SOLOMON MAIMON

This is the life story of a Jewish intellectual who grew up in the Jewish community in Poland in the early nineteenth century and wandered from one European ghetto to another in his search for truth and a satisfying occupation. Solomon Maimon could have been a rabbi or a talmudist, but the narrowly restricted life of the Jewish community with its preoccupation with legalistic interpretations of the Talmud irked him. So be became an intellectual vagabond and a dilettante wandering from place to place and still finding neither satisfaction nor position. The book does give a vivid portrayal of what life was like among the Jews of Europe a century ago and should, therefore, be of interest both to Jews and Gentiles for the light it throws upon contemporary problems.