Hungarian Jews ....How They Lived: The Everyday Lives of Hungarian Jews 1867-1940 by Andras Koerner (2015-11-01)1766 by Andras Koerner Paperback,How They Lived: The Everyday Lives of Hungarian Jews 1867-1940Nov 1, 2015 by Andras Koerner Paperback (Central European University Press )

These  books document the physical aspects of the lives of Hungarian Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the way they looked, the kind of neighborhoods and apartments they lived in, and the places where they worked. The many historical photographs-there is at least one picture per page-and related text offers a virtual cross section of Hungarian society, a diverse group of the poor, the middle-class, and the wealthy. Regardless of whether they lived integrated within the majority society or in separate communities, whether they were assimilated Jews or Hasidim, they were an important and integral part of the nation. We have surprisingly few detailed accounts of their lifestyles-the world knows more about the circumstances of their deaths than about the way they lived. Much like piecing together an ancient sculpture from tiny shards found in an excavation, Koerner tries to reconstruct the many diverse lifestyles using fragmentary information and surviving photos.

Although there have been numerous books about Hungarian Jewish history, this exceptionally beautiful, heavily illustrated work is not a chronological presentation of important events and personalities, but something more novel: a through investigation of the different lifestyles of the many kinds of Jews (or people of Jewish origin) who lived in Hungary: the Orthodox, the Hassidim, the assimilated, the secularized, and even those who decided to convert to other religions. It also presents how these lifestyles differed in various parts of Hungary and how all this changed between 1867 and 1940. The author focuses mainly on the lives of average people, and mentions a few famous personalities not so much for their accomplishments, but as examples of certain lifestyles. He investigates the physical circumstances of daily life: the way people looked, the places where they lived, and how they earned a living. He also examines how such choices – for example the way people dressed or the way they furnished their apartments – reflected the mentalities of the different Jewish groups and their role in the accelerating modernization of the country.

This book is the first comprehensive presentation of the diversity of Hungarian Jewish everyday life in the decades before the Holocaust. But what is equally important, it succeeds in bringing this world to life through nearly 250 fascinating historical photos and highly readable, engaging interpretive text. I can recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the fabric of everyday life and in the ways different Hungarian Jews once lived.