Portraits of Our Past

"While many books describe daily life in Eastern European cities and shtetls before the Holocaust, Emily Rose's Portraits of Our Past: Jews of the German Countryside may be unique in highlighting the experiences of rural Jews in 18th- and 19th-century Germany. Through a genealogy research project, Rose came to realize that her understanding of rural German Jews "had been very limited and, in many respects, completely wrong"; this absorbing study weaves her discoveries about her own ancestors' experiences with the larger history of Diaspora Jews in Germany."—Publishers Weekly