Essays In Modern Jewish History

A diverse collection of essays studying Jewish communities before, during, and after their emergence into a modern, emancipated status. A fitting tribute to an outstanding sociologist and scholar.

A landmark collection of essays by prominent academics in modern Jewish and German-Jewish history, honoring Michael A. Meyer, a pioneer in those fields. In Mediating Modernity, contemporary Jewish scholars pay tribute to Michael A. Meyer, scholar of German-Jewish history and the history of Reform Judaism, with a collection of essays that highlight growing diversity within the discipline of Jewish studies. The occasion of Meyer's seventieth birthday has served as motivation for his colleagues Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner to compile this volume, with essays by twenty-four leading academics, representing institutions in five countries. Mediating Modernity is introduced by an overview of modern Jewish historiography, largely drawing on Meyer's work in that field, delineating important connections between the writing of history and the environment in which it is written. Meyer's own areas of specialization are reflected in essays on Moses Mendelssohn, German-Jewish historiography, the religious and social practices of German Jews, Reform Judaism, and various Jewish communities in America. The volume's field of inquiry is broadened by essays that deal with gender issues, literary analysis, and the historical relationship of Israel and the Palestinians. Though other volumes have been compiled to honor Jewish historians, Mediating Modernity is unique in the personal and intellectual relationships shared by its contributors and Michael A. Meyer. Scholars of Jewish studies, German history, and religious history will appreciate this timely volume.

David B. Ruderman's groundbreaking studies of Jewish intellectuals as they engaged with Renaissance humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment have set the agenda for a distinctive historiographical approach to Jewish culture in early modern Europe, from 1500 to 1800. From his initial studies of Italy to his later work on eighteenth-century English, German, and Polish Jews, Ruderman has emphasized the individual as a representative or exemplary figure through whose life and career the problems of a period and cultural context are revealed. Thirty-one leading scholars celebrate Ruderman's stellar career in essays that bring new insight into Jewish culture as it is intertwined in Jewish, European, Ottoman, and American history. The volume presents probing historical snapshots that advance, refine, and challenge how we understand the early modern period and spark further inquiry. Key elements explored include those inspired by Ruderman's own work: the role of print, the significance of networks and mobility among Jewish intellectuals, the value of extraordinary individuals who absorbed and translated so-called external traditions into a Jewish idiom, and the interaction between cultures through texts and personal encounters of Jewish and Christian intellectuals. While these elements can be found in earlier periods of Jewish history, Ruderman and his colleagues point to an intensification of mobility, the dissemination of knowledge, and the blurring of boundaries in the early modern period. These studies present a rich and nuanced portrait of a Jewish culture that is both a contributing member and a product of early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire. As director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Ruderman has fostered a community of scholars from Europe, North America, and Israel who work in the widest range of areas that touch on Jewish culture. He has worked to make Jewish studies an essential element of mainstream humanities. The essays in this volume are a testament to the haven he has fostered for scholars, which has and continues to generate important works of scholarship across the entire spectrum of Jewish history.

In this insightful book, an eclectic and distinguished group of writers explore the Jewish experience in the Americas and celebrate the legacy of Salo Wittmayer Baron (1895-1989), a preeminent scholar who revolutionized the study of Jewish history during his lengthy tenure at Columbia University. Baron's important ideas are reflected throughout these texts, which concern strategies for the continuous identity of a dispersed people. Featured essays discuss the meaning and significance of colonial portraits of American Jews; the history of an extraordinary group of Jews in the remote Amazon; the charitable fairs organized by Jewish women to raise money for various causes in nineteenth-century America; the place of Jews in postmodern American culture; the "Jewish unconscious" of the art critic Meyer Schapiro; and Salo Baron's influence as a historian and teacher. A group of poems by Robert Pinsky accompanies the essays. Together these writings form a dynamic interplay of ideas that encourages readers to think deeply about Jewish history and identity.

A collection of articles, most of them published previously. The following deal with antisemitism:

This brilliant collection of essays examines the dialogue between Jewish history and historiography in terms of changing national and popular myths, folk memory, and historical consciousness of Jews in modern times. From essays dealing with the origins of Jewish historiography in the nineteenth century, to its contemporary perspectives and methodologies, this book provides a great overview and varied insights into the field.

Publication of Yosef Yerushalmi's Zakhor in 1982 inspired a generation of scholarly inquiry into historical images and myths, the construction of the Jewish past, and the making and meaning of collective memory. Here, eminent scholars in their respective fields extend the lines of his seminal study into topics that range from medieval rabbinics, homiletics, kabbalah, and Hasidism to antisemitism, Zionism, and the making of modern Jewish identity. Essays are clustered around four central themes: historical consciousness and the construction of memory; the relationship between time and history in Jewish thought; the demise of traditional forms of collective memory; and the writing of Jewish history in modern times.