Schnorrers - Wandering Jews in Germany 1850-1914

The lives of those many Jewish people who achieved great success in Germany have been well documented, but there is another side to this story—that of the hundreds of thousands of poor migrants, beggars and wandering Jews who struggled to eke out a meager living as they moved from community to community. Some of those beggars told stories (in Yiddish: “Schnur”), which is why they were called Schnorrers. These Schnorrers wandered from place to place in search of work and food. Our book tells their story. Dr. Roni Aaron Bornstein has a PhD in European History from Tel Aviv University. The author spent several years in various German and Jewish community archives all over Germany, where he was exposed to a large number of primary sources, published here in English for the first time. Dr. Bornstein is currently the owner and CEO of a number of companies, as well as the chairman of the Israel-Japan Friendship Society and Chamber of Commerce.