The Book of Jacob

By resurrecting the Jewish, Russian and French worlds of yesterday against a backdrop of wars, revolutions and exiles, political commitments, metaphysical doubts, but also mass graves and abysses, it is the entire recent past of Europe, already buried, if not deliberately forgotten, that is exhumed by this story that incessantly weaves memory and history. What does it mean to be born of a man caught in the extreme turmoil of an era of torment? Is there not a kind of curse in this blessing? And how can memory and knowledge be confronted?

Far from ordinary introspections on filiation, this story delivers a rare investigation into the mystery of identity. From question to question, he leads us to discover how, during the most inhuman of centuries, each Jew will have had the destiny of carrying, whether he wanted it or not, the entire vocation of his people to this extreme point where the universal and the particular become one.

With this book-confession where the intimacy of feelings competes with the reality of events, a historian establishes himself as one of the literary voices of today.

Presentation: Soft binding, paperback

Author: Wladimir Berelowitch

Publication date: March 6, 2014

Format: 13.5 cm × 21 cm × 1.3 cm, 170 pages

Weight: 225 g

Publisher: Cerf

ISBN: 9782204101905

Only in French