I Rest My Case
By (Author) Verstandig
Melbourne University Press
Melbourne University Press
10th August 1993
Australia
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Biography: historical, political and military
Social groups: religious groups and communities
305.89240092
Paperback
1
Width 153mm, Height 235mm, Spine 22mm
578g
Mark Verstandig's epic of Eastern European Jewry is part-autobiography, part-Holocaust literature, part-sociological analysis-an outstanding achievement. Mark Verstandig's compelling epic spans pre-Holocaust Jewish culture in Eastern Europe and its post-war reformation in Australia. His personal story interweaves the vast forces of politics and history with intimate details of the shtetl-from the pre-war intricacies of Galician society and the textures of a traditional Jewish religious education, to the agonizing contradictions of Polish-Jewish relations and the complexities of post-war Jewish politics. His account of the displaced persons camps where 'transit Jews' awaited their chance to emigrate is a significant contribution to a little-known aspect of post-war history. With his gift for observation and his acute powers of analysis, Mark Verstandig has achieved the rare feat of telling the story of his people through its own history. Part autobiography, part Holocaust literature, part sociological analysis, I Rest My Case is a fine achievement.
Mark Verstandig lives in Melbourne, where he has always been active in community affairs and, now in his eighties, is still a well-known Yiddish broadcaster, public speaker and journalist. I Rest My Case was translated from Yiddish by his daughter Felicity Verstandig