An elegy for the vanished world of East End Jewry, and, more unconventionally, for that of the literary essay - because, at its best, A Double Thread is less a book than an extended essay of the kind that has all but disappeared from English letters
New Statesman
Gross's nostalgia for the Jewish East End
the Yiddish ... Read morenewspapers that his father read but he could not, the synagogue that, on a recent visit, he discovers is a Sikh temple
is interwoven with a nuanced evocation of England in the era of rationing and bomb shelters
New Yorker
Intelligent, humane, highly civilized... the voice we hear not only holds our attention but also wins our affection and respect
Los Angeles Times
John Gross's ambition is to evoke the lost world of Anglo-Yiddishkeit, the matrix of modern Anglo-Jewishness. This he has done lucidly, tenderly, and with good humor. Gross has succeeded in writing an essential book, which, much more than merely loving and nostalgic, is analytically sophisticated with an unerring eye for telling detail
Anthony Rudolph
Jewish Chronicle
John Gross has woven a tapestry of subtle contrasts and quiet charm. Relishing his `mixed inheritance', he draws the best from each of his two worlds, doubly enriched. Reading his memoir, I recalled the words of the Jewish poet Paul Celan: `I drink wine from two glasses
Theo Richmond
Evening Standard
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