Left Coast Justin’s review of Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land > Likes and Comments

Seems like it should have been a series of books covering smaller regions instead of the whole subcontinent. Does this book question why Europe is able to sustain its economic model? Great review lcj.

This sounds interesting enough but yeah, it covers a lot of history and I can see where it could get bogged down in parts. Great review, Justin!

(I started to crave a loaf of fresh baked bread, but the thought of all that expectorating and scratching in the kitchen kinda turned me off a bit. :D)

Hmmm, Justin, I’m glad that between all the scratching and expectorating you’ve created such an interesting review of a book that may be interesting to read…

Mwana, I did like this book, but your comment gets to the root of the problem I had with it, which is simply that it tried to cover too much, but at the same time seemed to be skimming a lot. Splitting it into a series of time periods or geographical areas would have made a lot of sense. Still, the man did his homework, no doubt.

Candi, I would have never made the silly joke about coarseness and simple-mindedness if I'd known it would put Candi off her feed. Just ignore me and live your life and eat your bread :)

Nataliya, I felt the part covering roughly the Roman Empire up through the mid-1800's was really interesting, and would no doubt be even more meaningful for somebody more familiar with the area. I've spent, all totaled, less than a week in the former Soviet Union and its satellites.

Left Coast Justin wrote: "Candi, I would have never made the silly joke about coarseness and simple-mindedness if I'd known it would put Candi off her feed. Just ignore me and live your life and eat your bread :)"

I've recovered, Justin. I'm eating toast and jam at the moment :)

Thanks for the update! Now I can live out the remainder of my weekend guilt-free.

Nice review, LCJ. I think we've had a good solid millennia of both anti-Semitism and misogyny now. . . before that, the record might be a little vague, but I assume it has gone on for longer than that. I think we're scared to death of strong people, because they often have nothing to lose. . . and what's stronger than an ethnic group that went through a Holocaust or a portion of our species that can push out a human through something about the size of a grape?
(P.S. Enough with the bragging about bread, you jerk! I've been gluten free for 23 years now, and, even though it's come a long way. . . it isn't THERE. The most depressed I can get is seeing a fresh loaf of challah bread. Like, some people get to EAT that?? With butter?)
xoxo

The only time I have been at the receiving end of violent racism was in France. It was a few decades back, 1995 I think. I was still a lawyer then, and I was in Paris with a partner who is an Orthodox Jew (and who had lived in Paris for many years earlier in his life.) He went to see his old rabbi and I agreed to meet him outside the shul in the 9th Arrondissement so we could go together to a meeting. As I was crossing to meet him two teenagers came up a few feet from him and started throwing full cans of food at his head. Hard. They luckily only glanced off of him leaving him with a minor cut, but with better aim they really could have hurt him. As they ran away they yelled "filthy Jew" repeatedly. They missed me entirely and maybe I was not a target (they used the word "juif" which is the male form) but if the idea was to make me feel like prey they succeeded.

They did not succeed as well as the Ukrainians who exterminated most of my family, but they reminded me that many (most?) of the people around me in Europe, especially Poland and Ukraine but France too, wished their forbearers had been more effective and killed my entire family.

Antisemitism all over the world is very high, but much higher in Europe than in the US. That has not ended.

I am intrigued by this book. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

*Feel free to refer to me as a Jew, its not a slur unless it is accompanied by other words or said in a tone which makes it clear it was intended as a slur.

Awwww, geez, Julie, I had no idea. That is indeed a torment; sorry to hear it.

What a horrific story, Bonnie. Although disaster was averted the essential awfulness of it remains intact.

Back in February I visited the Monument to Six Million Murdered Jews in Berlin, within sight of the capital. I was impressed that they called it that -- no evasion of responsibility in that title. But while governments may be taking steps towards atonement, that obviously hasn't filtered all the way down yet.

I just don't get it, at all.

Left Coast Justin wrote: "What a horrific story, Bonnie. Although disaster was averted the essential awfulness of it remains intact.

Back in February I visited the Monument to Six Million Murdered Jews in Berlin, within s..."

I share your bafflement. I can understand people hating me for many reasons, but to be hated for my lineage is utterly nonsensical. Also, ironically in all my time in Europe, Germany is the place I found the least antisemitism. I guess it is like addiction. They hit bottom and so were able to recover.

Fine review, Justin, and we could have missed what you were doing in that reader pause, it was done so subtly.
With regard to antisemitism, I feel that it's been around in Europe since Christianity was adopted as the official and powerful religion by the emperor Constantine around the 3rd century of our era (we avoid saying AD now but 'our era' still means the Christian era since it is dated from the supposed birth of Christ (a Jew) and therefore deletes what came before it in a way. Of course Islam started its calendar from its founding too, some six centuries after Christianity, deleting both the Christian and the Jewish history it had developed out of). People always like to have someone weaker to throw stones at whether it's women or minorities. The holocaust was perhaps the biggest of the purges but there'd been purges throughout history—which is why we have the age-old phrase, 'the wandering Jew', and why Poland somehow ended up providing a place to lodge for a while.
Re Bonnie G's post, I'm always glad to hear that the US has been a good place for Jewish people to 'lodge' but I'm guessing it wasn't easy at the beginning there either. Christianity has a long arm.

Bonnie, I remember Jan Morris writing a nice phrase about Jewish culture 'streaking like a comet' through European history and lamenting its absence now.

Fionnuala, I have seen the comfort that religion offers to people, so though I am not myself religious, I don't want to dismiss its benefits entirely. Still, I have to believe that, on balance, it has been more a source of misery than joy.

But I also belief Jewish culture (or Christian culture or Tutsi culture or what have you) is much more than that group's religious beliefs.

Anyway, Mikanowski is an engaging writer and he's found a home in Oregon and I'm glad he's here.

Hi Justin and Fionnuala, such interesting thoughts! I don't have time for a full answer, but in the 9 minutes before my next meeting I wanted to demystify a few things about Jewish affiliation before I go off to talk about using AI to cheat on papers.

I think Jewish identification is largely divorced from religious affiliation for most Jews. The vast majority of Jews in my life, friends and family, identify as secular Jews. We have been sequestered in ghettos throughout history so we are of a tribe regardless of shared belief systems. I am one of the few "believers" I know, and I do not believe in the word of the Torah or the guidance of the Talmud in any literal sense. I do not think Elijah is going to swoop me up at end times. I believe in a creator, and I believe that I can do better and honor the gift of being alive through commitment to Torah study (for centering and history), prayer (not asking for things but meditating and gaining strength to be a force for good), and Tikkun Olam (Jews are charged with repairing the world as it breaks -- a sort of ad hoc maintenance crew, which is semi-ironic since I don't know a Jewish person who can do even the most basic home repair.)

Oh, and as for the US, there is no shortage of antisemitism here! In college the younger sister of a person on my floor asked if I had a tail, with real curiosity, and Trump campaigned by advertising that he would not cater to Jews even though they had all the money. And of course the cries of Jews Will Not Replace Us in Charlottesville. A student recently told me that he had been taught the Jews started the Ku Klux Klan. But at least we are not being rounded up and killed!

Now off to that meeting!

Interesting review and discussion. Thanks.

Fascinating review Justin, very informative mate. You're question about the hatred towards Jews is a good one, and it totally baffles me too.

It was an interesting book, Sue, if a bit long. I'd have been happy if he's stopped in, say, 1900. I learned a lot, though.

Thanks Mark. The ability to convince yourself you're a true follower of Jesus while persecuting your neighbors is a difficult thing to explain, for sure.

I'm glad you mentioned the Talmud, Bonnie, because Mikanowski devotes some pages to a subset of the Jews who based their belief system only on the Torah, and not the Talmud. Which provided me to opportunity to actually look up what these tomes actually were, and reduced my ignorance level a bit.

I don't have the book in front of me so I can't tell you what this subset was called, but they lived in northern Poland and Ukraine, apparently.

Left Coast Justin wrote: "I'm glad you mentioned the Talmud, Bonnie, because Mikanowski devotes some pages to a subset of the Jews who based their belief system only on the Torah, and not the Talmud. Which provided me to op..."

That is where my family was from. I have to say the idea of trying to read the Torah without the rabbinical guidance in the Talmud seems like a fools errand. What a bummer it would be if I found out the fools were my peeps!

Bonnie G. wrote: "...Tikkun Olam (Jews are charged with repairing the world as it breaks -- a sort of ad hoc maintenance crew) ..."

I'd never heard of Tikkum Olam, Bonnie—such an interesting and necessary notion. The world never needed Tikkun Olam as much as right now.

I'm about six months late in answering this question, but the Jewish community that rejected the Talmud and based their beliefs strictly on the Torah were called Karaites.

Oddly enough, the only Karaite synagogue in the United States is just a short drive away from me in Daly City, California.

Fionnuala wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "...Tikkun Olam (Jews are charged with repairing the world as it breaks -- a sort of ad hoc maintenance crew) ..."

I'd never heard of Tikkum Olam, Bonnie—such an interesting and n..."

I just saw this Fionnuala, and I could not agree more! If only everyone focused on repair, even a few moments of every day, we would not be where we are and we would have a whole lot more hope.

Left Coast Justin wrote: "I'm about six months late in answering this question, but the Jewish community that rejected the Talmud and based their beliefs strictly on the Torah were called Karaites.

Oddly enough, the only K..."

Oooh, this is interesting! The original strict constructionists! Thanks for providing me a new rabbit hole. If our potential students don't get their admissions decisions because I have researched this instead of writing up interview reports I am sure they won't mind :)

Your first sentence already reveals some serious lack of understanding of Europe. You can’t “like Europe” because “they” got things right. Europe is a massive continent with vastly varying cultures. This is a point that the author also makes as early as in the prologue.

Also, the name of Poland likely comes from the name of a slavic tribe called Polans. Google it!

Gosh, this sounds AMBITIOUS, Justin. I think you may be romanticizing Europe as a whole, since each place is so different and many friends born and raised do not agree that they have the right mix. Unfortunately, no country does, just as no human can be a perfect balance. As for the antisemitism there—nope, nowhere near over, not even a little. But most people everywhere hate Jews, if you ask me, and Muslims. Group hate of all kinds depress me. That said, I want to want to read this book, along with others that explain these things, but I never seem to have it in me.

I don’t think it’s a matter of listing them out, Justin, just that it’s a romantic blanket statement that doesn’t match what I’ve been told by people who live in various parts. I didn’t mean to upset you, and honestly when I commented it looked like I was the only one. Seeing these back to back feels like overkill and I apologize for that. The day to day at this place and time still sounds interesting, although it’s not exactly what I’m wanting my ideal self to read.

Sorry, Jennifer, grouchy overreaction deleted! I do try to put some thought into how I phrase things, and shouldn't lash out when people point out errors on my part.

Mikanowski's book is engrossing and has an inviting style -- which your review reflects very thoughtfully. Like any work of popular history, the book resorts to generalization and hyperbole at times -- to manage the level of detail and maintain narrative momentum. Unfortunately, at times generalizations can be greatly misleading, as is the case with how Mikanowski brings up the fascinating -- perhaps auspicious -- correspondence between "Polin" and "Polska," which as the designation for the country predates the invitation of Jewish settlement by Kazimierz the Renewer by a few hundred years. It is derived from the name of the western Slavic tribe Polanie. It's a striking linguistic correspondence, but not the origin of the country's name.

Thanks, Bookmuppet, the most interesting explanation is not always the correct one!

Left Coast Justin wrote: "Sorry, Jennifer, grouchy overreaction deleted! I do try to put some thought into how I phrase things, and shouldn't lash out when people point out errors on my part."

Just so you know, you didn't upset me either time, so no worries