Gabriel: A Story of the Jews in Prague

Salomon KohnProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
366K words
Chapters
37

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Fate and FortuneIdentity Construction19th CenturyCity MemoryPrague JewsJewish Community

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Gabriel: A Story of the Jews in Prague by S. KohnAuthor: Kohn, S. (Salomon), 1825-1904,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Jul 25, 2011

Editor's review

Set against the Jewish community of Prague, this novel by the nineteenth-century writer Salomon Kohn belongs to the German-language narrative tradition dealing with Jewish themes. Its value lies not in thrilling plot but in the way a story opens a window onto the life of the old Prague Jewish community, conveying the human ties, faith, and tensions with the surrounding world within that community. As a Project Gutenberg e-book, it preserves the accessibility of a public-domain text and is suitable for readers interested in Jewish culture, Central European urban history, or nineteenth-century German literature as further reading. It is best approached as a window rather than a work of historiography: the story offers literary observation and atmosphere, while historical details still require separate verification. The English text bears the marks of its era and is not long, making it suitable as an introductory work on the subject and for reading alongside materials on Prague's urban history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Start with some basic historical background on the Jewish community of Prague; the story will read more smoothly.
  2. Treat the novel as a literary-historical observation, and verify factual questions against other sources.
  3. Read the English text slowly with a dictionary, noting period diction and narrative pacing.
  4. After finishing, compare it with other Prague-themed works to see how different authors handle the material.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37

FAQ

Is this book a work of history or a novel? Judging from the title and its classification, it is a narrative work about the Jews of Prague, not a systematic historical study. Readers can gain a literary sense of the period's atmosphere and human observation, but specific facts, dates, and events should still be checked against specialized historical works.
Can I read this book if my English isn't strong? The book is a public-domain English text with nineteenth-century expressions, which is challenging for non-native readers. If your English reading ability is limited, consider reading Chinese-language works on related themes or Prague history first, then slowly work through the original with a dictionary to avoid language barriers hindering comprehension.
Why is this book worth reading? Its appeal lies mainly in its subject and perspective: a story that leads into the everyday world of Prague's Jewish community in an earlier era, conveying the human and religious atmosphere of the time. For readers interested in Jewish culture, Central European urban history, or nineteenth-century German literature, it is an accessible extension of their reading.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Salomon Kohn Author · Austrian · 1825–1904

Salomon Kohn (1825–1904) was an Austrian German-language writer from Prague. He was known in his lifetime chiefly for his novels and stories, which drew largely on the world of Jewish life and paid particular attention to the historical situation and everyday experience of the Jewish community in Prague. His representative work, Gabriel: A Story of the Jews in Prague, takes the Jews of Prague as its subject and presents the life and spirit of this community through narrative. Kohn's writing tends toward a realistic portrayal of the customs, faith, and human relationships of Jewish communal life, giving his works both narrative interest and a quality of social observation. Because public information is limited, details of his life, education, and career cannot be reliably established; what can be confirmed are mainly his nationality, dates, representative work, and thematic focus. Overall, Kohn holds a place in nineteenth-century German-Jewish literature, and his works offer a valuable literary perspective on Jewish life in Prague.