Full Description
Judaism and Jewish life reflect a diversity of identity after the past two centuries of modernization. This work examines how the early reformers of the 19th century and their legacy into the 20th century created a livable, liberal Jewish identity that allowed a reinvention of what it meant to be Jewish—a process that continues today.
Many scholars of the modern Jewish identity focus on the ways in which the past two centuries have resulted in the loss of Jewishness: through "assimilation," intermarriage, conversion to other faiths, genocide (in the Holocaust), and decline in religious observance. In this work, author Frederick S. Roden presents a decidedly different perspective: that the changes in Judaism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries resulted in a malleable, welcoming, and expanded Jewish identity—one that has benefited from intermarriage and converts to Judaism.
The book examines key issues in the modern definition of Jewish identity: who is and is not considered a Jew, and why; issues of Jewish "authenticity"; and the recent history of the debate. Attention is paid to the experiences of individuals who came to Judaism from outside the tradition: through marrying into Jewish families and/or choosing Judaism as a religion. In his consideration of the tragedy of the Holocaust, the author examines how a totalitarian regime's racial policing of Jewish identity served to awaken a connection with and reconfiguration of what that Jewish identity meant for those who retrospectively realized their Jewishness in the postwar era.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Authentically Jewish? Of Marranos, Mischlinge, and Gerim
Part One: The Making of Modern Jewish Identity: "Race" versus "Religion" and the Mission of Judaism
1. Jews and Modernity: German and American Contexts
2. The Development of a Reform Theology and Practice
3. The Mission of Judaism: Proselytism and Conversion at the Turn of the Century
Part Two: Modernity Redefined: Nazism's Ethnic and Cultural Legacies
4. Mischlingkeit: Nazi Racial Law and the Invention of Mixed Identity
5. Contested Identities and Christian Representations
6. Reluctant Awakenings: Imperatives to Jewishness
Part Three: Post-Holocaust Jewish Identities
7. Being and Believing in the Aftermath of the Shoah
8. The New Proselytes and "Jews by Choice": From Mission of Israel to Missionary Judaism
9. Turns and Returns to Judaism: Modern and Postmodern Possibilities
Epilogue: Revisiting "The Jew" and "The Other"
Notes
Bibliography
Index
