Ronald Sanders (1)Critiques

Palestine

NO OF PAGES: 673 SUB CAT I: Aliyah SUB CAT II: Russian Jews SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Beginning with the Russian pogroms of 1881, this harrowing history describes the massive exodus of Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe that culminated in new Jewish population centers in America and Palestine.NOTES: SUBTITLE: A Hundred Years of Jewish Emigration

Discussion of the Balfour Declaration and the birth of the British Mandate for Palestine in early 20th century.

1941 The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Manifesto for Palestine, by Ronald Sanders (read 29 Aug 1985) I sometimes read history which covers too broad a topic. This excellent and enjoyable book cannot be accused of that defect. It tells the story of the events leading to the Balfour Declaration of November 1917. It takes about 700 pages to tell that story and of the events leading to the British mandate for Palestine, but the story is well-told and unfailingly interesting. I am not especially interested in Israel, but the story is key to an understanding of events leading up to the creation of Israel. And of course in the book there is a lot of talk about World War One, which made all seem like familiar territory, though I had never read much about the subject of this book before. An excellent book.

One of only a handful of definitive books about the causes of mass emigration from eastern Europe and the Jewish immigrant experience in New York.

3971. The Downtown Jews: Portraits of an Immigrant Generation, by Ronald Sanders (read 4 Jan 2005) Because I so enjoyed Sanders' great work on the Balfour Declaration which I read 29 Aug 1985, and World of Our Fathers, by Irving Howe (read Dec 19, 1998), I decided to read this 1969 book. It was often not very interesting, especially when it was telling in great detail of Yiddish newspapermen fighting with each other. But there is also much worth reading in it. The lower East Side in New York in its day must have been an interesting place, though I would have liked to have had more detail on its politics than is found in this account.½

Portraits of immigrant Jews; originally published in 1969