During the First World War, the Jewish population of Central Europe was politically, socially, and experientially diverse, to an extent that resists containment within a simple historical narrative. While antisemitism and Jewish disillusionment have dominated many previous studies of the topic, this collection aims to recapture the multifariousness of Central European Jewish life in the experiences of soldiers and civilians alike during the First World War. Here, scholars from multiple disciplines explore rare sources and employ innovative methods to illuminate four interconnected themes: minorities and the meaning of military service, Jewish-Gentile relations, cultural legacies of the war, and memory politics.

During the First World War, the Jewish population of Central Europe was politically, socially, and experientially diverse, to an extent that resists containment within a simple historical narrative. While antisemitism and Jewish disillusionment have dominated many previous studies of the topic, this collection aims to recapture the multifariousness of Central European Jewish life in the experiences of soldiers and civilians alike during the First World War. Here, scholars from multiple disciplines explore rare sources and employ innovative methods to illuminate four interconnected themes: minorities and the meaning of military service, Jewish-Gentile relations, cultural legacies of the war, and memory politics.

List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Jason Crouthamel, Michael Geheran, Tim Grady, and Julia Barbara Köhne

PART I: AT THE MARGINS: MINORITIES AND THE MILITARY

Chapter 1. Hopes and Disappointments: German and French Jews during the Wars of 1870/71 and 1914–1918
Christine G. Krüger

Chapter 2. Habsburg Jews and the Imperial Army before and during the First World War
Tamara Scheer

Chapter 3. The ‘Stepchildren’ of the Kaiserreich: Alsatians in the German Army during the First World War
Devlin M. Scofield

PART II: RELATIONS: CONTESTED IDENTITIES DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Chapter 4. Rethinking Jewish Front Experiences
Michael Geheran

Chapter 5. "Being German" and "Being Jewish" during the First World War: An Ambivalent Transnational Relationship?
Sarah Panter

Chapter 6. In the Shadow of Antisemitism: Jewish Women and the German Home Front during the First World War
Andrea A. Sinn

Chapter 7. The Social Engagement of Jewish Women in Berlin during the First World War
Sabine Hank

Chapter 8. “My Comrades Are for the Most Part On My Side”: Comradeship Between Non-Jewish and German Jewish Front Soldiers in the First World War
Jason Crouthamel

PART III: REPRESENTATION: THE CULTURE OF WAR

Chapter 9. Blind Spots and Jewish Heroines: Refashioning the Galician War Experience in 1920s Hollywood and Berlin
Philipp Stiasny

Chapter 10. Agnon on the Home Front in In Mr Lublin’s Store: Hebrew Fiction of the First World War
Glenda Abramson

PART IV: CONTESTED MEMORIES: WORKING THROUGH THE LEGACIES OF WAR

Chapter 11. Paper Psyches: On the Psychography of the Front Soldier According to Paul Plaut
Julia Barbara Köhne

Chapter 12. Narrative Negotiations: Interpreting the Cultural Position of Jews in National(social)ist War Narratives from 1914 to 1945
Florian Brückner

Afterword: German Jewry and the First World War: Beyond Polemic and Apologetic
Derek Jonathan Penslar

Index