wandering Jews: the classic portrait of a vanished people

Roth examined the concept of Jewish identity years before the onset of National Socialism and looked ahead with apprehension to Germany's future. He dared to write about the historical schism between Eastern and Western Jews, warning of the false comforts of materialism and assimilation and urging his fellow Jews to embrace their heritage and the land of Palestine as a nascent Jewish homeland. As one of Berlin's most eminent journalists, he traveled throughout Europe and composed these essays with both an exigency and restrained contemplation that have earned him comparisons to his more celebrated contemporaries, Thomas Mann and Isaac Babel