Given the centrality of education for all programs to transform Jewish society and ready the Jews for civic integration in Europe, the disproportionate use modernizing Jews actually made of non-Jewish education, and the particular zeal of German Jews for Bildung, Keith Pickus' book treats an important theme: the identity of Jewish students in German universities. It sets out to explore how young adults constructed a sense of self when loosed from familial moorings and grouped with non-Jewish peers in an era of unprecedented openness as well as continu- ing hostility, an important question in itself that is also significant because the university-educated elite were disproportionately likely to lead or speak for the German Jewish community in its main defense organization (the Central Verein, led overwhelmingly by men trained in law) in the rabbinate, in welfare institutions and in political groups.