The Scholems: A Story of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie from Emancipation to Destruction

As Geller (Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, 1949–1953), a Judaic studies professor, recounts in this excellent history spanning many decades, the four sons of the upper-middle-class Berlin Jewish couple Arthur and Betty Scholem went off on very different personal, professional, and political paths between the two world wars. The two oldest, Reinhold and Erich, ran the family business (their grandfather’s prosperous print shop), then later immigrated to Australia. Werner, the second youngest, became a leader of the German Communist Party and was murdered at Buchenwald in 1940 under mysterious circumstances. By far the best known is the youngest, Gerhard (later Gershom), a Zionist who immigrated to Palestine, founded the modern study of Jewish mysticism, and became arguably the 20th century’s leading Judaica scholar. Geller effectively uses the family as a prism through which to examine the history, development, and mores of the German-Jewish haute bourgeoisie before the Third Reich. He notes, for example, how extensive assimilation and intermarriage were: although German Jews often looked down on the “goyim,” in 1929 27% of German-Jewish men and 18% of women married non-Jews, a far higher proportion than in America at the time, and the Scholem family Kiddush cup was inscribed “Christmas 1921.” Well-researched and engagingly written, this is a fine contribution to German-Jewish biography and history. (Mar.)