JÜDISCHER JUGENDKALENDER [Almanac for Jewish Youth]

Jewish Childhood in 1930s Germany

JÜDISCHER JUGENDKALENDER [Almanac for Jewish Youth]

By Emil Bernhard Cohn, illustrated by Marianne Brodsky

(1934)

First edition of this reader for German-Jewish children that reflects their rapidly changing cultural status, published the year Hitler declared himself Führer.

Very good plus.

Price: $250.00

JÜDISCHER JUGENDKALENDER [Almanac for Jewish Youth]

"[O]ne of the most popular books on a German-Jewish child's bookshelf in the early 20th century." – Leo Baeck Institute

Rabbi Emil Bernhard Cohn's JÜDISCHER JUGENDKALENDER was first published in 1928 as a yearly reader, focused on "fostering a positive and confident German-Jewish identity" (Leo Baeck Institute) though educating young people on Jewish culture and traditions. But, the Leo Baeck Institute notes, the tone of the almanac shifted considerably in its 1934 iteration: with Nazism on the rise, Cohn pointedly included stories about immigration, and vignettes about Jewish athletes to "counter popular anti-Semitic fantasies" of "weak" Jews. Cohn was arrested by the Gestapo for his publications in 1935, but was able to escape to the Netherlands in 1936 before making his way to the US in 1939.
Among the stories, poems, and charming illustrations, there are also several word puzzles. Only one of the puzzles was completed, in the clumsy but determined hand of a child; the contrast between the child's uncertain letterfoms and the remaining empty puzzles are a harrowing link to the millions of lives upended and taken during the Holocaust.

Read more: "A Compass for a German-Jewish Childhood: Emil Bernhard Cohn's Jüdischer Jugendkalender 1934 (Almanac for Jewish Youth)," Leo Baeck Institute.

The Object

Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, (1934). 8'' x 6.5''. Original red and blue pictorial boards. Illustrated in black and white, with two leaves of black-and-white photographic plates. 108 pages. One word puzzle completed in pencil in a child's hand. Binding with mild edgewear, a bit of toning; carefully repaired all along spine. Leaves with one or two tiny spots of soil. Tight.

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