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The Wandering Jew Has Arrived
Nel 1929 Albert Londres, giornalista francese, parte alla scoperta degli Ebrei, per incarico del quotidiano "le Petit Parisien". L'inchiesta lo porta da Londra alla Russia subcarpatica, poi in Transilvania, in Bessarabia, in Bucovina, in Galizia, dove visita gli insediamenti ebraici, testimoniando le difficili condizioni di vita e il diffondersi dell'ideologia sionista. Poi da Varsavia, vera capitale ebraica in Europa, segue le vie delle navi di emigranti verso la Terra promessa. È alla fine del viaggio, nel vivo del progetto sionista della neonata Tel Aviv, a Gerusalemme, Hebron, Safed, che Londres registra il "dramma dell'idealismo" alle sue prime battute cruente, tra "focolare nazionale ebraico", rivolta araba e ignavia dell'Occidente.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
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154 people want to read
About the author
Albert Londres
168 books16 followersAlbert Londres was a French journalist and writer. One of the inventors of investigative journalism, he criticized abuses of colonialism such as forced labour. Albert Londres gave his name to a journalism prize for Francophone journalists.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 22, 2024
In 1929 on the Calais-Dover packet, journalist Albert Londres, born in Vichy - his birthplace, (not far from the synagogue itself, built in 1933), almost did not survive the vicissitudes of time - met the Wandering Jew.
Fascinated by an unknown traveller in a black overcoat with a black hat and a long beard and peyot, who carried holy books, his tefilin and a talith, Albert Londres follows him to Whitechapel in London. He manages to get acquainted with him and many more Jewish emigrates from Russia settled in that part of London.
Then, moved by what he hears about the fate of the Jews of Eastern Europe, he embarks on a remarkable journey through places that have changed their names and borders a hundred times in history.
These names live on today in klezmer melodies handed down from generation to generation. Munkacs, Berdichev, Kishinev and so many others are also the names of pogroms, the names of the terror that Londres knows how to describe, soberly but also realistically, reminding us how misfortune and tragedy has often befallen the now disappeared Yiddishland. It is all the more heartbreaking because we know that all these populations were deported to extermination camps under Nazi rule.
In 1929, Albert Londres knew little about the diversity of Jewish communities. Immediately captivated by what he discovered, he digs deeper. His footsteps took him also to Łódź and Warsaw, the European Zion back then, with its colourful streetnames. Ulica Dzika, ulica Miła, ulica Gęsia... The neighbourhood of Nalewki, where he wonderfully described the rabbinic seminary and its students from all parts of the Yiddishland. Góra Kalwaria, ulica Pijarska and its tsadik, the Wunderrabbi.
This book is full of endearing characters - real persons, like Ben, Albert Londres' red-headed multilingual mentor, who said "Je suis un Juif qui se cherche (...) Aucun de nous ne se sent arrivé. Nous sommes encore tous en marche vers un pic inaccessible." Ben delivers a lucid description of the European Jewish world around him: "Savez-vous que les Juifs de ma catégorie sont les plus malheureux? Les religieux attendent le Messie. Les assimilés deviennent lords en Angleterre ou députés en France. Les sionistes marchent vivants dans leur rêve, mais nous les déserteurs du ghetto ? Nous sommes les vrais Juifs errants."
Then, de fil en aiguille, Londres went to Palestine, at that time under British Mandate, where hope was palpable, and here he delivers a comprehensive and realistic account of the concrete realisation - still underway - of the Zionist dream, however confronted with realities.
With its lively writing and a passionate style, this series of articles collected in a small book reminded me of my own steps in Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak and Jerusalem many, many decades later. I felt the same emotion and astonishment as did Albert Londres.
The book awakened not only collective memories, but also my own memories of the first populated neighbourhoods of Neve Tsedek and Neve Shalom, which I once visited, on the steps of the Wandering Jew. I thought back of the synagogue Ichud Shivat Tzion - long called "the synagogue of the Germans" where there were old and slightly worn out Hebrew-German prayer books available to everyone on the shelves in front of the benches, still there since the Yishuv times.
Reading Albert Londres' beautiful pages, I thought back of those who first arrived from the ghettos, the Carpathian mountains, or the impoverished neighbourhoods in Warsaw, the 'Hovevei Tzion, the Lovers of Zion.
"Ils arrivaient le feu à l'âme. Dix mille, vingt mille, cinquante, cent mille. (...) La foi les transportait, non dans le divin, mais dans le terrestre. Ils venaient conquérir le droit d'être ce qu'ils étaient."
Fascinated by an unknown traveller in a black overcoat with a black hat and a long beard and peyot, who carried holy books, his tefilin and a talith, Albert Londres follows him to Whitechapel in London. He manages to get acquainted with him and many more Jewish emigrates from Russia settled in that part of London.
Then, moved by what he hears about the fate of the Jews of Eastern Europe, he embarks on a remarkable journey through places that have changed their names and borders a hundred times in history.
These names live on today in klezmer melodies handed down from generation to generation. Munkacs, Berdichev, Kishinev and so many others are also the names of pogroms, the names of the terror that Londres knows how to describe, soberly but also realistically, reminding us how misfortune and tragedy has often befallen the now disappeared Yiddishland. It is all the more heartbreaking because we know that all these populations were deported to extermination camps under Nazi rule.
In 1929, Albert Londres knew little about the diversity of Jewish communities. Immediately captivated by what he discovered, he digs deeper. His footsteps took him also to Łódź and Warsaw, the European Zion back then, with its colourful streetnames. Ulica Dzika, ulica Miła, ulica Gęsia... The neighbourhood of Nalewki, where he wonderfully described the rabbinic seminary and its students from all parts of the Yiddishland. Góra Kalwaria, ulica Pijarska and its tsadik, the Wunderrabbi.
This book is full of endearing characters - real persons, like Ben, Albert Londres' red-headed multilingual mentor, who said "Je suis un Juif qui se cherche (...) Aucun de nous ne se sent arrivé. Nous sommes encore tous en marche vers un pic inaccessible." Ben delivers a lucid description of the European Jewish world around him: "Savez-vous que les Juifs de ma catégorie sont les plus malheureux? Les religieux attendent le Messie. Les assimilés deviennent lords en Angleterre ou députés en France. Les sionistes marchent vivants dans leur rêve, mais nous les déserteurs du ghetto ? Nous sommes les vrais Juifs errants."
Then, de fil en aiguille, Londres went to Palestine, at that time under British Mandate, where hope was palpable, and here he delivers a comprehensive and realistic account of the concrete realisation - still underway - of the Zionist dream, however confronted with realities.
With its lively writing and a passionate style, this series of articles collected in a small book reminded me of my own steps in Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak and Jerusalem many, many decades later. I felt the same emotion and astonishment as did Albert Londres.
The book awakened not only collective memories, but also my own memories of the first populated neighbourhoods of Neve Tsedek and Neve Shalom, which I once visited, on the steps of the Wandering Jew. I thought back of the synagogue Ichud Shivat Tzion - long called "the synagogue of the Germans" where there were old and slightly worn out Hebrew-German prayer books available to everyone on the shelves in front of the benches, still there since the Yishuv times.
Reading Albert Londres' beautiful pages, I thought back of those who first arrived from the ghettos, the Carpathian mountains, or the impoverished neighbourhoods in Warsaw, the 'Hovevei Tzion, the Lovers of Zion.
"Ils arrivaient le feu à l'âme. Dix mille, vingt mille, cinquante, cent mille. (...) La foi les transportait, non dans le divin, mais dans le terrestre. Ils venaient conquérir le droit d'être ce qu'ils étaient."
Read
January 17, 2018Picked this off the local library shelf. Truly unique and captivating. French journalist looks at European and Middle Eastern Jewry with a curious mind and open eyes in the 1920s.
September 6, 2019
C'est envoûtant et douloureux de lire cette série d'enquêtes d'Albert Londres, qui dépeint la situation des Juifs à l'aube de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale... La plume est lyrique et le propos terriblement prophétique : on y suit différents archétypes de Juifs errant ou courbant l'échine en Europe Orientale, puis de Juifs émigrants vers leur Terre Promise, en Palestine.
Albert Londres montre admirablement comment l'antisémitisme féroce de presque deux millénaires a forgé l'idéologie sioniste des Juifs persécutés. Comment cet antisémitisme systématique, implacable et monstrueux a déployé contre toute attente la ferveur de l'appartenance à l'"âme juive" pour ces millions de souffre-douleurs. En 1929, l'Europe des ghettos et des pogroms est repoussante. Que l'humanité est laide, à s'entretuer, persécuter et tourmenter la différence... De la Pologne aux Carpates, de Londres à Varsovie en passant par Tel Aviv, le journaliste dépeint des scènes pleines de vie et de misère, parfois à la limite du soutenable.
Le journalisme d'Albert Londres est éloquent et ne manque pas de lyrisme, il n'hésite pas à essentialiser l'identité juive et on pourrait le lui reprocher à la lumière d'un travail historique, mais c'est ce qui m'a paradoxalement énormément plu dans cet essai : l'impression de saisir l'identité juive dans toute sa ferveur et son espérance... avec une écriture lyrique qui n'a pas peur de s'exclamer, d'ébaucher des débuts de vérité et de questionner le lecteur. Inutile de dire que Le juif errant est un livre dramatiquement visionnaire sur le pire à venir...
Albert Londres montre admirablement comment l'antisémitisme féroce de presque deux millénaires a forgé l'idéologie sioniste des Juifs persécutés. Comment cet antisémitisme systématique, implacable et monstrueux a déployé contre toute attente la ferveur de l'appartenance à l'"âme juive" pour ces millions de souffre-douleurs. En 1929, l'Europe des ghettos et des pogroms est repoussante. Que l'humanité est laide, à s'entretuer, persécuter et tourmenter la différence... De la Pologne aux Carpates, de Londres à Varsovie en passant par Tel Aviv, le journaliste dépeint des scènes pleines de vie et de misère, parfois à la limite du soutenable.
Le journalisme d'Albert Londres est éloquent et ne manque pas de lyrisme, il n'hésite pas à essentialiser l'identité juive et on pourrait le lui reprocher à la lumière d'un travail historique, mais c'est ce qui m'a paradoxalement énormément plu dans cet essai : l'impression de saisir l'identité juive dans toute sa ferveur et son espérance... avec une écriture lyrique qui n'a pas peur de s'exclamer, d'ébaucher des débuts de vérité et de questionner le lecteur. Inutile de dire que Le juif errant est un livre dramatiquement visionnaire sur le pire à venir...
June 1, 2019
It is very strange and encouraging to read such a loving and admiring book about Jews written by a non-Jew. Londres is able to see beauty and dignity in the midst of horrid poverty and oppression. He finds fine people and great hope in places where others would only notice the smell.
The book provides a valuable history that I have not come across elsewhere in giving a picture of Jewish life in Eastern Europe on the eve of the Holocaust. My image of life in the shtetl was mostly formed from the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Fiddler on the Roof. Sure there was poverty and pogroms, but also a happy close knit community of colorful people living fulfilling lives. Londres gives us a different picture of people ground down to dust and then ground down again for good measure, who still manage against all odds to retain their humanity.
Londres also gave me new insight into Zionism and the founding of Israel -- on the one hand, Israel was a beacon of hope for the oppressed Jews of Eastern Europe, but in other sometimes more meaningful ways, it was not their cup of tea. The Zionists who managed to brave the hardships of immigration were the precursors of the modern Israelis, strong and unbending, ready to fight back against Arab efforts to drive them away. But others went to Israel and didn't stay, finding it easier to return to the oppression of Eastern Europe than to endure the hardships of building a new country in a strange and sometimes uninviting land.
The book provides a valuable history that I have not come across elsewhere in giving a picture of Jewish life in Eastern Europe on the eve of the Holocaust. My image of life in the shtetl was mostly formed from the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Fiddler on the Roof. Sure there was poverty and pogroms, but also a happy close knit community of colorful people living fulfilling lives. Londres gives us a different picture of people ground down to dust and then ground down again for good measure, who still manage against all odds to retain their humanity.
Londres also gave me new insight into Zionism and the founding of Israel -- on the one hand, Israel was a beacon of hope for the oppressed Jews of Eastern Europe, but in other sometimes more meaningful ways, it was not their cup of tea. The Zionists who managed to brave the hardships of immigration were the precursors of the modern Israelis, strong and unbending, ready to fight back against Arab efforts to drive them away. But others went to Israel and didn't stay, finding it easier to return to the oppression of Eastern Europe than to endure the hardships of building a new country in a strange and sometimes uninviting land.
October 6, 2018
This is an amazing little book. To get an actual firsthand account of the Jewish World in 1930 in Eastern Europe and Palestine is fascinating on so many levels. It was both incredibly depressing and hopeless (Eastern Europe) and inspirational (Palestine). It also foreshadowed so much of what was about to happen. Londres is a great writer. I loved it.
January 5, 2026
Such a fascinating book. Londres is curious, sympathetic and generally respectful, and he provides an essential look at the different Jewish communities of Europe (and Palestine) in the years just before the Holocaust. It's sometimes grim and sometimes hopeful, but always interesting, insightful, and witty.
April 6, 2013
Exceptionnel!
December 23, 2024
Albert LondresFinish date: 23.12.2024
Genre: Travelogue
Rating: F
#French
Good News: I finished it!
Bad News: I don't give 1 star reviews lightly
...but I forced myself to read every page in this book.
A. Londres Au bagne
... and I reccommend you read that one and toss this one in the bin!
The writing was repetive and Londres uses
rhetorical questions as "page filling".
After a while I skipped anything ending with a queston mark
and didn't miss a beat!
Personal: Sad to say Albert, you disappointed me this time! This will be my last A. Londres book.
January 14, 2024
Wow. I was not expecting such an engrossing read when I picked this up at Ben-Gurion's Steimatsky's on my way out of Israel.
The author's topic is serious -- the state of European and Palestinian Jewry in 1929, but he writes with wry humor, warmth, and great knowledge (the small factual errors are corrected in brief footnotes). While it's also clear that Londres has some ambivalence about certain groups amongst wider Jewry, overall he is a sympathetic narrator who comes to understand and capture what it means to be a Jew. The section on the pogroms of 1929 was disturbingly reminiscent of current events, but also concludes on a positive note, foreshadowing the intertwined relationship between Jews in the land and those in diaspora.
Well worth the read.
Bonus -- apparently Londres was the inspiration for Herge's Tintin!
The author's topic is serious -- the state of European and Palestinian Jewry in 1929, but he writes with wry humor, warmth, and great knowledge (the small factual errors are corrected in brief footnotes). While it's also clear that Londres has some ambivalence about certain groups amongst wider Jewry, overall he is a sympathetic narrator who comes to understand and capture what it means to be a Jew. The section on the pogroms of 1929 was disturbingly reminiscent of current events, but also concludes on a positive note, foreshadowing the intertwined relationship between Jews in the land and those in diaspora.
Well worth the read.
Bonus -- apparently Londres was the inspiration for Herge's Tintin!
April 17, 2019
A true eye opener. A non-Jewish French journalists travels among Eastern Europeans Jews in the late 1920s. My totally uniformed visions of how these people lived have been shattered and changed forever. My "visions" were mostly based on the portrayal Jewish people in the play Fiddler on the Roof. Poor but well fed, making the most out of their lot in life and in constant communication with God. But the Wandering Jew presents an important reality check. The most glaring image is the abject poverty these people experienced. The are several interesting observations in this book about a people who were within decades of being exterminated.
September 12, 2020
The many pogroms committed upon the Jewish people are horrific and haunting. One such quote: "More than one hundred thousand wounded. More than three hundred thousand wounded. More than one million beaten and pillaged, just in Ukraine and Galicia in 1918-1919. If we study them closely, we see the pogroms present themselves in three forms - non-bloody, bloody, and cruel and sadistic.
July 23, 2020
A unique book that seems to have been written by the perfect author.
December 11, 2020
Excellent read
Well written and a marvelous, prescient work. The book often feels less like reporting as it does a flowing work of poetry.
Well written and a marvelous, prescient work. The book often feels less like reporting as it does a flowing work of poetry.
September 18, 2025
EXCELLENT
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews