Heinz Unger and his Search for Jewish Meaning

Hernan Tesler-Mabé

This microhistorical engagement explores how the strands of German Jewish identity converge and were negotiated by a musician who spent the majority of his life trying to grasp who he was.

Critical to this understanding was Gustav Mahler’s music; music that Unger endowed with exceptional meaning and that was central to his Jewish identity. This book sets this exploration of Unger’s performative ritual within a biographical tale of a life lived traveling the world in search of a home, from the musician’s native Germany to the Soviet Union, England, Spain, and finally, Canada.