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Biography & Autobiography Jewish

No Jews Live Here

by (author) John Lorinc

Publisher
Coach House Books
Initial publish date
Oct 2024
Category
Jewish, Austria & Hungary, Genealogy & Heraldry)

  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781552454923
    Publish Date
    Oct 2024
    List Price
    $24.95

  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781770568273
    Publish Date
    Oct 2024
    List Price
    $17.99

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Description

A stolen sign, ‘No Jews Live Here,’ kept John Lorinc’s Hungarian Jewish family alive during the Holocaust.

From pre-war Budapest to post-war Toronto, journalist John Lorinc unspools four generations of his Hungarian Jewish family's journey through the Holocaust, the 1956 Revolution, and finally exodus from a country that can't rid itself of its antisemitic demons.

This braided saga centers on the writer's eccentric and defiant grandmother, a consummate survivor who, with her love of flashy jewelry and her vicious tongue, was best appreciated from afar. Lorinc also traces the stories of both his grandfathers and his father, all of whom fell victim, in different ways, to the Nazis’ genocidal campaign to rid Europe of Jews.

This is a deeply reported but profoundly human telling of a vile part of history, told through Lorinc’s distinctively astute and compassionate consideration of how cities and cultures work. Set against the complicated and poorly understood background of Hungary's Jewish community, No Jews Live Here is about family stories, and how the narratives of our lives are shaped by our times and historical forces over which we have no control.

About the author

John Lorinc is a journalist and editor. He reports on urban affairs, politics, business, technology, and local history for a range of media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Walrus, Maclean’s, and Spacing, where he is senior editor. John is the author of three books, including The New City (Penguin, 2006) and Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias (Coach House Books, 2022), and has coedited four other anthologies for Coach House Books: The Ward (2015), Subdivided (2016), Any Other Way (2017), and The Ward Uncovered (2018). John is the recipient of the 2019/2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy. He lives in Toronto.

Karon Liu has been a staff food reporter for the Toronto Star since 2015 and aims to link food with culture, history, identity, politics – anything you can imagine. He's also an avid home cook, and his favourite utensil is a pair of wooden chopsticks his grandma used to use.

John Lorinc's profile page

Other titles by

What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings

edited by John Lorinc
introduction by Karon Liu

Dream States

Smart Cities and the Pursuit of Utopian Urbanism

by (author) John Lorinc

The Carrying Place

Stories of Indigenous Toronto

abridged by Denise Bolduc & Rebeka Tabobondung
edited by Mnawaate Gordon-Corbiere, Brian Wright-McLeod & John Lorinc

House Divided

How the Missing Middle Will Solve Toronto's Affordability Crisis

edited by Alex Bozikovic, Cheryll Case, John Lorinc & Annabel Vaughan

The Ward Uncovered

The Archaeology of Everyday Life

edited by John Lorinc, Holly Martelle, Michael McClelland & Tatum Taylor

Any Other Way

How Toronto Got Queer

edited by Stephanie Chambers, Jane Farrow, Maureen FitzGerald, Ed Jackson, John Lorinc, Tim McCaskell, Rebecka Sheffield, Tatum Taylor & Rahim Thawer

Subdivided

City-Building in an Age of Hyper-Diversity

by (author) Jay Pitter & John Lorinc

The Ward

The Life and Loss of Toronto's First Immigrant Neighbourhood

edited by John Lorinc, Michael McClelland & Ellen Scheinberg

The Ward

The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood

edited by John Lorinc, Michael McClelland & Ellen Scheinberg

New City

How The Crisis Of Canada's Cities Is Reshaping Our Nation

by (author) John Lorinc