Lion Feuchtwanger Books

When Ruth Gruber began the research on this book she searched throughout Israel for an ideal figure whose life - story could embody and best exemplify the history of modern Israel. At Hadassah Hopital in Jerusalem she was told by Prof. Kalman Mann of a woman named Rachel Prywes who had been a nurse and midwife. This was the ideal figure and Gruber embarked on telling her story.
It is that of a twelvth generation- Jerusalemite who from childhood was involved in the struggle to create an independent and free Jewish state in the land of Israel. The story is told in the form of the novel. Much of the dialogue seems simplistic and awkward. This is not great literature.
But the story is told with a straightforwardness. It has a quality of authenticity. It tells the basic Zionist narrative in which the conflict in the Middle East was by and large created by Arab intransigence, and refusal to live in peace with Jewish neighbors. It tells of heroic chapters in the life of the country. In the course of the story the nurse Raquela also comes to work at the interment camp at Atlit where the British are holding concentration- camp survivors who want to enter Israel.They were taken at sea by the British and held in prison. Her heroic efforts there and later . The efforts made by the medical team she is a part of in saving Bedouin infants and introducing medical care to the Bedouin community , are evidence for what to my own mind has become a painful ironic truth in regard to many people's reading of the Arab- Israeli conflict today. They forget completely the great efforts made the Jews to improve the life for all citizens of the country, Jew and Arab alike. They say nothing about the way the Arabs perpetuated their own refugee problem, how they refused to settle the six hundred thousand Arabs who left the Holy Land during the War of Independence. They say nothing about the great task the Jews did in taking in and providing new lives for such a vast number of immigrants.
The book points out again the irony that it is precisely the side that has been decent, fair, humane , the Israeli Jewish one which is perpetually accused of being the oppressor.
The story of Raquela herself, her romantic struggles especially is again told in a simplistic, straightforward, and nonetheless not unmoving way.
I simply great enjoyed this book, and I think most readers who want to learn more about how the Jewish state developed, while at the same time relaxing with a good novel, would do well to read this book.

This biography details in vivid tones the life of a ninth generation Jerusalemite. Through her life we see the history of modern Israel, joys and hardships, wars and victories, all in personal terms without any heavy-handedness. Because it reads like a novel, it is engrossing; because it is a true story it is amazing. Ruth Gruber paints a rich and vivid portrait of the woman and of the nation.

Terrific story, well-told, exciting, thrilling, heartwarming, and real. An eye-opener to what really went on there and just how hard the Israeli people had to fight. I have never throughout all my education and reading understood Israel the way I did through Raquela's eyes. I had no idea the British were involved in that way, and was disappointed to learn of it. I learned a lot from this book from the perspective of an Israeli-born Israeli. The internment camps were dispicable, the people who ran them disgusting and almost as guilty as nazis.

My son converted to Judaism last year, he went to study in Israel. He met an married a beautiful young Jewish woman who gave me this book as one of her all time favorites. It is extremely well written, a real page turner. I hated to put it down and would have read the whole of it in one sitting if I'd had the chance. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a great read, and who really cares to understand the heart of Israel's struggles for Statehood - from the human perspective.
First rate!

I read this book when I was 15 years old. Wow! I was SOOO impressed with Raquela's courage and integrity that at that point I decided if I had a daughter I would name her Raquela. Nine years later, I had a baby girl and her name is Raquela. I read this book again a few years ago and was once again impressed. Just a month ago my husband, daughter, Raquela, and I were able to go to Israel and I saw Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. My daughter was able to see and walk the same places as her namesake. Ruth Gruber beautifully laid this story out and I agree it reads like a novel and is very hard to put down.

It is somewhat surprising that this novel, which became a best-seller soon after it was first published in 1925, should have been written by a self-consciously Jewish writer. Though its purpose was to expose and condemn antisemitism, it is easy to see that how the Nazis could mine it for the infamous antisemitic film under that title in 1940. True, that film was a distortion of the novel, but the character and appearance of Süss and of other Jews in the book is quite distasteful enough. It is, however, also true that all the non-Jews are distasteful also: there is in fact hardly an attractive character in the book.

Josef Süss-Oppenheimer was an ambitious Jewish financier, who from 1733 until 1737 not only ran the personal and public finances of Charles Alexander, the Duke of Württemberg, but also supported the Duke's Catholic autocracy against the Protestant Estates and the Protestant Constitution of Württemberg. He therefore made many enemies among the establishment, was also detested by the people whose financial burdens he greatly increased. He himself discarded traditional Jewish dress and maintained the lavish life-style of the aristocracy, which further exposed him to hatred. That he was a Jew, at a time before Jewish emancipation, of course added fuel to the fire. On the day that Charles Alexander died, Süss-Oppenheimer was arrested and charged with constitutional and financial improprieties. He was hanged in 1738 and his remains were publicly exhibited in an iron cage. It is generally believed that this was a judicial murder, to which the vicious and visceral antisemitism of the time contributed.

Feuchtwanger paints the political and social history of time in great and impressive detail (except that there is not a single date in the book); but he really lets himself go in unappealing and stereotypical details, repeated over and over again in this very long novel: the more observant Jews wear greasy kaftans and have bloodless faces; Süss is portrayed as arrogant and at the same time obsequious (allowing himself to be insulted over and over again by the coarse Duke and his courtiers), indifferent to the impression he knows he creates and to the warnings of his more cautious co-religionists, subtle and scheming and of course ever obsessed with profit and power.

Then, three-fifth of the way through the book, Süss discovers that, although he had been brought up as a Jew since childhood, he was in fact the illegitimate son of a German nobleman, a Field Marshal no less. There is no documentary proof of this, though the legend circulated in Süss' own lifetime. Feuchtwanger presents it as a fact. The one redeeming feature in this otherwise odious figure was that he had always proudly refused to convert: indeed, he had savoured his power the more because he had held it as a Jew; and he now, equally proudly, refused to make use of his new knowledge and to claim Christian and aristocratic descent.

Perhaps these stereotypes corresponded to what Süss and the other characters were really like, and perhaps not: some modern researchers see Süss as a creative but maligned reformer and modernizer of an antiquated medieval economic system. In any case Feuchtwanger now goes into pure invention. He has given Süss a beloved and beautiful young daughter, whom the father had hidden in a house deep in a forest, to keep her away from the corruptions of court life. An enemy of Süss' had discovered this, and led the lascivious Duke to that place. Rather than yield to the Duke, the girl threw herself to her death from the roof of the house. Süss' revenge is to exploit the Duke's guilt feelings: he becomes more arrogant and oppressive than ever and (unlikely in fact but powerfully effective as fiction) he now quite openly cheats the Duke, who is resentful but dependent. And then he convinces the Duke to plan a coup d'état against the Constitution - and betrays the plot to the Duke's enemies! He knows full well that if, as a result, the Duke falls, so will he. When the Duke hears that the plot has failed, he has a stroke and dies - not before hearing Süss hissing his triumphant vengeance into his ears - and then Süss suggests to the plotters that they should arrest him - which they promptly do: he will be doubly a scapegoat. (In fact, Süss was arrested on the day of the Duke's death, but not under those circumstances.)

The inquisition into Süss' alleged crimes ran into difficulties: he was not a native of Württemberg and had merely given advice: the real criminals were those who had executed it and had committed high treason. He had had intercourse with gentile women, forbidden not only to Jews but also to gentiles under the law: but many high-born families would be disgraced, and this charge was eventually dropped. But the verdict was not in doubt; the mob of course demanded it, too; and he was sentenced to be hanged. There was a slight chance that his life might have been spared if he converted to Christianity: he spurned it. Feuchtwanger's last fancy is that the corpse was taken from the gallows, another substituted, and that Süss was given a Jewish funeral. According to him, it was the substitute that remained exhibited for the next six years.

Though somewhat long and with descriptions frequently repeated, this is a powerful book. But I do not like historical novels which distort known facts. And for all its condemnation of antisemitism, I am disturbed by the relish with which the disagreeable stereotypes of Jews are narrated in this novel. They swamp, to my mind, the pathos of the Jewish people and Süss' stoical and tragic end.

Traditional Judaism created the concept of "chillul hashem" (desecrating or embarrassing the name of G-d, usually by making Jews or Judaism look bad) and "kiddush hashem" (sanctifying the name of G-d) to describe behavior by Jews that makes Jews look especially bad or good (respectively) in the eyes of the gentile world. This novel is about both: most of the main character's life constituted a chillul hashem. As a German king's chief financial officer, he taxes the peasants into penury. But eventually he sabotages the king's plans for despotism and nobly stands by his religion at the cost of his life.

Feuchtwanger is probably the best historical novelist in the world - truly superb in erudition and majestic in his literary style. While this German Jewish writer is famous for his Josephus trilogy detailing the scenes of the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, he has also written unequaled novels on Goya the artist, J.J.Rousseau the philosopher, and last but not least, on Benjamin Franklin. Jew Suss is about medieval Europe and the Jewish presence there, sometimes a very visible presense, sometimes kabbalistically hidden. A tour-de-force of the highest calibre.

This is one of the most powerful books ever written. All works of Lion Feuchtwanger deserve the special place in our history and in our hearts and this book is right on the top of it.

A Russian friend told me to buy this book..he said it was extremely popular about young Russian Jews... I found it to be a powerfully healing book for people who are in turmoil and looking for some purpose in the grand scheme of things..the book in parts is very biting,very disturbing, and at times hysterically funny..it is timeless as its characters and their exaggerated flaws applied to modern leaders..and to Jews who are striving to be non Jews..For Jews who have lost touch with their roots through their families' attempts at assimilation but who feel their Jewish soul..this book might help lessen their pain and find their purpose in living.. Bobby

Feuchtwanger is probably the best historical novelist in the world - truly superb in erudition and majestic in his literary style. While this German Jewish writer is famous for his Josephus trilogy detailing the scenes of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, he has also written breathtaking historical novels on Goya the artist, J.J.Rousseau the philosopher, and last but not least, on Benjamin Franklin ("Arms for America"). "Jew Suss" (another masterpiece) is about medieval Europe and the Jewish presence there, sometimes a very visible presense, sometimes kabbalistically hidden. All of these books are a tour-de-force of the highest caliber.

A must read for every Historical Fiction lover. It displays a fascinating view of the Great Uprising at 70 C.E., and a truly unique study of the human nature and its drives. Josephus is a book with fully fleshed, multy-faceted personalities, well built background and wondrous plotline. Plenty of material for thought.

One of the traits I most appreciate in Feuchtwanger is that he does not attempt to idolize his characters, but presents them as the humans they were, with all the complications and wonders of the concept.

Aside from a few errors in Jewish religious terminology, and questionable historical moments (without which Historical Fiction is impossible) his portrait of the time is accurate, vivid and irresistable.

The book is bound to sweep every reader immediately, and never let go.

The epoch chronicled by Joseph ben Matthias, former priest of the High Temple in Jerusalem, military commander (of sorts) in Galilee against the opening Roman onslaught and historian of that war, is an extremely significant crossroads of civilization and religion.

Josephus was a champion of his maligned people in the waning years of his life. His life and works were shunned by his beloved Jews as he was considered an arch-traitor who became a Roman lackey. That his works were preserved was only due to
the dligence of certain Christian prelates in the early Church, who (after tampering with some revered passages) found in Josephus a witness to the life and resurrection of Christ outside the Gospels. What a marvelous subject for a novel. Lion Feuchtwanger rose to the occasion. His characters are not the antiseptic saints or the demons of Lew Wallace's Ben Hur, but
conflicted, vacillating and at times just plain goofy people who almost accidentally were placed center stage in one of history's most crucial turning points.

Is F's history a little fudged? Well certainly, but his own essay on the historical novel makes it clear that he is
a "political message" writer who takes liberties here and there to make his tale relevant. When he wrote, Jews throughtout the diaspora wrestled with the notion of Zionism... reestablishment of a Jewish polity on ancient ground. The countervailing movement was that Jews had to become "world citizens", contributing to civilization in the countries of their birth, even as rising fascism and antiSemitism closed in upon them.

So Josephus' famed Antiquities is given a bit of a spin to conform with Feuchtwanger's Germany and the Palestine under the British Mandate. To the purist, distortions such as having
the aristocratic priest Josephus be an early advocate of a Zealot faction called the Makkabees might be a bit jarring.
Was Queen Berenice a Jewish patriot in her own way? Well it's possible, and the real Josephus may have wanted to mute this
characterization, as the Jews in Rome were under suspicion and censure under Domitian. Did Nero's consort, Poppaea Sabina
flirt coquettishly with Josephus while testing his knowledge of Jewish aspirations in Judaea and the world? Why not? We know she showered Josephus with gifts and that she was sympathetic
to the Jews's situation....though not a very saintly person in her personal affairs to put it mildly.

Reading these works, one can only wonder why they were never brought to the screen, let alone allowed to go out of print.

In this real masterpiece Lion Feuchtwanger has incredibly successfully showed the very nature of jews and their religion. Through the book the reader can not only understand what this people feel and why they live how they do. He starts to love them, to see their tragedy, destiny, future. It's absolutely impossible to stay indifferent. The next two parts of the trilogy ("The sons" and "The day will come") accomplish the history of life of a profound historian Josephus Flavius, but personally I admire this book the most.

I read this book for three times over my life. I read it when I was 15, than at 30 and than at 50. Every time I read it, it was better and better and better. Read it for yourself and you may feel same way.

Lion Feuchtwanger's "Goya" is a studious, extravagant and daring novel. The depth of characters and their detailed profiles enlighten the plot of the storyline whether from the sanguine and avaricious Godoy, the machiavellian and vulnerable Queen Maria Luisa de Parma or the somewhat fictionalized Duchess of Alba.

Feuchtwanger succeeds in placing the Aragonese master in the midst of a carnivorous environment, surrounded by political hyenas, religious zealots, dependent relatives, and outlandish manipulators. He draws his involvement in painting the foreground of political power, the suspicions of Queen Maria Luisa and the arrogance of Godoy.

He suspends Goya in a perilous period of Spanish and European history: the decline of the ancient regime and the advent of the Napoleonic order. He fabricates in Goya a historical witness of Madrid, Cadiz and Zaragoza, like a Robert Capa in the beaches of Normandy. There the author borrows the painter's brush to immortalize the crux of graphic scenes with his etchings and drawings, ceaselessly warding off the frustrations of deafness and its seal of social degradation, and instill hyperrealism in the vivid colors of his canvases.

It stuck me as pioneering the style employed by the author to sketch chapters based on some of Goya's most renowned paintings ("The Family of Carlos IV," "The Nude Maja," "Portrait of Godoy," and "Queen Maria Luisa Wearing a Mantilla"), albeit leaving off, arguably the finest of his masterpieces, "The Third of May." In retrospect, he makes Goya the ambassador of truth, the eye of the beholder.

This is a great book about sandwich logic! The best I've read! But unfortunately, it doesn't tell me anything about how to make a sandwich! What a rip off!

this is one of the best books i've ever read .It is very educational, very romantic and phylosophycal. I'would love to read it again and vould recomend anyone who is seeking to read a hysorical roman.

This book is outstanding, beautiful and skocking. It is a creation of a master.

If you've ever wondered how a modern, civilized country begins the slippery slope to cave-man barbaric behavior, this book is a must-read. It's an fast read too -- goes by very quickly, especially towards the end.

"The Oppermanns" is an extraordinary, (unfortunately) little-known novel that presents the rise of the Nazis and their first months in power through the experience of a single German Jewish family. The Oppermanns are old, established German Jews: upper-class, politically liberal, respected in progressive society, family members who are titans of industry and leading doctors. The reader views how their world closes in on them and collapses in 1932-1933.

This novel, written as the real events were transpiring, shows the incredulity of German Jews. It shows their enduring belief in the Germany of Goethe as the Germany of Hitler overtakes it. It shows their confidence in the German people to act reasonable even as the masses turn into shrill hatemongers. It shows the reluctance to emigrate, the loss of non-Jewish friends, the April boycott of Jewish shops, the Reichstag fire, the erection of concentration camps, Jewish suicides, etc. Though a bit over-the-top at times, this is an accurate depiction of what happened to the bourgeois Jews of Germany in 1933. I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, no one has bothered to renew the translation (or typesetting) since it was first done in 1934. The translation is generally very good, but it is definitely not perfect.
-- As was common in the 1930s when discussing foreign politics, there was a tendency to overtranslate. All references to "der Führer" are rendered as "the Leader," and "Mein Kampf" becomes "My Battle." No one would translate either of these terms today. Even the Stahlhelm becomes the "the Steel Helmet Association," which is a literally correct and figuratively incorrect translation.
-- There are also some awkward translations that are off-putting for the knowledgable reader. On nearly every page "völkisch" is translated as "Nationalist," which doesn't quite convey the sense of this uniquely German word. Moreover, since there was a political party known as the "German Nationalists" (the DNVP) who were not Nazis, this is confusing. The translator also makes references to the "Agrarian Party" ("Grossagrarier" in the original). Germany did not have an Agrarian political party, so this is misleading.
-- The translator's German was excellent, but he was clearly less familiar with Anglophone Judaism, and his translated version lacks some of the Yiddishkeyt (Jewishness) of the original. "Maoz Tzur" is presented as "Moaus zur" (i.e. an old German spelling of the Hebrew phrase). Non-Jews are called "goi," not "goy" as is common in English renditions. "Chutzpah" is rendered "chutspe," and "Gojim-Naches" is translated as "goi nonsense." Although the Passover scenes are preserved and translated pretty well, the translator totally edited out a reference to Tisha b'Av. Either he didn't know what it was or figured that the reader wouldn't know what it was.

Finally a small correction to other reviews. According to the original Author's Note from the first English edition (Viking Press, 1934), which is reproduced in this edition, Feuchtwanger composed the book in 1933, not 1934. The original copyright was held by Querido Verlag, Amsterdam, 1933.

But, in sum: An excellent, contemporaneous view of German Jewish life in 1933. Highly recommended.

This novel recounts the experiences of a fictional Jewish family in Berlin in the early 1930s, as the Nazis take over Germany. An omniscient narrator relates the perspectives of both the Jewish Oppermanns and the National Socialists as Jewish stores are boycotted, as people are arrested in the middle of the night, and as some even commit suicide or find themselves in new concentration camps.

This is not Feuchtwanger's most-read work but it's worth reading if you're interested in Feuchtwanger, in modern literature, or even German history. Feuchtwanger accurately and sometimes painfully depicts the very feelings of people astonished at what was happening in their own country, and it's the novel's gripping reality that provides the reader with a fuller, more personal perspective not available in history books.

This edition includes an introduction written by someone who knew Feuchtwanger and also a reprint of the first review of the novel by the New York Times.

I'm amazed this book doesn't have more glowing reader reviews as it is an absolute standout for many, many reasons, not the least of which is the author's amazing ability to predict the events to come, even before they've fully occurred! Written in 1934, the novel follows the life of one family, the Oppermanns, and the increasing restrictions and hatred they face in their daily lives. Unwilling to believe these rejections and restrictions are anything but "temporary", they are unprepared for the the way "their" community turns against them, but forced to deal with the inevitable consequences. I found this a very believable work, impossible to put down. The introduction by Ruth Gruber (she spoke with the author) helps place this work into a historical perspective.

La Judia de Toledo es una preciosa novela historica que relata la historia de amor entre el Rey de Castilla Alfoso VIII y una judia hija de uno de sus consejeros. El caracter impulsivo del rey y sus valores caballerescos tan apreciados en esa epoca llevaron a su reino a la ruina y a su amada a la muerte. La esposa legitima de Alfonso, Leonor, usa su astucia y su poder para tratar de retenerlo, manipula vidas y reinos como si fuera un juego de ajedrez. El relato de Feuchtwanger hace justicia a la rica influencia musulmana y judia durante los siglos XIV y XV. Las tramas politicas y las pasiones son tan intensas hace cinco siglos como lo son ahora. Los errores de lideres debiles eran tan costosos para el pueblo entonces como ahora.