The Invisible Wall

It's clear from the first page that researching and writing this book was a passion for W. Michael Blumenthal. Blumenthal does a masterful job of creating an objective and insightful narration of the centruries-long and ultimately tragic saga of the Jews in Germany, and an equally remarkable job of interweaving the lives of some of his own ancestors as exemplars of the conditions and opportunities for Jews in Germany through... Read Full Review

After reading this fascinating account -- I loved the interweaving of biography with general history -- I feel I now understand why the Holocaust happened in Germany. Germany looked like a modern country, but was not really part of Western European culture -- it was dominated by a militarized aristocracy, had never developed true representative democracy, and had achieved a very late unification by rallying its people... Read Full Review

As a native of Germany born immediately after WWII, I can truly say that this is the first book which explains the role of the German Jews through German History.Michael Blumenthal does a great job in balancing his book between actual historical events and the lives of his main characters. His extraordinary objectivity does not cast blame but tries to make sense of what happened to his people A book well worth reading... Read Full Review

hi, i just would liek to say,that this book was pretty good,because i grew up in the ddr.i was 9 years old,when the wall came down but i was not there,because my dad and i escaped a coulpe of days before. i recommend a book about something like that to everybody and i think it is really important,to know what happenend,right? thanx,nora

I bought Blumenthal's book because, like many people, I have long sought to understand the persistence of "antisemitism" over at least two millenia. His book and Nora Ephron's review of Lindeman's book "Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews" in the Boston Book Review (1998) have begun to pull together a few of the pieces. I very much liked the scope and even-handedness of Blumenthal's book and would... Read Full Review