-- United Press International

 

"A pop-culture happening still in the process of evolution, 'virtual Jewishness' gets a provocative airing in this unusual take on the uses of memory."

--Montreal Gazette

 

"Virtually Jewish ... has more depth and thoughtful analysis than many reporters' accounts, and it's written in a livelier, more readable style than most academic books."

--The Jewish Week

 

"In the fascinating Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe, Ruth Ellen Gruber employs a sociologist's eye and a novelist's style to consider the way countries such as Germany, Italy, and Poland have been seeking to revive Jewish culture over the past decade."

--Business Week

 

 

Ruth Ellen Gruber contributes regular "Letters from Europe" (and sometimes elsewhere) to the U.S. magazine The New Leader. Mixing travelogue with social and cultural commentary, she delves under the skin of European society to provide a closely observed, uniquely personal take on topics ranging from politics to pop music, from architecture to local cuisine. This volume collects a decade of her colorful, insightful reports - from 1997 to 2007. The datelines range from Warsaw and Sarajevo to Bucharest, London, Budapest, Brno, Nuremberg, Paris, the tiny village of Morruzze, Italy, and more.

    "Remarkable ... [a] fine, meticulously researched book, filled ... with reportage and reflection, nuance and paradox."

 

 

    A "haunting evocation of Jewish life as it used to be and as it survives ...."

 

 

 

    "... a poignant and painstaking quest .... a book full of shadows and ghosts and graveyards -- but full, too ... with a vibrant and vitalizing sense of the presence of the past, and a passionate and inspiring faith in history's abiding human lessons."

 

 

 

    "Ruth Gruber is like an archeologist as she guides us along the remaining traces of Jewish civilization in East and Central Europe, pointing out the blank spaces on the doorposts of that culture -- today's constant reminders of the Jews' vibrant contribution to the region's history."

 

“[T]he letters are a form of epistolary journalism, in which the writer melds personal experience into describing an event. The late Ryszard Kapuściński was among its greatest practitioners. In similar form, Gruber observes and interprets at close range such phenomena as a deja-vu Rolling Stones concert in Vienna; Czech bluegrass and the Tramp movement, and the architecture and (McDonald's) arches of Budapest.”