Full Description
Europe has changed greatly in the last century.Political, social, and ideological transformations have not only redrawn themap of the continent but have rewoven the fabric of its culture. These changeshave nourished widespread reassessment in European historical research: interms of its presuppositions, its methodologies, its directions, its emphases,and its scope. The political boundaries between nations and states, along withthe very concepts of 'nation' and 'boundary', have changed significantly, andthe self-consciousness of ethnic minorities has likewise evolved in newdirections. All these developments have affected how the Jews of Europeperceive themselves, and they help to shape the prism through which historiansview the Jewish past.Thisvolume looks at the Jewish past in the spirit of this reassessment. Part Ireconsiders the basic parameters of the subject as well as some of itsfundamental concepts, suggesting new assumptions and perspectives from which toconduct future studies of European Jewish history. Topics covered here includeperiodization and the definition of geographical borders, antisemitism, genderand the history of Jewish women, and notions of assimilation. Part II isdevoted to articulating the meaning of 'modernity' in the historyof European Jewry and demarcating key stages in its crystallization.Contributors here reflect on the defining characteristics of a distinct earlymodern period in European Jewish history, the Reformation and the Jews, and thefundamental features of the Jewish experience in modern times.Parts III and IV present two scholarly conversations as case studies for theapplication of the critical and programmatic categories considered thus far:the complex web of relationships between Jews, Christians, and Jewish convertsto Christianity (Conversos, New Christians, Marranos) in fifteenth-centurySpain; and the impact of American Jewry on Jewish life in Europe in the twentiethcentury, at a time when the dominant trend was one of migration from Europe tothe Americas.Thistimely volume suggests a new framework for the study of Jewish history andhelps to contextualize it within the mainstream of historical scholarship.CONTRIBUTORS: Ram Ben-Shalom, Miriam Bodian, JeremyCohen, Judah M. Cohen, David Engel, Gershon David Hundert, Paula Hyman, MaudMandel, David Nirenberg, Moshe Rosman, David B. Ruderman, Daniel Soyer
Contents
Note on TransliterationIntroduction - Jeremy CohenPart I Reorienting The Narrative1 Jewish History Across Borders - Moshe Rosman2 Away from a Definition of Antisemitism: An Essay in the Semantics of Historical Description - David Engel3 Does Gender Matter? Locating Women in European Jewish History - Paula Hyman4 Assimilation and Cultural Exchange in Modern Jewish History - Maud MandelPart II From the Middle Ages to Modernity5 Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe: An Agenda for Future Study - David B. Ruderman6 The Reformation and the Jews - Miriam Bodian7 Re(de)fining Modernity in Jewish History - Gershon David HundertPart III On the Eve of the Spanish Expulsion8 Spanish 'Judaism' and 'Christianity' in an Age of Mass Conversion - David Nirenberg9 The Social Context of Apostasy in Fifteenth-Century Spanish Jewry: Dynamics of a New Religious Borderland - Ram Ben-ShalomPart IV From Europe to America and Back10 Transnationalism and Mutual Influence: American and East European Jewries in the 1920s and 1930s - Daniel Soyer11 Transplanting the Heart Back East: Returning Jewish Musical Culture from the United States to Europe - Judah M. CohenNotes on ContributorsIndex
