A Jew, to use Satre’s definition, is a person considered by others as a Jew, irrespective of his religious or ethnic allegiance.
The Pity of It All – A Portrait of Jews in Germany 1743- 1933 by Amos Elon, 2002, is an excellent example of brilliant scholarship combined with delightful prose.
Elon has a great command of the sources and skillfully gives us a moving portrait of Jewish life in the two centuries before Hitler.
He began his story with the arrival of Moses Mendelssohn in Berlin in 1743 to study in a Jewish religious seminary, aged 14 years old .
He entered Berlin through the gate reserved for cattle and Jews and went on to become Europe’s most famous philosopher and accepted as a pillar of German society.
Many other German Jews achieved similar heights. They became assimilated into German society as Germans. They worship German culture and civilisation.
And yet, it all came crashing down when Hitler was awarded the Chancellorship by a feeble President and leaders of the main parties who thought they could use and control him.
The crash from the zenith of society circles to the Holocaust for German Jews was so drastic that Elon used the phrase, “The Pity of It All” to describe his portrait of Jews in Germany.
The phrase is typically used when one is emphasizing disappointment or regret about something.
The pity is that it was all completely unnecessary and a better outcome was possible.