Examines the role of the image of "Jewish criminality" in the rise of Nazism, in the Holocaust, and in the perception of Jews in postwar Germany. The conception of Jews as born criminals, and of Nazism as a force which rose to put an end to "lawlessness", occupied a larger role in Nazi anti-Jewish ideology and practices than has heretofore been acknowledged in the historiography of the Holocaust. Nazi racism as such was not sufficient to convince the German masses of the "Jewish danger": the centuries-long stereotype of the "Jewish criminal" influenced the population's internalization of Nazi dogma and served as a rationalization and excuse for Nazi anti-Jewish measures - from boycott to mass murder. However, it was the Nazi system itself that promoted criminality and moral corruption, both amongst the victims and the perpetrators. For instance, the Nazi-invented ghetto, in 1940-43, became a hotbed of criminality. Dwells on the Jewish police in the ghettos as a manifestaion of this moral decay. In the Nazi camps, it was the criminals who took the top positions in the prisoners' hierarchy. Focuses, in particular, on a shift in Nazi ideology in 1944-45: the attitude toward Zionism, which had been ambivalent before then, changed to a view of Zionism as a great danger and as the foremost enemy. The Nazis depicted Zionism as the greatest incarnation of Jewish criminality. The stereotype of Jews as criminals persisted in postwar Germany, and affected the perception of the DPs on the part of both the Germans and the U.S. Army.

Focusing on the cultural invention of Zionism, Michael Berkowitz explores how and why the Jewish nationalist movement was embraced by assimilated Jews of Western Europe before World War I. He pays special attention to the symbolism, artistic representations, and mythology that attracted European Jews to Zionism, which coexisted equally with the nationalisms of their home countries. The book was originally published in 1993.

From the 1850s to the 1950s, photography was one of the most open avenues for Jews in Britain to make a living, as well as to contribute to mainstream culture. If one’s picture was snapped for a price in Britain, the person behind the lens was more than likely born a Jew. Through the 1970s, Jews were prime movers behind nearly all things photographic in Britain, including photojournalism, portrait studios, collecting, applications of photography to the fine arts, and the emergence of photography criticism and history as distinct fields. Yet despite Jews having played such remarkable roles, far out of proportion to their number and in all facets of photography, little attention has been paid to ethnic-religious difference in studies of British photography.Richly illustrated with both color and black-and-white images, Jews and Photography in Britain is the first-ever historical investigation of this topic, ranging from the mid-nineteenth century to Queen Elizabeth’s controversial photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz in 2007. Michael Berkowitz explores subjects such as the attempts of H. W. Barnett to unsettle portrait conventions, the spectacular photo editing of Stefan Lorant, the influence of Erich Salomon on Fleet Street, the inception of the “Gernsheim Corpus” (a seminal resource for art historical research) conceived by Walter and Gertrud Gernsheim, the innovative photography practices at London’s Warburg Institute under Fritz Saxl, and the pioneering efforts at collecting and publishing about photography as history and art by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim.