Uprooting the Diaspora

"In this deeply-researched and original book, Sarah Cramsey shows how the redefinition of Jewish identity after the Holocaust was part of an ethnic revolution that transformed Eastern Europe's shattered moral and political landscape. This is an important contribution to the history of European Jews, the creation of postwar Eastern Europe, and the complex relationship between nationality and statehood."

~James J. Sheehan, Stanford University

"In this impressive and carefully argued book, Sarah Cramsey tackles some very large themes - territory and belonging, nationalism, diaspora, minority rights, the Jewish Question - and proposes the intriguing new formulation of 'empirical Zionism' to help untangle the complexities of the 'ethnic revolution' that took place in central and eastern Europe from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. In doing so, she deftly combines analysis of institutions, ideologies, politics and people, and opens up welcome new perspectives on familiar issues that remain of great interest to historians."

~David Rechter, University of Oxford

"Ninety percent of Polish Jews perished in the Holocaust, but some 300,000 Polish-Jewish survivors remained the fourth biggest group of the European diaspora. This book tells the fascinating history of their mass exodus in the postwar years and perceptively analyzes its peculiar factors, which had developed in the previous decade: from the recent Jewish traumas to considerations of Jewish, Czechoslovak and Polish leaders, to radical changes of ideas on belonging, minority rights and desirable shape of polities."

~Dariusz Stola, Polish Academy of Sciences

"This superbly narrated book is essential reading for anyone interested in diaspora and nation-building in modern times. Uprooting the Diaspora follows Jewish and non-Jewish politicians, diplomats, thinkers, and writers in their quest for ideas on how to "resolve the tensions" surrounding Jewish national and spatial belonging in 20th century Poland and Czechoslovakia. The book explores rootedness, diaspora, and Zionism in the tragic decade of 1936-1946 with empathy, insight, and originality. Powerfully argued and meticulously researched, it's intellectual history at its best!"

~Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, Arizona State University

"Uprooting the Diaspora skillfully presents and analyzes evidence for how Jewish and other organizations aided and obtained aid for the masses of surviving Jews seeking a way to the ancient Jewish homeland."

~R. M. Shapiro, Brooklyn College, Choice