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Maria
Amata Neyer, O.C.D.
EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS (German: 1987) Translated into English by Waltraut Stein Paperback: 83 pages ICS Books . Washington, DC. 1999. ISBN-10: 9780935216660 reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com 07/14/2011 Would you recommend this book to other readers? Yes. * * * * * review: In her lifetime Edith Stein, PhD (1891 - 1942) was a practicing Jew, a convinced atheist since mid-teens, an accomplished philosopher and finally a martyr with millions of others to German Nazi hatred of all things Jewish. She is also a canonized Saint (as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross). For her philosophical, autobiographical,political, theological and mystical writings, Edith Stein may someday be proclaimed one of a handful of Doctors of the Universal Church. Apart from her long autobiography (LIFE IN A JEWISH FAMILY 1921 - 1916), many of Stein's academic and other writings are intricate, deep and sometimes difficult to unravel. For that reason, as her fame rises, it becomes increasingly necessary to find books notably useful for "introducing" Edith Stein to unfamiliar readers. One such stand-out introductory biography was written in German in 1987 by the Saint's fellow Carmelite nun, Sister Maria Amata Neyer, O.C.D. It was translated into English in 1999 by Edith's niece, Waltraut Stein. Its English title: EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. Only 83 pages long, EDITH STEIN is thickly packed with contemporary photos, documents (school leaving papers, baptismal certificates, manuscripts, at least one black and white sketch, citation references and a small bibliography. The chronological authorial narrative is interspersed among the many photos and documents and takes up no more than 40% of the 83 pages. Each word is carefully chosen and the overall result is informative and satisfying. We see young Edith Stein growing up fatherless in Prussian-Polish Breslau in a happy, commercially achieving conventionally Jewish family. Seen by all as intellectually brilliant from her crib, Edith Stein, despite bouts of depression and self-doubt, swept upward and onward through her doctoral dissertation in 1916, a pioneering work on "Empathy." She then bumped into two post-World War I academic glass ceilings: she was Jewish; worse she was a woman. In 1921 she converted from atheism to Roman Catholicism. In 1933 she warned Pope Pius XI that if Nazis were permitted to persecute Jews, Christians would not be far behind. At age 40 she became a Carmelite nun. At age 50 she and her older sister Rose were gassed to death at Auschwitz. Author Neyer gives a sense of the substance of Stein's writing and thinking at every stage of her life. If the little book has a weakness, it is that Neyer towards the end goes beyond biographing and, in effect, begins to commend her heroine to readers as a model for how to think and live. I personally agree with that evaluation, but think that making it detracts a bit from a deceptively simple but solid introduction to EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/books/411435600.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 07/14/2011 name of review: Great Photos of a future Saint. I wish that Edith Stein had been caught smiling more often. rating: * * * * * review: In April 2012 I am scheduled to give a talk to the Asheville Torch Club on "Jewish-Christian understanding: the Case of Edith Stein." Edith Stein (1891 - 1942) was born Jewish, became a reason-loving atheist in her teens, a formidable German philosopher beginning with her 1916 Doctoral Dissertation under Edmund Husserl on "Empathy," a baptized Catholic at age 29, a Carmelite nun in 1933 and murdered by Nazis at Auschwitz in 1942, age 50. She has since been declared a Catholic saint. Many, many thughtful, Jews, agonized by a persecution led by baptized Christians like Hitler and Goebbels, have blamed Pope John Paul II, a onetime professor of philosophy in Krakow, for declaring a Christian Saint a woman who was clearly martyred because she was Jewish. Can such a woman serve in the years 2011 and 2012 as a bridge between Jews and Christians. It's harder than you might think. But Edith Stein would want nothing better for herself. As she was overheard telling her frightened older sister Rosa when both were arrested by Gestapo in August 1942: "Come, Rosa, let us go for our people." For a straightforward, 83 page introduction in words, photos, pictures and documents to this brilliant woman's impressive life you could do worse than read a 1987 German biography translated into English by Edith's niece, Waltraut Stein and published in 1999 as EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. Roughly 60% of the book's text is taken up either by documents or by photos of Edith Stein at every stage of her life, along with her family, teachers, fellow students and friends. Many of the documents (school graduation certificates, baptismal record, invitations to veiling ceremony as a Carmelite nun, etc. are reproduced in the original languages: Latin or German. At times a magnifying glass is helpful to read words from printed or handwritten texts (letters, diaries, etc.). Edith Stein converted to Christianity not from Judaism as religion (that she had abandoned 14 years earlier) but from atheism. She was always proud to be Jewish, made sure that people knew she was Jewish, even when they did not suspect it. She was proud to be of the same race and culture as Jesus the Lord. As her thinking became increasingly mystical, Edith Stein (she chose the name in religion of Sister Teresia Benedicta of the Cross) felt that God called her to stand up before God and men for her Jewish people. She was, she said, a very humble Queen Esther in that respect. Jesus lived for his cross of salvation of mankind. And Edith felt asked to do the same. For nearly a dozen years after her baptism Edith Stein remained a Catholic laywoman. She had hoped to marry, and she had selected her intended mate, a fellow philosopher. But it did not happen. As a woman and as a Jew, her path to a major academic career in post-World War I Germany was effectively blocked. Nonethless Edith continued to write original philosophical treatises on psychology, the human person and on politics. She was in ever increasing demand as a speaker on women's right to careers and on the importance of standing up against tendencies like the Nazis and Fascists to oppose the values of Jesus Christ. All this and more is in EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. See Edith and her brothers and sisters and her formidable Jewish mother Auguste Stein, a commercial power in Prussian Polish Breslau. It broke Auguste's heart when her youngest child became a Christian. But even then for years thereafter Edith Stein regularly accompanied her mother to synagogue and prayed the psalms beside her. Stein was a gifted and beloved teacher of girls and of men and women in professional societies. In 1933 she warned Pope Pius XI to stand up to the Nazis against persecuting Jews. If he did not, Christians would be the next to feel Stormtrooper boots on their necks. I wish that in these dozens of black and white photos Edith Stein had been caught smiling more often. But you find very few smiles in the many photos. I guess that smiling was something girls and young ladies were taught not to do when the snapshots were being taken. This is a book that many readers will set down with pleasure after a first reading and will, I predict, return to it often as a resource. -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/Reviews/d/Maria_Amata_Neyer_ EDITH_STEIN_HER_LIFE_IN_PHOTOS_AND _DOCUMENTS-1742505.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 07/15/2011 title of review: Saint Edith Stein never separated the Messiah from his Cross rating: * * * * review: Edith Stein (1891 - 1942) was born Prussian and Jewish, as a teen became an atheist, then in her 20s a World War I nurse at an Austrian hospital for infectious diseases, a distinguished philosopher of the phenomenological school of Edmund Husserl, then a baptized Christian, for ten years a lay Catholic champion of women's rights, then a Carmelite nun and finally a Nazi-excuted martyr both for being Jewish and in Nazi retaliation against the bishops of the Netherlands who had denounced deportation of Jews from that Kingdom. All this in a mere half century of living. Would you like to enjoy a good short introduction to that life? Try EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS, an English translation published in 1999 of a 1987 German language biography by Carmelite Sister Maria Amata Neyer, O.C.D. The most striking feature of this 83-pager is that about 60% of its bulk is given over to photos, drawings and documents. An almost unobtrusive chronological narrative holds the photos and documents together and produces a coherent and valuable whole. Edith Stein was one of philopher Edmund Husserl's two greatest students, the other being Martin Heidegger, arguably the 20th Century's greatest philosopher (existentialism). Heidegger became an ardent Nazi and prospered under Hitler at Freiburg University. At neither Freiburg nor any other post-World War I German university, however, was a woman who was also Jewish able to make a career. Not even a thinker as brilliant as Edith Stein. For years she continued to write original, important philosophical papers and books. Later, in religion, she produced masterpieces of translation, religious biography and mystical theology. She also interceded in 1933 with Pope Pius XI to speak out against German Nazi persecution of Jews. To her very last day, Edith Stein saw herself as a Jewish champion of the chosen Jewish people in the mould of biblical Queen Esther. She was proud to be of the same people as Jesus the Messiah of Israel. Choosing the name Sister Teresia Benedicta of the Cross (reminding of Carmelite Saint John of the Cross), Edith Stein saw Jesus's greatest proof of love of Jews and of all mankind his voluntary death on Calvary's Cross. Jesus invited everyman to take us his cross and follow Jesus. Edith Stein accepted that invitation. An amazing life. Some see her as the patron saint of atheists. Others expect prodigious thinker Edith Stein to be named to the small number of Doctors of the Universal Church. Make a start at knowing her through EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. --OOO-- http://my.barnesandnoble.com/communityportal/review. aspx?reviewid=1747465 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 07/15/2011 title of review: Edith Stein: From the truth of things to the truth of love rating: * * * * review: There are already no few biographies (and one autobiography) of Edith Stein (1891 - 1942). And there will be more of a philosopher and mystic canonized as recently as 1998 by Pope John Paul II. The definitive biography has, however, yet to be written. So we must be content with "introductions." And a very good one appeared in English in 1999 as EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS, translated by the Saint's niece Dr Waltraut Stein. The original German, EDITH STEIN: IHR LEBEN IN DOKUMENTEN UND BILDERN was published in 1987 by Edith's fellow Carmelite nun, Maria Amata Neyer. In a mere 83-pages, Edith Stein's 50 years on this earth are sketched, beginning with her birth on Yom Kippur to pious Jewish parents in Prussian-Polish Breslau. In bulk most of EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS is taken up by contemporary black and white photographs of Edith, her family, friends, colleagues and students, churchmen, one drawing and secular and church documents in German and Latin. The unobtrusive, low key narrative weaves photos and documents together in a straightforward, non-preachy narrative, supplemented by "Citation References," "Select Bibliography of Sources" and two pages of "Chronology of Events and Dates in the Life of Edith Stein." Here are some selection from the "Chronology" 1891 October 12: Born as a Jew in Breslau. 1915 Service in a typhoid military hospital for the Red Cross in Maehrisch-Weisskirchen. 1921 Reading of the LIFE of St. Teresa of Avila in the Conrad-Martius house in Bergzabern/Pfalz, conversion decision. 1938 December 31: Emigration to Echt, Holland 1934-42 Production of her most important works, FINITE AND ETERNAL BEING and SCIENCE OF THE CROSS, and also many shorter works. 1942 August 9: Arrival in Auschwitz, murder in Birkenau. 1998 October 11: Canonization by Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's in Rome. "For
years she had looked for truth philosophically as a scholar. It was the
'truth of things,' 'the things themselves,' 'the objects.' Now in
Teresa of Avila she was filled with the truth of love that is not
knowledge, but relationship. Teresa lived in mystical friendship with
God and with him whom God had sent, Jesus Christ" (p.34).
If this whets your appetite, you will be happy to read much more in EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. -OOO- http://www.amazon.com/Edith-Stein-Life-Photos-Documents/ product-reviews/0935216669/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie =UTF8&showViewpoints=1 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (5) epinions.com 07/15/2011 Review Title: Saint Edith Stein "believed that ... the Lord himself ... was suffering in her Jewish bfothers and sisters." Product Rating: * * * * Pros: In 83 pages of pictures, documents, and narrative, EDITH STEIN lives in three rounded dimensions. Cons: Since her 1998 canonization, Edith Stein has seemed an obstacle to Catholic-Jewish understanding. The Bottom Line: EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS is not your old fashioned "Life of Saint." One day, Edith, dutiful daughter, sometime atheist, hard thinker, simply fell in love with Jesus. aohcapablanca's Full Review:
Is there more to say of her than that Edith Stein was German, woman, Jew, atheist, summa cum laude PhD, brilliant philosopher, Catholic, nun, mystical theologian, martyr both Jewish and Christian and in 1998 canonized a saint? All that is true. And every aspect of her 50 years on this earth deserves careful attention and research. But if there is one thing salient in 2011 about Edith Stein aka Saint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, it is that, paradoxically, Edith, ardent Jew, ardent Christian, is a ferocious sign of contradiction in Jewish-Catholic relations. It is not the woman herself who deeply distresses many Jews. Rather is it is her allegedly "tone deaf, insensitive" canonization in 1998 by Pope John Paul II as a woman murdered for her Catholic Faith, not just as one Jew among millions done to death in the Hitler-led Shoah/Holocaust. Jewish outrage was and remains deep and well articulated. Catholic incomprehension of the Jewish reaction to Edith Stein's canonization was immediate, profound and endures to this hour. Somehow Christians immediately intuit how profoundly Auguste Stein, Edith's beloved mother, suffered when Edith became first a baptized Christian (1921) then a Catholic nun of the order of Mount Carmel (1933). That's human. But that hundreds of thousands of Jews could be outraged by the Pope's canonizing as a saint a woman who to her death thought of herself as Jewish and as a humble reflection of Biblical Queen Esther standing up for her suffering fellow Jews, that has proven a mighty stumbling block. I think it important that, for whatever our personally preferred choice among a variety of good reasons, we both read about Edith Stein as well as read her works, starting with her autobiography, LIFE IN A JEWISH FAMILY 1891 - 1916 and continuing through her often knotty works of philosophy, biography and mystical theology. We have to start somewhere. One commendable "starter" biography is a 1999 English translation by the Saint's niece, Waltraut Stein: EDITH STEIN: HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. This is made up 60% of contemporary photos and documents in German and Latin. The rest is standard in any good biography: a low-key factually accurate chronological narrative beginning with Edith Stein's birth on Yom Kippur 1891 in Prussian-Polish Breslau as the eleventh and last child of pious Jewish industrialist parents Siegfried and Auguste Stein; a list of citations; a short bibliography; and ending with "Chronology of Events and Dates in the Life of Edith Stein. The Chronology's last two events are "1987 May 1:
Beatification of Edith Stein by Pope John Paul II in Cologne.
1998 October 11: Canonization by Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's in Rome." Those two notices are about Catholic beatification and canonization twelve years and one year respectively before publication of EDITH STEIN - HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. They must, therefore, reflect the instant, largely hostile Jewish reactions to events seen at the times as increasingly inevitable. Maybe. But maybe not. Those two Chronology entries apart, the 1999 translation accurately repeats the views published in 1987 in German by Sister Maria Amata Neyer as EDITH STEIN: IHR LEBEN IN DOKUMENTEN UND BILDERN. By 1986 it was indeed reasonably probable that Stein would be beatified. Hence, it is permitted to wonder if Sister Neyer might not, in her biography, have leant over a bit backwards to stress how very, very Jewish and very, very proudly Jewish Edith Stein felt at every stage of her life: as Jew, as atheist, as Christian and as German expecting the very worst from baptized but evil Catholic Adolf Hitler. I must confess that I personally do not sense any special pleading by the biographer regarding the perpetual Jewishness of Edith Stein. I think that Edith always felt Jewish to the core of her being, with nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. Being Jewish was a huge part of her identity every year and phase of her life, regardless of any author's biography. -- She was pleased, for
instance, to have been born on Yom Kippur.
-- She thought that she did not "look Jewish" yet regularly corrected acquaintances who thought her Aryan. -- Edith Stein concluded, after her baptism, that God specifically intended her to imitate Biblical Queen Esther as a spokesman for her Jewish people. -- Edith judged that Jesus, for God's inscrutable but just reasons, was laying on the Jewish people His own cross on which he had died in the first place for Jews, in the second place for all mankind. The cross is love. Edith Stein "believed and knew that it is the Lord
himself who was suffering in her Jewish brothers and sisters. Certainly
all did not know this. But Edith Stein wanted to stand in for everyone;
she wanted to bind herself very closely to the Lord for everyone in
order to enter with them into his suffering, which brings redemption
for all"
(p. 55). The documents in Latin and German remain untranslated, though their sense is given (her 1916 doctoral diploma from the University of Freiburg, p. 29, her 1922 baptismal record, p. 35 {both in Latin}, the frontispiece of Stein's 1928 German translation of pre-Catholic letters of John Henry Cardinal Newman, p. 42, and more). At times, the reproductions are so small that a magnifying glass is useful. There are photographs from every stage of her life, most with Edith looking quite serious, only a couple with hints of a Mona Lisa smile. These well chosen documents and photos do their job: they help bring Fraeulein Doktor Saint Edith Stein to credible, rounded life. At only (sometimes crowded) 83 pages in length, this biography is an easy rewarding read. You will return to it more than once, perhaps for the Saint's startling thinking on female priests, or perhaps for her ten year defense, as a Catholic laywoman and much sought after lecturer across Europe, of the rights of women to have honorable, lucrative academic and professional careers. It is surprising how much good subtance there is in diminutive EDITH STEIN - HER LIFE IN PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS. -OOO- Recommended: Yes. p.s.: My warm thanks to gatekeeper Pestyside PATSY for confirming this book's reviewability on epinions.com http://www99.epinions.com/review/Edith_Stein_Her_Life_ in_Photos_and_Documents_by_Maria_Amata_Neyer/ content_557363400324 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/neyer_stein.html |