Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)What I most loved about this book was - for me - the spot on insiders' view of such a
rich and wonderful East End Jewish community that I cannot recall having been portrayed before
in this or any other way. I loved the seder, the wedding, the pub episodes, the music hall references.
I looked up Paul Maze and saw his soldiers-in-formation paintings (the glass case when Clara first entered his sitting room!). I like his paintings; his eclectic style may have been harder
to pinpoint for so-called art critics (I hate art criticism) which may have held
him back in terms of wider recognition. He is hard to pigeonhole although he is
considered a postimpressionist.
Clara, his lover and collaborator in both his memoir and clandestine antiNazi adventures is so
well defined (as everyone was).
The suspenseful Munich trip, undertaken to gather information on the preWorld War II German mood amongst Jews and gentiles alike at the behest of Maze's friend Winston Churchill is unique in its freedom from the usual sterotypical portrayals of Germans of that period.
I must say the entire Jewish community in England and most of all world wide
owes Friedberg a debt of gratitude for portraying a part of 20th century history which
has been so astutely and sensitively recounted.
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21 ALDGATE, a story of love and war, set in England during the buildup to the Second World War, bears witness to prejudice and bias, aggression and propaganda, which influenced a privileged society. . . . When young Clara Simon suddenly quit her steady job in Ernest Maxwell Abbott's law firm over his increasingly shabby treatment of Jewish clients, she soon realized the seriousness of her actions. Giving up any job in struggling, post-WWI London meant taking a chance. Clara knew her family at 21 Aldgate would not be supportive. With that in mind she did the only thing a Londoner could do: she looked for a quiet place to have a cup of tea and think over her hasty decision. A coincidental meeting with a former Abbott employee resulted in the suggestion of a job offer in Chelsea. Clara, reluctant to consider venturing into affluent Chelsea, finally agreed to meet with the important French artist, Paul Maze, who needed an assistant to help write his memoir of his work as a field artist during the First World War. Their working relationship ignited a passionate love that forever changed and haunted her. On the tides of political and social chaos prior to the Second World War, Clara was forced to make decisions that risked both her life and her marriage. . . . 21 ALDGATE is about a place in time, a place that no longer exists except in rapidly fading memories. It tells a story of class distinction, people and their traditions, a family and its fate, a country and its fight against fascism and a woman with a secret she must take to her grave.
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