This book takes a fresh look at the history of the Jews in Berlin using signficant examples of
the rich visual legacy of the period. It begins by examining the visual environment of the
Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) and his community whose lives were
regulated by feudal conditions in the waning days of a mercantilist regime. It also looks at
the Moorish Revival synagogue on the Oranienburgerstrasse inaugurated in 1866 that reflects the
status and the evolving sense of identity of the sponsoring community at that moment in the
nineteenth-century pursuit of emancipation and the incremental attainment of civil rights. The
book ends with the Weimar Republic where the inventive modernist architect Erich Mendelsohn
contributed to the vital building program of the Neue Sachlichkeit. The visual studies approach
adopted here foregrounds the articulation of the dominant culture¿s visual language by a
dynamic minority expressing its place within the process of German nation building.
