Between Home and Homeland: Youth Aliyah from Nazi Germany

Acknowledgments

A number of individuals and institutions must receive proper credit for allowing me to ¤nally bring this work to publication. The Interuniversity Fellowship in Jewish Studies sponsored a year of archival research in Israel, and New York University’s Institute for Advanced European Studies supported a summer in Germany. My doctoral research was maintained by generous support from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. An award from Oberlin College’s grant-in-aid program allowed me to return to Israel for some additional research. I owe a tremendous debt of thanks to the many archivists who helped me ¤nd relevant documentation, including the staff at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, the YIVO archives in New York, the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People at the National Library in Jerusalem, the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the photo archivists from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial in Washington and the Jüdisches Museum Berlin. Special thanks go to Morry Kantor at Yad Tabenkin in Ramat Eph’al, Susan Woodland of the Hadassah Archives at the Center for Jewish History in New York, and Rochelle Rubinstein at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, who helped me sort through a vast amount of material in a short time. I have been fortunate to be af¤liated with three academic institutions that have encouraged and assisted the completion of this project. The faculty and staff at Siegal College have welcomed me into a pleasant and productive working environment and supported my research. I bene¤ted greatly from a year as visiting professor of Jewish history at Oberlin ColAcknowledgments lege, where the history faculty was most supportive and offered helpful advice. And the Judaic studies and history faculty at New York University truly helped set me on the path to scholarship. A number of scholars have helped with their advice and criticism at various stages of this project, including Michael Berkowitz, Robert Chazan, Hasia Diner, and Alan Levenson. Shulamit Magnus, Hagit Lavsky, and Michael A. Meyer reviewed a number of chapters and I thank them for their constructive criticism. A special debt of thanks goes to Stewart Stehlin, who taught me the importance of picking my words with great care. I am most fortunate to have found a mentor of great expertise, scholarship, and understanding in David Engel. He helped guide me through this project from its earliest stages and directed me toward the right questions to ask. Gloria Horowitz has been tremendously helpful with editorial and substantive advice, far beyond the normal responsibilities of a motherin -law. Of course, this project would never have gotten off the ground without the tremendous support of my family. Ruthy and Saul probably have not realized how much time their father was away from them in order to complete this book. Davida has endured my nights and weekends spent writing and teaching, and weeks away doing research, not to mention her years working full time and coparenting as I labored in graduate school. The publication of this work is a testament to her perseverance , not mine. x Acknowledgments ...