David B. Ruderman
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781874774617
- eISBN:
- 9781800340145
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781874774617.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter investigates a largely unexplored facet of English Jewish history, reopening the issue of whether there was a Haskalah in England. Historians generally contend that the modernization of ...
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This chapter investigates a largely unexplored facet of English Jewish history, reopening the issue of whether there was a Haskalah in England. Historians generally contend that the modernization of England's Jews was not ideological but was shaped by the irresistible pull of English society. In this view, the creative work of diverse Anglo-Jewish thinkers is seen as a specifically Jewish phenomenon, a response to English openness and tolerance. In contrast, the chapter points to a number of thinkers who were in contact with English intellectuals and were influenced by such important trends as Lockian philosophy, millenarianism, Newtonianism, deism, and atheism. The discovery of this English Jewish intellectual current prior to the Berlin Haskalah, and apparently unrelated to the work of other maskilim, certainly provides students of the Haskalah with food for thought.Less
This chapter investigates a largely unexplored facet of English Jewish history, reopening the issue of whether there was a Haskalah in England. Historians generally contend that the modernization of England's Jews was not ideological but was shaped by the irresistible pull of English society. In this view, the creative work of diverse Anglo-Jewish thinkers is seen as a specifically Jewish phenomenon, a response to English openness and tolerance. In contrast, the chapter points to a number of thinkers who were in contact with English intellectuals and were influenced by such important trends as Lockian philosophy, millenarianism, Newtonianism, deism, and atheism. The discovery of this English Jewish intellectual current prior to the Berlin Haskalah, and apparently unrelated to the work of other maskilim, certainly provides students of the Haskalah with food for thought.
Todd M. Endelman
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781904113010
- eISBN:
- 9781800342606
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781904113010.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book seeks to expand the horizons of modern Jewish historiography by focusing on 'ordinary' rather than exceptional Jews, arguing that what ordinary people did or felt can do more to deepen our ...
More
This book seeks to expand the horizons of modern Jewish historiography by focusing on 'ordinary' rather than exceptional Jews, arguing that what ordinary people did or felt can do more to deepen our understanding of Jewish history than what a few exceptional individuals thought and wrote. The book makes a strong case for comparative history, showing convincingly that only a comparison across national borders can identify the Germanness of German Jewish history or the Englishness of English Jewish history, and thereby reveal what is unique about each. The book redefines the area under consideration and deftly restates the need for Jewish social history to counterbalance the current focus on cultural studies. The book offers an important examination of the major trends in the writing of modern Jewish history and the assumptions that have guided historians in their narration of the Jewish past. It shows in particular how the two watershed events of twentieth-century Jewish history — the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel — influenced Jewish historiography for decades thereafter. It also demonstrates how progressive integration into the scholarly framework of American academia has shaped both the form and the content of Jewish historical research. Each of the case studies focuses on a largely unknown figure whose career illustrates the often tortuous paths of integration and acceptance that Jews faced. Some achieved fleeting fame but many of the people who populate the volume remain altogether unknown, their histories recoverable only as statistics.Less
This book seeks to expand the horizons of modern Jewish historiography by focusing on 'ordinary' rather than exceptional Jews, arguing that what ordinary people did or felt can do more to deepen our understanding of Jewish history than what a few exceptional individuals thought and wrote. The book makes a strong case for comparative history, showing convincingly that only a comparison across national borders can identify the Germanness of German Jewish history or the Englishness of English Jewish history, and thereby reveal what is unique about each. The book redefines the area under consideration and deftly restates the need for Jewish social history to counterbalance the current focus on cultural studies. The book offers an important examination of the major trends in the writing of modern Jewish history and the assumptions that have guided historians in their narration of the Jewish past. It shows in particular how the two watershed events of twentieth-century Jewish history — the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel — influenced Jewish historiography for decades thereafter. It also demonstrates how progressive integration into the scholarly framework of American academia has shaped both the form and the content of Jewish historical research. Each of the case studies focuses on a largely unknown figure whose career illustrates the often tortuous paths of integration and acceptance that Jews faced. Some achieved fleeting fame but many of the people who populate the volume remain altogether unknown, their histories recoverable only as statistics.
