about to freeze solidly.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich bin so stinksauer auf den Hofenberg Verlag, der Juden auf Wanderschaft 2015 neu in Großschrift herausgegeben hat. Erstens hat die Ausgabe einen Druckfehler auf allen linken Seiten, sodass in den Wörtern vertikal in einer Line an derselben Stelle zwei Buchstaben verschwinden, was das Buch schwer lesbar macht. Zweitens fehlt mir schmerzlich das letzte nachgetragene Kapitel, was Roth zur Situation der Juden in Deutschland insgesamt gesagt hat. Schon bei vielen von Roths Werken habe ich angemerkt, dass ich gerne wüsste, was Roth zum Aufstieg der Nazis genau zu sagen hatte, viele seiner Romane sind ja früher geschrieben worden, wo sich noch nicht alles abzeichnete. Hier in Juden auf Wanderschaft wäre die Möglichkeit gegeben, denn genau in diesem Werk würde, wenn es komplett veröffentlicht worden wäre, drinnen stehen, was ich schon immer wissen wollte.

Ansonsten muss ich meinem Lesefreund Armin zustimmen, der recht kurze Text ist eine Analyse, Recherche und sachliche Auseinandersetzung vor allem zum Roman Hiob, aber auch in anderen Romanen scheinen die diskutierten Themen auf, wie zum Beispiel der typisch jüdische Konflikt- Assimilation oder nicht, oder was dazwischen.

Zudem wird sehr viel Hintergrundwissen für jeden jüdischen Roman vermittelt, um das Leben, die Gesellschaft und die Religion von Juden jedweder Strömung zu verstehen. Dabei war für mich auch viel Neues, wie zum Beispiel, dass sie keinen Gebetsraum brauchen, sondern nur 10 Juden, um ihren Gottesdienst abzuhalten. Aber klar, sie müssen alles dabeihaben, wer weiß, wann sie plötzlich wieder „auf Wanderschaft“, ergo flüchten müssen. Auch die Kritik an den orthodoxen Wunderrabbis ist sehr gut gelungen.

Die Unterschiede des ostjüdischen Lebens in Berlin, Wien und Paris sind köstlich und sie beschreiben vor allem in Wien, wo ich das beurteilen kann, sehr genau das Leben in der Stadt.

Am Gründonnerstag war ich in der im Buch angesprochenen Josefstadt, dem historischen Wiener Judenviertel für die armen Leute parken, um am Donaukanal zu flanieren und Graffitis zu knipsen. Ich bin öfter in dem Bezirk, da ich ihn sehr mag und er sehr nahe zur Einfahrtsstraße von meiner Stadt Krems ist. Habe dort wieder ganz ursprüngliches jüdisches Leben und drei orthodoxe Juden gesehen, der Vater mit seinen zwei Kindern, der vierjährige war schon voll ausstaffiert. Ein Polizist bewachte offensichtlich den ehemaligen Tempel. Ich habe ihn irrtümlich für einen Parksheriff gehalten und ihn gebeten, uns bitte nicht wegen Falschparkens zu bestrafen. Er hat lauthals gelacht und sagte, er hat gaanz andere Aufgaben, nämlich den Tempel vor Angriffen zu Ostern zu beschützen. Zudem hat er auch noch mit einem Zwinkern versprochen, gut auf unser Auto aufzupassen, damit keine Strafe fällig wird.

So prophetisch Roth normalerweise seine Voraussagen getroffen hat, die Prophezeiung, dass der Kommunismus den Antisemitismus auslöschen wird, konnte nicht gehalten werden. Da war er zu optimistisch, und diese Projektion in die Zukunft ist etwas schlechter gealtert.

Fazit: Nur 3 Sterne und keine Leseempfehlung von mir, aber das liegt tatsächlich am Ärger mit der Ausgabe, in der das wichtigste Kapitel fehlt. Bitte 978-3-8430-3172-1 aus dem Hofenberg Verlag nicht kaufen. Also passt auf, dass Ihr die richtige Ausgabe erwischt.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph Roth, ünlü romanı “Radetzky Marşı” ile gönlümde taht kurmuş bir yazar. Bu kitabını ise gazeteci kimliği ile yazmış, bir anlatı, araya bazı anılarını ve izlenimlerini yerleştirmiş. Daha çok Çarlık Rusyası ve ona komşu ülkelerden 1. Dünya Savaşı öncesinde sürülen, göçe zorlanan ve Batı Avrupa ülkelerine sığınan Doğulu Yahudiler olarak bilinen milyonlarca yahudinin yaşadıklarını, gittikleri ülkelerdeki durumlarını, dramlarını anlatıyor J. Roth.

Bunları yazdığında tarih 1937, henüz “Holocaust” yaşanmamış. Ama engin görüşüyle yazar bu tehlikeyi seziyor, geçmişte yaşananlardan yola çıkarak yaşanacakları görüyor. Çok net sorgulamaları ve saptamaları var. Yahudiler bir din birliği mi, ırk mı, değişik kabilelerden oluşan bir millet mi, yoksa sadece ruhani bir bütün mü diye soruyor. 1. Dünya Savaşından sonra Amerika’ya göçeden yahudilerin orada özgürlük olduğu için değil, kendilerinden daha altta kabul edilen bir toplum, siyahlar olduğu için özgür olduklarını hissettiklerini ironik olarak yansıtıyor.

Yahudilerin tarihleri boyunca en eşitlikçi ve insanca muameleye devrim sonrası Sovyetler Birliği’nde yaşadıklarını, ama bireyselliği seven yahudilerden ulusal bir azınlık yaratılamadığı gerçeğini vurguluyor. Bu arada 500 bin kadar Alman vatandaşı yahudinin, Naziler diğer yahudilerin mallarına el koyduğunda, 1. Dünya Savaşında şehit olmuş yahudilerin isimleri anıtlardan ve şehitler listesinden sildiğinde susup yaşantılarını sürdürdüğünün altını o tarihlerde çizmiş olması ve affedilmez bulduğunu belirtmesi yazarın geniş düşünce ufkunu gösteriyor.

Kitaba yeni baskısına yazdığı önsözde artık sadece Doğu Yahudi sorunu yok, Batı Avrupa Yahudileri’nin de sorunu var diye bitiriyor. Genel kültür açısından okunmalı.

[Siti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tra il 1927, anno della prima pubblicazione di questo reportage e il 1937, quando Roth ne curò una successiva ristampa, in Europa , il quadro politico era repentinamente mutato e con esso la condizione degli ebrei erranti così come Roth l'aveva, solo un decennio prima fissata. La guerra civile spagnola faceva presagire l'ormai imminente conflitto mondiale e il sogno europeo, quello di un popolo unito e civile, ancor prima di attecchire si trincerava dietro le scelte necessarie della non ingerenza; non era ancora giunto il tempo di una riflessione condivisa per il bene comune e, come sappiamo, ancora oggi ne siamo, e lo dico con profondo rammarico, ben lontani. Tanto distante era poi Roth dall'immaginare il destino a cui sarebbe stati invece condotti gli ebrei da un antisemitismo sistematico, razionale, triviale che ha cancellato un popolo, un'identità e quella specificità che solo pochi anni prima cercava uno spazio vitale in suolo europeo. Ecco, questo reportage, ne restituisce una preziosa documentazione e, per chi ha letto Roth, i fratelli Singer, Malamud e Nemirovsky permette di comprendere appieno tante pagine che magicamente ritornano in mente. Può trattarsi del negozio del commesso malamudiano in campo americano o del villaggio assediato dai pogrom rappresentato in “Cani e Lupi” in un ghetto ucraino o ancora l'attivismo mercanteggiante di tante altre pagine come quelle bellissime della famiglia Moskat o dei Karnowski, o dello stesso “Giobbe” di Roth, per arrivare infine all'Italia di Bassani e al ghetto ferrarese. Le pagine di questo reportage sono imperdibili perché tracciano il ritratto delle politiche di accoglienza o al contrario di allontanamento che le nostre gloriose e civili nazioni europee misero in campo per sfruttare o demonizzare, mai capire, la presenza di un popolo errante che successive legislazioni, non bastasse la diaspora, condannarono allo stato di apolide come anticamera dell'annientamento finale. É interessante oltremodo perché l'intento che mosse Roth nel '27 era in realtà quello di far presente la condizione degli ebrei orientali, quelli dai quali lui stesso proveniva, e di farlo presente agli ebrei occidentali, a quelli che ormai si sentivano tedeschi, francesi o americani e temevano la loro stessa genia perché convinti di essere perfettamente integrati dopo un lento e faticoso processo di assimilazione e di cosciente perdita di identità. Uno sguardo lungo sempre utile per tenere desta l'attenzione in tempi cupi come i nostri.

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Jewish communities of Eastern Europe suffered centuries of oppression and discrimination before being wiped out entirely during the cataclysm of World War II. When Roth wrote this book, the Holocaust still some years away. But he still seemed to grasp that he was documenting a world that was on the brink of annihilation, taking the time to carefully record the habits, beliefs and lifestyles fo these communities in sympathetic detail. And indeed, world of Jewish dockworkers, poor tailors and devout Eastern European Hasidic villages is so far gone now that it seems hard to even imagine just a few decades later.

Roth is harsh towards what he sees as an arrogant Western civilization that abominates the Eastern European Jews and holds them in contempt. For his part, he sees much to value in these people and their simple ways. The mentality of the poor, coarse, yet large-hearted Slavic Jewish peasants is contrasted favorably with the repressed animality of Western Europeans, of whom Roth himself was of course one. Given the massive changes that have occurred among Jews around the world over the past decades, its interesting to recall how different attitudes were not long ago, when many Jews were considered by the West to be an uncivilized other. When these communities were forced to become refugees due to pogroms and war, the world did all it could to hold them at bay, while scarcely bothering to hide their contempt for them and their culture. They wanted nothing to do with them and were content to see them die quietly in their misery, far out of sight. It is not hard to see echoes of this arrogant attitude today in the response to the waves of Syrians and Iraqis fleeing war to unwelcoming Western shores,

The segment on immigration to America also notes vividly how, for once, Jews got to benefit from their race by being subsumed into a larger racial category of "white." As newly-minted white people, they were placed in a novel hierarchy that saw them no longer at the bottom of the social hierarchy, a space which was occupied in America by Black Americans, who Roth describes as "more Jewish than the Jews" in their oppression. Its an interesting glimpse into how new categories of oppression ended up offering a new opportunity for Eastern European Jews, though it came at the expense of the local Black population. Its also a sobering reminder of how the new world of the United States made and unmade entirely new categories of people, including thriving and honored Jewish communities of a type which have seldom survived in Europe. The status of immigrants in America has always, often tragically, placed them above Black Americans in the hierarchy, although I would argue that the category of "white" that was offered to Jewish emigres does not hold for many new immigrants today, no matter how some of them may still misguidedly strive for it.

This book is a crie de coeur that called on the world to pay attention to the suffering of the Eastern European Jews and to cease its bigotry against them before its too late. As Roth poignantly describes, this bigotry existed not just among gentiles, but among assimilated Western European Jews who were were tempted to look askance at their backwards "cousins from Lodz," in an attempt to fit in better within their own societies. As time showed, trying to differentiate themselves from their backwards kin did not do much to save German and Austrian Jews in the end. It is a worthwhile reminder to Muslim communities today not to countenance the bigotry of those who would attack conservative Muslims while claiming exception for their assimilated, "good" co-religionists.

[Laurent De Maertelaer · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Sterreporter' Roth pakt in 'Joden op drift' uit met een verbluffende les in essayistiek. Grotendeels gebaseerd op teksten uit 1927 die tijdens Roths leven nooit uitkwamen in boekvorm (dit zou pas gebeuren begin jaren 70 met de uitgave van het verzameld werk), is dit een ode aan de verdreven joden uit zijn geboortestreek Galicië, nu deels Polen en Oekraïne. Ook het leven van de joden in Berlijn, Parijs, Wenen en de Verenigde Staten komen aan bod, en in een 10 jaar later toegevoegd hoofdstuk de situatie van de joden in nazi-Duitsland. Een vlijmscherpe analyse van de Oost-Europese joodse cultuur, de emigratie en het antisemitisme, doorspekt met Roths typerende ironie en opzwepende maar heldere argumentatiedrift. Brandend actueel in het licht van de huidige vluchtelingencrisis. Verplichte lectuur voor alle haters.

Enthousiast voorwoord van Geert Mak, knappe vertaling van de onvermoeibare Els Snick (die ook een boeiend nawoord schreef over de ontstaansgeschiedenis van de tekst en een bondig notenapparaat).

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, thoughtful consideration of the place of the Jews in Europe, including an insightful understanding that the Jew remained an outsider in Germany after the time many Jews had become largely secularized and felt themselves to be Germans first and foremost. The 1930s were soon to show them an alternate and searing reality.

[Steve Middendorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a review from Michael Andre Bernstein, The New Republic: I have added a quote at the end of the review, to give you a flavor of lessons contained in this book which could apply to one's understanding of, say, Ukraine today.

Every few decades a book is published that shapes Jewish consciousness. One thinks of Wiesel's Night or Levi's Survival in Auschwitz. But in 1927, years before these works were written, Joseph Roth (1894-1939) composed The Wandering Jews. In these stunning dispatches written when Roth was a correspondent in Berlin during the whirlwind period of Weimar Germany, he warned of the false comforts of Jewish assimilation, laid bare the schism between Eastern and Western Jews, and at times prophesied the horrors posed by Nazism. The Wandering Jews remains as vital today as when it was first published.

"Only in the East do people live who are unconcerned with their 'nationality' in the Western European sense. They speak several languages, are themselves the product of several generations of mixed marriages, and fatherland for them is whichever country happens to conscript them. The Armenians of the Caucasus were for a long time neither Russians nor Armenians; they were Muslims living in the Caucasus, and yet they furnished the czars of Russia with their most loyal bodyguards. Nationality is a Western concept. It was an invention of Western scholars, who have struggled to explain it." 1937

[Paulo Rodrigues · Rating 5 out of 5]

Judeus Errantes de Joseph Roth
" O judeu tem um direito à Palestina, não porque é originário desta terra, mas sim porque nenhuma outra terra o quer. O receio que o árabe tem pela sua liberdade é tão compreensível como é sincera a vontade de o judeu querer ser um vizinho fiel do árabe. E contudo, a imigração de jovens judeus para a Palestina far-nos-á sempre lembrar numa espécie de cruzada judia,porque, infelizmente, também eles disparam."
Escrito em 1927 este livro é um autêntico documento histórico sobre o povo judaico a sua cultura e os seus costumes.
O escritor através de uma escrita muitas vezes sarcástica, leva-nos a perceber o porquê dos judeus serem um povo perseguido e discriminado por quase todos desde sempre. As diferenças entre o judeu ocidental e o europeu e a procura incessante do sitio ou pais a que pudessem chamar de casa. As suas profissões, as festas mais importantes e a maneira como são festejadas , as relações com as outras religiões e culturas, tudo isto é aqui relatado de uma maneira muito simples e fácil de interiorizar-mos.
Aborda também os principios da juventude hitleriana e dos perigos que já todos viam, mas pelo qual ninguém fez nada para evitar o que todos hoje sabemos viria a acontecer. Em apenas 168 páginas aprendemos as várias diferenças entre os judeus que viviam na América, Ocidente e na Europa e a forma como eles se viam uns aos outros.
Este é um livro para todos os que tenham interesse em conhecer mais da cultura Judaica, da sua religião e o modo muito próprio de viverem em comunidade . Um livro fascinante para mim, que tenho um carinho genuino e vontade em saber tudo sobre este Povo que aprendeu a sofrer e a ser olhado de lado por muitos, e mesmo com as maiores barbáries tinham quase sempre um sorriso na cara.
Leiam vale muito a pena ...

[Chequers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Con quanta tenerezza Roth parla dei "suoi" ebrei orientali, e con quanto orrore vede l'ascesa del nazionalsocialismo di Hitler nella sua "prefazione alla nuova edizione" prevista nel 1937.
"È ancora peggio della cattività babilonese. Sulle rive dello Sprea, dell’Elba, del Meno, del Reno e del Danubio non solo non è permessa la balneazione, ma neanche si può sedersi per piangere"

[Armin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Reportageliteratur ist ein Phänomen der der 1920er, eine Gattung, die der Stilrichtung Neue Sachlichkeit als zentrales Element zugeordnet wird. Dass der Autor dabei nicht nur Produktionsprozesse schildert, sondern auch den mystischen Elementen gerecht wird, macht ein echtes Meisterwerk daraus.
Joseph Roth war ein hochbezahlter Starjournalist jener Ära, bis zum Welterfolg Hiob trug das literarische Schaffen vergleichweise wenig zum Einkommen bei.
Juden auf Wanderschaft ist gewissermaßen die Recherche und trägt nicht nur viel zum besseren Verständnis des Romans bei, für meinen Geschmack ist es auch das bessere Buch. Natürlich ist die Welt des Ostjudentums spätestens mit den Eroberungen der Nazis und dem Vernichtungswahn der deutschen Bürokraten zu Ende gegangen. Roth beschreibt auch schon treffend die Versuche der Sowjetunion, diese seltsamen Volksgruppe über ein Minderheitenprogramm für den Sozialismus fruchtbar zu machen. Bis zum Ende der 1927 erstmals veröffentlichten Kapitel hätte ich vier Sterne vergeben.
Die unter dem Eindruck der eigenen Emigration entstandene Nachschrift mit dem Blick auf Deutschland und seine extrem duldsame jüdische Bevölkerung machte das Buch zum Fünfsterne-Erlebnis: »Es gab manche deutsche Juden - einer ihrer Repräsentanten büßt heute im Konzentrationslager -, die sich nicht nur einbildeten, ohne den Zuzug der ostjüdischen Menschen wäre alles in Butter, schlimmstenfalls in deutscher Margarine, sondern die sogar auch den plebejischen Büttel auf den hilflosen Fremdling hetzten, wie man Hunde hetzt auf Landstreicher. Als aber dann der Büttel zur Macht kam, der Hausmeister die „herrschaftliche Wohnung“ okkupierte, alle Kettenhunde sich losrissen, sah der deutsche Jude, dass er heimatloser und schutzloser war als noch vor einigen Jahren sein Vetter aus Lodz. Er war hochmütig geworden. Er hatte den Gott seiner Väter verloren und einen Götzen, den zivilisatorischen Patriotismus gewonnen. Aber Gott hatte ihn nicht vergessen. Und der schickte ihn auf die Wanderung: ein Leid, das den Juden gemäß ist - und allen anderen auch. Auf dass sie nicht vergessen, dass nichts auf dieser Welt beständig ist, auch die Heimat nicht; und dass unser Leben kurz ist, kürzer noch als das Leben der Elephanten, der Krokodile und der Raben. Sogar Papageien überleben uns.«
Was für ein herrlich humoristisches Memento mori. Mein 60. Geburtstag im Exil macht mich vielleicht besonders anfällig für Roths Prosa, auch für die Spitzen gegenüber der südamerikanischen Zuflucht.
Die Lektüre lohnt sich schon wegen Roths Sentenzen, obwohl der Vorlauf zu Hiob für die meisten Leser inzwischen die Hauptattraktion darstellen dürfte.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book goes well with "When Nietzsche Wept". I read this a few years ago, and it also gives a good idea of what late-19th-century/early-20th century life was like in Vienna. While "When Nietzsche Wept" is based on upper-middle-class life, "The Wandering Jews" includes good descriptions of what life was like for the poor and struggling.

[Karen Codner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si se quiere comprender la Shoa, es un must. Si se quiere comprender de dónde venimos lo judíos laicos es un must. Si se quiere, si realmente se desea leer un buen ensayo, debes comprar este título. Lo acaban de reeditar en Acantilado.

[Rita (the_bookthiefgirl) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5🌻

“they have no fatherland, the Jews (…)Zionism is really the only way out: If one must be patriotic, then at least let it be for a country of one´s own.”

Um dos melhores romancistas e jornalistas do século XX, autor do magistral “Marcha de Radetzksy “, Joseph Roth escreveu “Wandering Jews” entre as duas Guerras Mundiais. Este livro é um compêndio jornalístico/diarístico da vida de judeus de diferentes partes da Europa e inclusive da América.

Ele alerta para a diferença entre os judeus de este e oeste, ilustra como são recebidos os judeus em Berlim, Paris e Viena; como são vistos como uma identidade independente e como não possuem de todo uma definição, nem nação própria. São vistos como um ser à parte, com os seus próprios costumes e até uma língua própria.

Este livro é também uma previsão aos anos obscuros do nazismo e ao consequente Holocausto que viria. É aterrador pensar que tantos sinais já se faziam sentir pela atitude dos antisemistas em relação a esta gente tão simples, que era capaz de mais depressa ficar aleijado do que ir para a guerra.

Esta é uma escrita realista, que se reveste de ironia e apelo aos que estão no outro lado. Ninguém é perfeito. Há pouco li "Apeirognon" e consegui entender porque é-lhes importante voltar a uma Israel que unifique o povo judaico. ´

Entender a história dos povos é saber compreender o outro e procurar fazer do Mundo um lugar melhor <3

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

My son has become suddenly interested in his Jewish roots and has been asking me a lot of questions about his heritage. I don’t have many answers, having been raised in a secular household, even though I did have a bar mitzvah. I can’t even say why I chose this rite of Jewish passage, except to say it wasn’t because of the money, as everyone including my parents thought.

The thing about my son is that according to Talmudic law he’s not Jewish, having only a Jewish father, not a Jewish mother. But according to Talmudic law I’m not a Jew, having been surgically circumcised in the hospital and not with a ceremonial bris, even if both my parents are Jews. I think my son’s curiosity is because he’s infatuated by a Jewish girl. It’s lead him astray. He’s been telling me things he’s researched online, like that Ashkenazi Jews are proportionately more intelligent than the population at large.

It was about then that I sought to point him in the direction of more authoritative texts. I had the good fortune to have been reading THE WANDERING JEWS by Joseph Roth at the time and suggested it to him, being a history of the Eastern Jews from which our family has descended. He wasn’t interested.

I was. These are my people. For a long time I’ve believed that my heritage is more Eastern European peasantry than observant Jew, considering my family is seeped in that area’s food, culture and language. Reading Roth both confirmed and contrasted that conclusion. In his reportage of a vanquished people he shows how Judaism is the glue that has held the homeless nation together. I recognize much of the lore if not the rituals. While I may not be observant, my bloodline is rich in the religion of my people. It’s my assimilation that will do what a genocide couldn’t accomplish.

[Gerard Van Elzen · Rating 5 out of 5]

BAM! Al op de eerste bladzijde is dit boek over Joden en Joodse vluchtelingen in het Europa van de jaren dertig een ware slag in het gezicht. Vervang het woord Joden hier door Soedanezen, Syriers, Afghanen, Zigeuners of Albanezen en het boek zou niet actueler kunnen zijn. Met hoofdstukjes over 'het gevecht om (tegen) papieren', over de verschillende status van verschillende soorten vluchtelingen, de (on)mogelijkheid om werk te vinden of men nu ingenieur of arbeider is en ga zo maar door; het is meteen duidelijk dat er voor de vluchteling niet zo'n groot verschil is tussen onze tijd en de jaren dertig.
Als je dan bedenkt wat er met die vluchtelingen uiteindelijk gebeurde, dan wordt het je toch wat koud om het hart.
Lees dit en kijk in een spiegel.
Lees Dit!

P.S.: Joseph Roth, een van de bekendste schrijvers/journalisten van de jaren dertig was zelf het grootste deel van zijn korte leven (gedwongen) nomadisch vluchteling en verbleef onder andere in Berlijn, Wenen, Parijs en Oostende.

[Alberto Della Rossa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un documento impressionante e attualissimo, soprattutto alla luce delle considerazioni nella postfazione del 1937. Le parole di Roth chiariscono con estrema semplicità alcuni problemi della questione ebraica. Da leggere assolutamente, per capire e fare capire la complessità del popolo ebreo.

[Nathaniel Flakin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1927, the Austrian journalist Joseph Roth published this essay about „Ostjuden,“ the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern European origin, who faced discrimination everywhere, including from assimilated Jews in the West. This is a sympathetic portrayal of different diasporic communities: in Eastern Europe, in Western European metropolises, in the United States, and in the Soviet Union. I mostly stumbled upon this book via aphorisms about Berlin history. ("The most Jewish street in Berlin is the sad Hirtenstraße. No street in the world is so sad.") It is noteworthy that in 1927, it was clear to an observer like Roth that Jewish settlers heading to Palestine were being exploited by imperialist powers for their own ends. It’s also fascinating to see that the Russian Revolution was a beacon of hope for Jews around the world, even non-socialist Jews like Roth, because the Soviet Union was the first country that tried to suppress antisemitism. Not long after this book was published, however, the Stalinist counterrevolution began attacking Jews, and a postscript from a decade later makes clear that Roth was crushed by this turn.

[Myriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Ach, de gemene wereld denkt in de gebruikelijke, goedkope, versleten clichés. Ze vraagt een reiziger nooit waar hij naartoe gaat, alleen waar hij vandaan komt. Terwijl voor een reiziger toch het doel belangrijk is, en niet het vertrekpunt.’
(Tweede voorwoord bij de geplande heruitgave van 1937)

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, enjoyable and lyrical snippets from a world that has since been destroyed.

[Mlleorthense · Rating 4 out of 5]

"È alquanto improbabile che a meno di un intervento miracoloso di Dio i «popoli ospiti» possano trovare il modo di recuperare questa libertà e questa dignità. Agli ebrei credenti rimane il conforto del cielo. Agli altri il «vae victis»".

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating nonfiction from Roth only translated into English about 20 years ago.
Roth was a Jewish journalist and novelist. This book is a heartfelt view of the Jews of Eastern Europe in the 1920s in the aftermath of the first world war. The author’s writing is characterized by an apparent love of Eastern European Jewish culture and sardonic comments directed at those who looked down on them, especially westernized secular Jews. The key that greatly increased my appreciation of the book is a few lines in the translator’s forward that tell us what the reader wouldn’t otherwise know - Roth was born in Galicia, moved to Vienna, served in the Austro-Hungarian army in WWI, and became a well-known journalist writing for German newspapers. So the outline of the book is autobiographical, it is nostalgic, and, to some extent, Roth’s sardonic comments are about the people in his own adult world or maybe himself.

[Guido · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Terwijl overal elders pas nu de boeren moeizaam leren lezen en schrijven, is de jood achter zijn ploeg aan het nadenken over de problemen van de relativiteitstheorie."

[Piotr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Znacie hasła wypisywane, wykrzykiwane w tych dniach na kampusach najbardziej elitarnych amerykańskich uniwersytetów? “Żydzi wracajcie do Niemiec! Żydzi wracajcie do Polski…”
Ten esej Rotha lada chwila będzie miał sto lat. Nie słyszymy już ironicznego chichotu Historii, widzimy już niemal jej wstrętny, zakrwawiony pysk.

[Covadonga Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un ensayo muy interesante sobre los judíos orientales en distintos países. Escrito antes de la SGM, nos sirven para comprender muchas cosas sobre este pueblo. Qué pensaría Roth de la situación que se va desarrollando en Palestina desde 1948 hasta la actualidad?

[Onur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anlatım kopuk kopuktu. Belirli bir sıra gözetilmeden yazılmış notlardan oluşan, farklı bir anlatı. Dizgide Kırmızı Kedi’nin çok titiz davrandığını söylemek de zor.
Bir de; neden ısrarla “Ukranya”?

[Mercedes Macías · Rating 4 out of 5]

qué grande es Roth!!!, este libro es muy ilustrativo de la diáspora de los judíos del este hacia Europa en la época de la revolución rusa y la gran guerra, pero no puedo darle 5 estrellas por la actualidad del sufrimiento que los judíos están infligiendo a los palestinos. ya sé que es literatura e historia pero es mi pequeña protesta.

[Danny Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020 wordt voor mij een Joseph Roth-jaar, wiens werk opnieuw wordt heruitgeven. We beginnen met ‘Joden op drift’. Het boekje beschrijft de Joodse migratiebewegingen naar West-Europa en de Verenigde Staten sinds het einde van de negentiende eeuw, veroorzaakt door de pogroms en het harde leven in Polen, Roemenië en Rusland. Geschreven in tempero non suspecto in 1927. In 1937 in een volgende uitgave helaas aangevuld met het jammerlijke lot van de 600.000 joden in Duitsland, zich nog niet bewust van de echte gruwelijkheden die nog moesten volgen.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Anyone deserves the West who arrives with fresh energy to break up the deadly, antiseptic boredom of its civilization." (11)

"In their prayers they inveigh against him, they cry to high heaven, they complain at his severity, they go to God to accuse God, and then go on to admit that they have sinned, that their punishments were just, and that they will be better in the future. There is no other people that lives on such a footing with their god. They are an old people and they have known him a long time! They have experienced his great goodness and his cold justice. They have sinned often and repented bitterly, and they will know that while they may be punished they will never be abandoned." (27-8)

"But I saw Jews losing consciousness, admittedly not after three pints of beer but after five tankards of strong mead, and not on the anniversary of a battle but out of joy that God has chosen to share his knowledge and his law with them." (40)

"In the windows a small, dim light burns in front of a piece of white linen, and the neighbors bring the mourners a hard-boiled egg, suitable food for those whose pain is round, with no beginning and no end." (44)

"Half a Jew's life is consumed by the futile battle with papers." (68)

"They renounced. With a heavy heart they renounced their family and with a joyful heart their fatherland. They went to America." (95)

"It's and old destiny, an old, richly experienced blood. Jews are of an intellectual cast. They are a people that has had no illiterates for nearly two thousand years now; a people with more periodicals than newspapers; a people whose periodicals, probably uniquely in the world, have a far higher readership than its newspapers. While the other peasants around him are finally struggling to read and write, the Jew, behind his plow has his mind on the problems of relativity theory. No machinery has been invented for peasants with such an advanced brain. Primitive gear demands a primitive mind." (111)

"[E]veryone should take notice as one people is freed from the stain of suffering and another from the stain of cruelty. The victim is freed from his torments and the bully from his compulsion." (114)

"Lest we forget that nothing in this world endures, not even a home; and that our life is short, shorter even than the life of the elephant, the crocodile, and the crow. Even parrots outlive us." (123)

[Edward Champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this incredibly eloquent book to be profoundly moving and I'm not even Jewish (though deeply fascinated by Jewish culture). (A Jewish socialist friend argues that this volume was a primary galvanizing point for Bundishm. I don't know about that, but Roth has some ballsy things to say about Zionism as a mere bandage for a bigger problem in 1937.) What is so beautiful about this book is the way that it presents the life of Jews who walked between the wars and simply asks the reader to understand them. Understanding, according to Roth, is the pathway to empathy and civilization. And he's right. And you could apply this to pretty much any culture or people. I also loved all the cogent observations about 1920s Berlin and Paris. This is the rare volume on Jewish identity that presents and allows for contemplative wiggle room for the reader. Really terrific stuff that I needed right now as my own nation (in 2025) is increasingly capitulating empathy and become more selfish, xenophobic, and crueler.