Forging Freedom

About the Book

Forging Freedom is the first full-length biography of Cerf Berr of Médelsheim (1726–1793), the formidable eighteenth-century emancipator of the French Jews. His early business providing forage for thousands of horses of the French military garrisoned in Alsace grew into a huge military supply business that earned him the profound respect of French Kings Louis XV and XVI. After receiving his French naturalization papers from Louis XVI as a reward for his service to the French Crown, Cerf Berr worked tirelessly on behalf of his Ashkenazi co-religionists to win their political emancipation in France on September 27, 1791.

About the Author

Margaret R. O’Leary, MD is an emergency medicine physician and a former full-time academic faculty member at three American universities. She has been writing professionally for more than thirty years on topics in health care, language, the human condition, and the history of ideas. She holds a doctorate degree in medicine, a master’s degree in management, and two baccalaureate degrees in religion and zoology. She has published a dozen non-fiction books and a dozen articles, book reviews, and chapters in peer-reviewed journals and books. She lives in Kansas with her husband and their beloved dachshunds and spaniel.