Country houses are powerful symbols of national identity, evoking the glamorous world of the landowning aristocracy. Jewish country houses—properties that were owned, built, or renewed by Jews—tell a more complex story of prejudice and integration, difference and connection. Many had spectacular art collections and gardens. Some were stages for lavish entertaining, while others inspired the European avant-garde. A few are now museums of international importance, many more are hidden treasures, and all were beloved homes that bear witness to the remarkable achievements of newly emancipated Jews across Europe—and to a dream of belonging that mostly came to a brutal end with the Holocaust. Drawing on the first book to explore this history, Juliet Carey and Abigail Green will shed new light on the world of the Jewish country house as it emerged on both sides of the Atlantic—from Waddesdon Manor and the Villa Tugendhat in Europe to Fallingwater and OHEKA in America.

Learn more and purchase your copy of Jewish Country Houses edited by Juliet Carey and Abigail Green.

Image Credit: Waddesdon Manor—Buckinghamshire, England. Courtesy of Daderot

Juliet Carey is senior curator at Waddesdon Manor, UK.

Abigail Green is an Oxford historian and author of the award-winning Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero.