Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century

(Hardback)

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A groundbreaking examination of a little-known but defining episode in early modern Jewish history A refugee crisis of huge proportions erupted as a result of the mid-seventeenth-century wars in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Tens of thousands of Jews fled their homes, or were captured and trafficked across Europe, the Middle East, and Nor

Reviews

"Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in History"
"Honorable Mention for the Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies"
"Winner of the Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award, The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America"
"[A] richly detailed, fluent and innovative study."---Adam Sutcliffe, Times Literary Supplement
"Rescue the Surviving Souls throws us back to a decisive moment in the history of the Jewish people. . . . With exceptional erudition, penetrating intelligence, and sparkling prose, Adam Teller depicts this horrendous moment in all of its complexity: as a moment of death but also of new life; disruption and connection; and senseless violence but also precious moments of human sympathy. Based on research in dozens of archives and almost as many languages, Rescue the Surviving Souls is a tour de force of historical writing: it is at once compulsively readable and scholarly."---Judges' Remarks, National Jewish Book Award
"Overall, Tellers sweeping and comprehensive treatment of the seventeenth century is an important and ground-breaking contribution to the field of Jewish history."---Rebecca Wartell, Mediterranean Historical Review
"Rescuing the Surviving Souls is a remarkable achievement, and should be read widely not only by scholars of early modern Jewry, but by all students of the early modern world as well as those interested in refugees regardless of time or place. The dynamism, interconnectedness, and rich emotional and spiritual depth of this historical account come to light at the hands of a master storyteller. . . . Teller's book exemplifies some of the best work being done by historians of refugees."---Jesse Spohnholz, Studia Rosenthaliana
"Tellers valuable work moves us towards histories that foreground relations across and between early modern communities and enables us to contemplate broader narratives."---Nicholas Terpstra, Jewish History
"Highly detailed and compelling."---Joshua Picard, Religious Studies Review

Author Bio

Adam Teller is professor of history and Judaic studies at Brown University. He is the author of Money, Power, and Influence in Eighteenth-Century Lithuania: The Jews on the Radziwi Estates.