Greece: A Jewish History - Paperback

by K. E. Fleming (Author)

K. E. Fleming's Greece--a Jewish History is the first comprehensive English-language history of Greek Jews, and the only history that includes material on their diaspora in Israel and the United States. The book tells the story of a people who for the most part no longer exist and whose identity is a paradox in that it wasn't fully formed until after most Greek Jews had emigrated or been deported and killed by the Nazis.

For centuries, Jews lived in areas that are now part of Greece. But Greek Jews as a nationalized group existed in substantial number only for a few short decades--from the Balkan Wars (1912-13) until the Holocaust, in which more than 80 percent were killed. Greece--a Jewish History describes their diverse histories and the processes that worked to make them emerge as a Greek collective. It also follows Jews as they left Greece--as deportees to Auschwitz or migr s to Palestine/Israel and New York's Lower East Side. In such foreign settings their Greekness was emphasized as it never was in Greece, where Orthodox Christianity traditionally defines national identity and anti-Semitism remains common.

Back Jacket

"Greece--a Jewish History is a superb book, one in whose company I would include very few that I've read over the past five, maybe even ten, years. The story Fleming tells is an incredible--and moving--reading experience. The best comprehensive account in English of the 'Greek' Jewish experience, it is written in an easy and fluid style that allows for the drama of the story to come through gradually until, in the Auschwitz years, it becomes almost overwhelming. It is a masterful piece of research and historical craftsmanship. The story of Greek Jewry has found its historian. This wonderful book also announces Fleming as, among other things, a Jewish historian of the first order."--David Myers, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies

Author Biography

K. E. Fleming is professor of history and Alexander S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization at New York University, where she also serves as associate director of the Remarque Institute.