Life in a Jewish Family: Edith Stein - An Autobiography (Collected Works of Edith Stein, Vol 1)

If you want to understand the roots of the Christian Faith, this is a must read by a great saint and heroine. Edith Stein has shared her intellectual and emotional love for God and her Jewish roots in this wonderful masterpiece which will shed insight and understanding to anyone seeking the God of Abaham, Jacob and Isaac through Jesus, the Messiah. Edith Stein gave her life in witnessing to her Jewish-Christian identity.

The genesis of Edith Stein's intellectual and emotional development come to life in this insightful and eloquent tome. At the request of her superiors, and in part to help stem the tide of hateful propaganda launched agianst the Jewish people at the beginning of the Third Reich, Stein decribes with alacrity the underpinnings of her development as a woman, philosopher, and academic. She writes with the insight, self-knowledge, and humility that will appeal to readers who appreciate the meditative value of introspective thinking. My greatest disappointment in reading this book was to have it end many years before her death in Auschwitz. At the time of her deportation, she had only completed the course of events in her life until about 1917. Due to this, we never fully understand, in her own words, why she converted to Christianity when she did. Although we get glimpses in the form of anecdotal memories and side comments to earlier recollections, we are deprived of the writer's conscious musings that specifically focus on her religious conversion. Upon completing this volume, I was left with many questions about Edith Stein's later consciousness and her development as a Catholic philosopher and Carmelite nun.

I am only half way through this book but it is so interesting and moving. Edith Stein talks about her family, their religious practices and primarily about how much they mean to her and how they would later mould her own religious life. She writes fluidly and cleary with much care. A brilliant read for anyone who knows of this remarkable woman.