Toward Modernity: European Jewish Model - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0887380921 ISBN 13: 9780887380921

Publisher: Routledge, 1987

Synopsis

The contributors to this volume throw light on one of the central problems of modern Jewish historiography: How has Jewry and Judaism survived the crisis of the breakup of Jewish traditional society, the transition from the dosed, ghetto existence into a more or less open environment? The process of development, starting in eighteenth-century Germany, gradually encompassed the entire world of European Jewish experience.

Toward Modernity compares modernization in Germany with its counterparts in other countries to see if the German-Jewish development had any influence on what transpired elsewhere. The authors explore the history of Jewish modernization in Russia, Galicia, Vienna, Prague, Hungary, Holland, France, England, Italy, and the United States. Topics covered include: the political and social authority of Jewish community institutions; external impediments and internal inhibitions for Jews to be absorbed by the dominant culture; the relationship of the state to the Jewish community; educational and religious reform; the influence of the rational scientific worldview; and the possibility of inclusion in the emerging middle classes.

Contents: Jacob Katz, "Introduction"; Emanuel Etkes, "Immanent Factors and External Influences in the Development of the Haskala Movement in Russia"; Israel Bartal, '"The Heavenly City of Germany' and Absolutism a la Mode D'Autriche: The Rise of the Haskala in Galicia"; Robert S. Wistrich, "The Modernization of Viennese Jewry: The Impact of German Culture in a Multiethnic State"; Hillel J. Kieval, "Caution's Progress: The Modernization of Jewish Life in Prague, 1780-1830"; Michael Silber, "The German Jewish Experience and Its Impact on Hungarian Jewry, 1780-1870"; Michael Graetz, "The History of an Estrangement between Two Jewish Communities: German and French Jewry during the Nineteenth Century"; Joseph Michman, "The Impact of German-Jewish Modernization on Dutch Jewry"; Lois C. Dubin, "Trieste and Berlin: The Italian Role in the Cultural Politics of the Haskalah"; Todd M. Endelman, "The Englishness of Jewish Modernity in England"; Michael A. Meyer, "German Jewish Identity in Nineteenth Century America."

About this title

About the Author

Jacob Katz is professor of history at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation; Jews and Freemasons in Europe; From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism; and Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0887380921
• ISBN 13: 9780887380921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Katz Jacob