Description
Book SynopsisFrom the last decades of the nineteenth century through the late 1930s, the West Bohemian spa towns of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad were fashionable destinations for visitors wishing to take a cure—to drink the waters, bathe in the mud, be treated by the latest X-ray, light, or gas therapies, or simply enjoy the respite afforded by elegant parks and comfortable lodgings. These were sociable and urbane places, settings for celebrity sightings, match-making, and stylish promenading. Originally the haunt of aristocrats, the spa towns came to be the favored summer resorts for the emerging bourgeoisie. Among the many who traveled there, a very high proportion were Jewish.
In Next Year in Marienbad, Mirjam Zadoff writes the social and cultural history of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad as Jewish spaces. Secular and religious Jews from diverse national, cultural, and social backgrounds mingled in idyllic and often apolitical-seeming surroundings. During the s
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"Next Year in Marienbad offers a fascinatingly erudite glimpse of the joys and sorrows of well-to-do Jews on holiday over a century ago." * The Forward *
"A charming, highly readable, and scholarly contribution to the cultural history of the Jewish bourgeoisie of central and eastern Europe. With wit and learning Mirjam Zadoff has elevated Marienbad to the rank of a Jewish 'lieu de mémoire.'" * Saul Friedlander, University of California, Los Angeles *
"A rich tale beautifully told, Mirjam Zadoff's evocative study introduces us to the single most important recreational activity for modern Jews in Central Europe: their annual summer pilgrimage to take the waters at their favorite spa resorts. Zadoff's remarkable history of Jewish sociability introduces us to a Chaucerian parade of characters and transports us back to those spas, reanimating for the reader their long-gone social and cultural life and making it clear why Jews so eagerly looked forward to spending next year in Marienbad." * John M. Efron, University of California-Berkeley *
"A very engaging, interesting, suggestive, and important book. Next Year in Marienbad deals with three famous international spas and skillfully uses evidence from each of them to paint a broader picture of 'Jewish space' in European life between 1870 and 1938." * Marsha L. Rozenblit, University of Maryland *
Table of Contents
Introduction: The (Mirrored) Playroom
PART I. BE'ERA SHEL MIRYAM
Chapter 1. A Letter
Chapter 2. Consuming Places
Chapter 3. In a Large Garden of Modernity
Chapter 4. Bourgeois Experiential Spaces of Worry and Concern
PART II. BEIT DIMYONI
Chapter 5. A Conversation
Chapter 6. Miscounters
Chapter 7. Encounters
PART III. ODRADEK
Chapter 8. A Story
Chapter 9. The City in the Hills
Chapter 10. Warmbod Grotesques
PART IV. JUTOPIA
Chapter 11. A Map
Chapter 12. Traveling to Bohemia
Chapter 13. To Bohemia and Beyond
Afterword: Return to Bohemia
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
