Jews Welcome Coffee: Tradition and Innovation in Early Modern Germany (The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry) - Hardcover

Liberles, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611682452 ISBN 13: 9781611682458

Publisher: Brandeis University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Tracing the introduction of coffee into Europe, Robert Liberles challenges long-held assumptions about early modern Jewish history and shows how the Jews harnessed an innovation that enriched their personal, religious, social, and economic lives. Focusing on Jewish society in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and using coffee as a key to understanding social change, Liberles analyzes German rabbinic rulings on coffee, Jewish consumption patterns, the commercial importance of coffee for various social strata, differences based on gender, and the efforts of German authorities to restrict Jewish trade in coffee, as well as the integration of Jews into society.

About this title

About the Author:

ROBERT LIBERLES (1944-2012) held the David Berg and Family Chair in European History at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva.

Review:

“This book, the first of its kind on the topic of Jews and coffee, uses the introduction and gradual acceptance of coffee to analyze changes in Jewish society. In a lively and highly readable manner, Liberles has uncovered hitherto unused archival data to show how very traditional Jewish cultures made room for the new product to serve their purposes. Amusing and interesting, he highlights rabbinic and legal struggles around coffee—prohibitions against coffee as well as addictions to it.” (Marion Kaplan, Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History, New York University)

“Robert Liberles here shows the initially skeptical reader that so mundane a subject as coffee can cast significant light on broad trends and bitter conflicts within modern Jewish history. Utilizing a neglected cache of archival materials, he demonstrates how the introduction of an unfamiliar and attractive beverage was able to affect the political, economic, and especially the private lives of eighteenth-century European Jews. This is an appropriately stimulating volume, not to be missed by any reader interested in new approaches to Jewish history.” (Michael A. Meyer, Hebrew Union College)

“Liberles has uncovered a fascinating new chapter in the social, cultural, and economic history of Jews in early modern Western Europe. Based on a rich array of archival sources and written in a most engaging style, Jews Welcome Coffee will be welcomed by scholars and lay readers alike.” (Elisheva Carlebach, Salo Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, Columbia University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Brandeis University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1611682452
• ISBN 13: 9781611682458
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 190