Reviews and Articles


 

  • 2001-02 National Jewish Book Awards Finalist
    �A meticulously painted canvas of life in the 18th and 19th centuries for southwestern Germany�s rural Jews. She does an impressive and scholarly job of assembling original sources using remarkably preserved records from both German and Jewish archives of small towns and villages. She expands a narrowly focused family history into an interesting record of a resourceful and resilient people who make lives, create families and build communities in spite of constant discriminatory practices, malice and capriciousness of the churches and the ruling princes.
     
    � Jewish Book Council, October 30, 2002.

  • �[M]ay be unique in highlighting the experiences of rural Jews in 18th- and 19th-century Germany. �[T]his absorbing study weaves her discoveries about her � ancestors' experiences with the larger history�. �[E]nhanced by dozens of � illustrations. 
    � Publishers Weekly, July 23, 2001

  • Braiding together research of documents, art, and stories, she describes the Jewish experience of community, family life, riots, civil rights struggles, and emigration. Appendices describe traditional Jewish life in the villages and small towns, and provide a blueprint for researchers. 
    � Reference & Research Book News, November 1, 2001

  • This family material serves as the core of the narrative; but taken as paradigmatic for rural south German-Jewish life, the family�s story is integrated into the book�s larger historical account. Punctuated with evocative pictures�.It depicts well the precarious nature of W�rttemberg Jews� every-changing socioeconomic position�.
    � B. Kraut, CUNY Queens College, Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, March 2002

  • A surprisingly thorough and scholarly discussion of the many historical forces and events.... �An intriguing blend of personal genealogy and historical scholarship. �The multitude of photographs, documents and charts adds immeasurably to the text, as does the wide variety of original source material that the author consulted.
    � Bill Gladstone, �Book Reviews,� Avotaynu, Fall 2002

  • The author possesses the double blessing of an impressive command of her subject and a clear writing style,� managing, ultimately, to reconstruct a vivid picture of a vanished milieu. 
    � Bill Gladstone, �Genealogical quest sends author on an odyssey,� The Canadian Jewish News, September 5, 2002

  • �A unique example of how a simple genealogical research project developed into the social history of a lost community and culture.
    � Schelly Talalay Dardashti,Book Reivew, Stammbaum: The Journal Of German-Jewish Genealogical Research, Published by the Leo Baeck Institute, Summer 2002

  • �He thought education, and in particular reading, were so important,� Emily Rose, a distant relative of Bernhard Moos, during a talk with pupils at Bernhard Moos Elementary School.
    � 
    Jon Anderson, �What�s in a Name? Pupils get Lesson,� City Watch, The Chicago Tribune, May 24, 2002

  • Some genealogists look merely for names and dates, others take family facts and incorporate them into the milieu in which their ancestors lived: socioeconomic, political, historical and geographical. Emily Rose has done just this in her meticulously researched and detailed look at the lost culture of Jews in rural southern Germany.
    � Schelly Talalay Dardashti �It�s All Relative: More than a family,� City Lights, The Jerusalem Post, October 15, 2001

  • This is a remarkably well-researched piece of work. Unlike virtually any other popular writer on the subject, she has a keen grasp of modern social history methodology and has a keen understanding of the nature of South German rural Jewry. Rose is skilled in weaving together her family saga with the more general history of the community. What is unique about this book is that it deals in a historical way with the rural Jews in South Germany, a subject little known outside the scholarly world. 
    � Dr. Steven Lowenstein, Isadore Levine Professor of Jewish History, University of Judaism, Los Angeles, CA

  • Ms. Rose's book is a fascinating and important one. Both the work she has done, and the conclusions she has reached are significant and very informative. The research is incredibly thorough. The story is both interesting and complex, and her successful attempt to link it to the broader history of the shifting status and development of the rural Jewish population in W�rttemberg gives it a major import that goes far beyond the specific family history.
    � Dr. Paul Helmreich, Professor of History, Emeritus, and College Historian, Wheaton College, MA

  • A distinguished new addition to the growing historiography of the Jews of rural Germany. The struggle of survival of rural Jewry is placed in the context of this larger German picture. Emily Rose has made a true and faithful book out of the lives of her forbears, a solid contribution to our understanding and a respectful tribute to the trials and triumphs of the Jewish past.
    � Herbert Rosenbaum, �History Unearthed,� Aufbau, New York- Berlin, May 16, 2002

  • Passionately interested in learning about her ancestors, Rose followed the trail of those portraits to Germany, Ann Arbor and elsewhere, then wrote a powerful book.
    � Anne Valentine Martino, �Shelf Life,� Ann Arbor News, November 19, 2001

  • What resulted from her research and love for her heritage was a 370-page book that reads both like a historical novel and a history text. A "Roots" saga it is not; nor is her book a dry genealogical listing. Rose entwines the social history with data unique to her family.
    Lauri Garbo, Naples Daily News, March 9, 2002. (full article at www.naplesnews.com)

  • �It is the story of our family, but it�s a history book. People are interested in history, and they want to read about real people,� Emily Rose. 
    � �Village Life,� Cathy Chestnut, Cameos, Naples Illustrated, April 2002

  • Those of us who have attempted to trace our roots know the joy of discovering our unknown ancestors and extending our family trees back in time. Emily Rose has gone down this path with extraordinary results�. [B]ecame, in effect, a history of rural Jews in eighteenth and nineteenth century southern Germany�.
    � Bernie Banet, Wastenaw Jewish News [Ann Arbor, Michigan], November 2001

  • Touches on the Romantic Road. Portraits of Our Past is recommended reading.
    �The Romantic Road,� Phyllis Ellen Funke, Hadassah Magazine June/July 2002

  • [Berlitz�s] origins have been shrouded in ambiguity and legend. Rose provided Berlitz International with the results of her thorough research. 
    �Berlitz 150th Anniversary. Origins in Dispute,� The Jewish Press, New York, April 5, 2002

  • �It is not a Holocaust era discussion. It�s an upbeat story� I realized that this story was something we didn't know about; it had not been written,� Emily Rose.
    Jerry Libonati, �German Jewish history explored,� Library News, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 4, 2002

  • Newly discovered information reveals his true origins, although Berlitz International refuses to accept new historical evidence.
    �April 14, 2002 Marks the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of the Founder of the Berlitz School of Languages.� Jewish Business Quarterly, Spring 2002

  • �So beautiful and instructive�. Her work makes an important contribution, and I hope that it will find a large readership�. I admire her courage to even start this undertaking, having been unfamiliar with the German language, and then to study thousands of old handwritten documents and books. How she sorted out all this information out and produced such a readable and informative work is amazing to me�. It brought back so many memories of my youth having had grandparents and uncles in villages� whose life, especially that of the grandparents, must have been much as she describes it�.  
    Erwin Taenzer, refugee, retired engineer; son of a rabbi and brother of a lawyer who were both important early
    20th century German-Jewish historians

  • �An outstanding work in capturing the life and times of the Jewish settler. �Shining through each page is a fount of basic research reflecting the author�s discovery of archival documents that deals with aspects of Jewish life�.
    � Werner L. Frank, Roots-Key, Newsletter of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, Fall 2001

  • It is a wonderful and incredibly well written and documented book about Rural German Jews and how they lived. I recommended without any hesitation, because it should be among the best on this topic. If you are like me and wanted to have a mind's picture about how your ancestors could have lived, you will treasure the book as I do.
    � Francisco Fantes, M.D., Miami, Florida

  • This, the author�s first book, is of equal interest to genealogists and historians. The former will be fascinated to follow her painstaking research into her own ancestors, while the latter will gain a new thorough insight into the lives of the probably unique Jewish Landgemeinden (rural communities) of southern Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries.
    Shemot, The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, December 2001

  • With the collegial cooperation of Mrs. Emily Rose. [History of Leopold Berlizheimer buried in the Unterbalbach Cemetery]
    � Martina Strehlen, �Erfassung j�discher Friedh�fe in Baden-W�rttemberg,� Denkmalpflege in Baden-W�rttemberg, 1/2002

  • Every so often � a book comes along that adds another perspective to our genealogical search for family roots�. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Jewish people. 
    � Alexander Woodle, Mass-Pocha: Newsletter of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, Spring 2002

  • The marvelous work is a National Jewish Book Awards finalist. Emily's caring heart and attention to detail when compiling this work is truly a tribute to our ancestors, and a shining example for us to follow.
    Myrtle, DearMYRTLE�s Family History Hour Internet Radio Show.

  • Standing as one more testimony to the resilience and resourcefulness of Jewish communities throughout history, Portraits is a fascinating read, enhanced by numerous illustrations, maps, tables, and notes.
    Michigan Jewish History, Fall 2003

   

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