Fascinating Authors

Book Review

by

John H. Manhold

Tightrope by Michael Karpin

ISBN 978-0-470-17373-2 Hardcover, 355 pages with 44 additional pages of notes, John Wiley & Sons, $35.00.

Michael Karpin has written a scholarly work that is quite unusual. It stems from a purported chance meeting with a member of a prominent Jewish family some twenty years previously. It is usual for a number of reasons.

First, it exhibits the result of hours of research of historical and geographical fact about regions of the world seldom employed as areas for a main theme.

Second, it provides evidence of hours of perusal of personal papers and documents, as well as hours involved in personal interviews.

Third, it presents a number of little known facts about the Holocaust.

The book is unusual in the realm of scholarly works in that:

First, it provides a plethora of historical and geographic material in a very readable fashion.

Second, it is replete with interesting vignettes from the lives of many members of the family – the devious methods employed by Naftali Backenroth  against the Gestapo to keep family members, and other Jews, from annihilation; the wartime decisions of Ullo Kahne and their results for other family members; the path taken by Leopold-Muhammad Weiss-Asad, who became a highly-placed Muslim; and many more.

Third, all of this material is set forth in a manner most resembling a far-ranging epic novel with many characters and unusual happenings.

So, in summary, Michael Karpin has produced a scholarly review of more than three centuries of history of one prominent Jewish family with the portrayal done in a most enjoyably readable fashion. If you are Jewish, you will love it. If not, but enjoy unusual historical tales, you still are going to find a most interesting read.