Search Results

Decline (1713–1750)

JONATHAN I. ISRAEL

in European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism 1550–1750

It is important to note that during the expansion of the European Jewry, the diaspora undergone by the Jewish population – especially in central Europe, Spain, Poland, and Italy – veered away from ... More

It is important to note that during the expansion of the European Jewry, the diaspora undergone by the Jewish population – especially in central Europe, Spain, Poland, and Italy – veered away from the general demographic trends across Europe, since other populations either experienced declines or remained stagnated. This pattern was evident not only among the Jews across Europe in the seventeenth century, but also in other such places wherein their growth and expansion were not inhibited. This chapter, however, discusses how the period between 1713 and 1750 marked a significant decline in the demographic position of the European Jewry, wherein the growth of the population was evidently slower that the proliferation of other societies, the society being seemingly incapable of facilitating growth during this particular period.Less

Epilogue

Derek J. Penslar

in Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe

This chapter talks about the massacre of two-thirds of European Jewry in the Holocaust, which, combined with the economic modernization of postwar Europe, has eliminated the Jews from their previous ... More

This chapter talks about the massacre of two-thirds of European Jewry in the Holocaust, which, combined with the economic modernization of postwar Europe, has eliminated the Jews from their previous position as a prominent urban elite in what had been the largely agrarian societies of east-central and eastern Europe. Even before the war, German and Austrian Jewry had been pauperized by the expropriation of Jewish businesses, property, and capital. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when capitalism's transfiguration of Europe was the guiding star of the social thought, speculation about the position of Jews in Europe (the Jewish Question) could not be separated from anxiety about the new industrial order (the social question). Jews continue to have grave, even existential problems, but for the vast majority of world Jewry, the “Jewish question” as it was understood throughout modern European history has ceased to exist.Less

Conclusion

JONATHAN I. ISRAEL

in European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism 1550–1750

For the European Jewry, the eighteenth century marked another significant event in history, as this was the period in which the community experienced a ‘decline’; somewhat contrary to previous ... More

For the European Jewry, the eighteenth century marked another significant event in history, as this was the period in which the community experienced a ‘decline’; somewhat contrary to previous accounts, in which the Jewish integration was initially proceeded with acceleration. Ellis Rivkin, a contemporary historian, expressed how such was to be viewed as a shift from emphasizing ‘liberating ideas’ to what he termed ‘developing capitalism’. As he too believed that the eighteenth century was a period of economic growth across the west, he emphasized the notion of increasing freedom in terms of economic movement and opportunity. In this chapter, although the decline in the eighteenth century is rather doubtful, we look back at the significant impacts of the Jewish influence on early modern European life.Less

The Construction of a Secular Jewish Identity: European and American Influences in Israeli Education

S. Ilan Troen

in Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel and America

This chapter discusses the construction of new identities by examining how European Jews understood the purposes and meanings of Zionism in Zion. Pioneers built Zionism on a rejection of Europe and ... More

This chapter discusses the construction of new identities by examining how European Jews understood the purposes and meanings of Zionism in Zion. Pioneers built Zionism on a rejection of Europe and an anticipation of creating an alternative modern Jewish personality. The analysis presented in the chapter rests on a study of the largest social institution established by Zionist society: a secular, public school system. Through it, Zionist ideologues, public officials, and educators attempted to transform European Jewry. Willing to preserve what they admired in the culture of the shtetl, they rejected its passivity in the face of physical threats and actual violence. These educators insisted on a new national, educational, cultural ideal. The chapter reveals that in turning away from the traditional orthodox schooling of the shtetl, Zionists developed a new curriculum to produce modern, secularized Jews who were capable of defending themselves and their homeland.Less

Conclusion

Eliyahu Stern

in The Genius

This chapter explains that the experience of Jewish modernity tends to be seen as a process of secularization; an arc starting with the Jews living under static corporate structures and ending with ... More

This chapter explains that the experience of Jewish modernity tends to be seen as a process of secularization; an arc starting with the Jews living under static corporate structures and ending with their becoming citizens of nation-states, congregants of reformed synagogues, and acculturated members of civil society. It notes that this shift was inaugurated by Moses Mendelssohn and his Berlin-based followers. The farther modernity travelled across Europe, the more it barely registered in eastern European Jewry's religious expressions, intellectual institutions, and political movements.Less

Lingering Stereotypes and Jewish Displaced Persons

Michael Berkowitz

in The Crime of My Very Existence: Nazism and the Myth of Jewish Criminality

This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II ... More

This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II Europe in what came to be known as the DP, or “displaced-persons” problem. Because racial anti-Semitism was a possibly questionable way to express opinions in postwar Germany, especially in the U.S. zone of occupation toward which most Jewish DPs migrated, Germans' view of Jews as criminals was a major factor in the dynamic between Jews, Germans, and the U.S. Army. The chapter also notes that the presence of a thriving black market certainly abetted the perception of DPs as a “criminal element,” and a number of forces combined to ensure that DPs had few other means, outside of the black market, to survive.Less

Introduction

in Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation

This book examines the Jews and Jewish communities of Moravia during the Age of Emancipation. It takes a comparative approach to Moravian Jewry and sheds light on the religious, ideological, ... More

This book examines the Jews and Jewish communities of Moravia during the Age of Emancipation. It takes a comparative approach to Moravian Jewry and sheds light on the religious, ideological, political, and socioeconomic challenges that transformed Central European Jewry.Less

“A Drastically Bifurcated Legacy”: Homeland and Jewish Identity in Contemporary Jewish American Literature

Tresa Grauer

in Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel and America

This chapter argues that Zionist responses to the powerlessness of European Jewry also entered the consciousness and art of American Jews, who shared the idea that building a Jewish state reflected ... More

This chapter argues that Zionist responses to the powerlessness of European Jewry also entered the consciousness and art of American Jews, who shared the idea that building a Jewish state reflected courage and symbolized a will to live. Expressions of this conviction are found in the writings of Meyer Levin and Leon Uris, who wrote from the perspective of the Jewish people's need for security, a deep sense of the injustice visited on Jews, and an appreciation for the virtue and courage of those who established Israel as an appropriate and necessary response to the Holocaust. The chapter traces and analyzes the decline of this view in the American Jewish experience, focusing on the work of Philip Roth, particularly The Counterlife (1986) and Operation Shylock (1993).Less

Covenantal Communities

S. Ilan Troen

in Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs, and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement

This chapter discusses the first generation of pioneers and planners who imagined a land filled with villages in imitation of the Europe they had known before emigration. They assumed that the ... More

This chapter discusses the first generation of pioneers and planners who imagined a land filled with villages in imitation of the Europe they had known before emigration. They assumed that the European experience could be applied directly to changing European Jewry into a Middle Eastern peasantry. Jewish agricultural colonization transformed Palestine from a poorly developed and backward country into a land that supports hundreds of villages and boasts one of the most modern and efficient agricultural systems in the world. This result, however, was not achieved merely by transplanting European models. Nearly fifty years of systematic experimentation and adaptation were necessary to produce the methods by which a modern nation based on villages might be established. In the course of a process of trial and error, the economy and agricultural technology of the Zionist village were necessarily transformed.Less

Primo Levi's Correspondence with Hety Schmitt-Maas

Ian Thomson

in Answering Auschwitz: Primo Levi's Science and Humanism after the Fall

A complicated, difficult man, Levi was noted for his determination to keep secret what he wished to keep secret. His late essay collection, The Drowned and the Saved typically contains many elisions ... More

A complicated, difficult man, Levi was noted for his determination to keep secret what he wished to keep secret. His late essay collection, The Drowned and the Saved typically contains many elisions and concealments. In one chapter, Levi refers to a German admirer of his as “Mrs. Hety S”; in the course of her life she wrote a total of fifty-seven letters to Levi. Hety Schmitt-Maas, the real-life “Mrs. Hety S,” had corresponded with Levi for almost twenty years and was vitally important to him as a writer. Sections of Levi's books could not have been written without her. From her home in Wiesbaden, she put Levi in touch with writer friends and other contacts in Germany, creating an ever-expanding network of correspondence among them. In this way she hoped to counteract Himmler's cynical pledge that the destruction of European Jewry would be an “unwritten page of glory.”Less

Conclusion

John M. Efron

in Medicine and the German Jews: A History

This book concludes with a retelling of how the Nazis obliterated the prolonged and intense German Jewish involvement with medicine as part of their war of extermination against European Jewry. ... More

This book concludes with a retelling of how the Nazis obliterated the prolonged and intense German Jewish involvement with medicine as part of their war of extermination against European Jewry. Stretching from the Middle Ages to the Holocaust, the Jewish engagement with medicine was truly reflective of Jewish life and values. Because Judaism regards the physical and mental well-being of its adherents as a sine qua non of a religiously fulfilled and fulfilling experience, the sages of antiquity saw the doctor as playing a vital role. For this reason, physicians had long been esteemed figures in Jewish society, and the eagerness with which their services were sought was regarded as an expression of the fundamental tenets of Judaism. In fact, the cultural and social worlds of the Jewish people were dominated by a sense that the doctor was an asset to society, and a partner of God.Less

Léon Poliakov, the Origins of Holocaust Studies, and Theories of Anti-Semitism: Rereading Bréviaire de la haine

Jonathan Judaken

in Post-Holocaust France and the Jews, 1945-1955

This chapter explores Léon Poliakov’s often unacknowledged contributions to the establishment of Holocaust studies and how he understood a key engine in the machinery of the destruction of European ... More

This chapter explores Léon Poliakov’s often unacknowledged contributions to the establishment of Holocaust studies and how he understood a key engine in the machinery of the destruction of European Jewry: anti-Semitism. Poliakov’s breakthrough book, Bréviaire de la haine: Le IIIe Reich et les juifs (Harvest of Hate), published in 1951, was the first general history of the Holocaust. As a foundational survey of the Holocaust—widely disseminated, wide-ranging, and with penetrating insights—Poliakov’s work became a palimpsest that sketched key aspects of the Shoah that were developed and treated by others, but rarely with full credit to their origins in his work. Also, Poliakov’s interpretation of Nazi anti-Semitism was profoundly perceptive and merits consideration in its own right.Less

Historical and Theoretical Considerations

Alexandra Garbarini

in Numbered Days: Diaries and the Holocaust

This chapter looks at the historical and theoretical considerations that surround the manner through which the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of European Jewish men and women have related their ... More

This chapter looks at the historical and theoretical considerations that surround the manner through which the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of European Jewish men and women have related their experiences. It looks at the personal diaries of those that lived and survived throughout the experience in an attempt to understand and survey Jewish victims' responses to the genocide they saw. These diaries also constitute one component of their responses—the victims of the genocide produced written testaments for their relatives abroad and for the world at large in order to preserve the memory of the mass extermination that went on. From April through October 1943, for example, Kalman Rotgeber gave testimony about three-and-a-half years of German occupation from a hiding place on the “Aryan” side of Warsaw.Less

Political and Theological Dissent, 1953–1967

Caitlin Carenen

in The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel

This chapter recounts the challenges faced by the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC), including opposition from the American Council on Judaism and the American Friends of the Middle East, ... More

This chapter recounts the challenges faced by the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC), including opposition from the American Council on Judaism and the American Friends of the Middle East, as well as the myriad tensions brought about by the Cold War. The organization's purpose was to arouse Christian concern in pointing out the plight of European Jewry during and after the war and acknowledge their desire to go to Palestine. Additionally, it tried to note the historic ties of the Jewish people to Palestine—something which many American Christians had forgotten, overlooked, or not even known. Fortunately, the ACPC—the most powerful pro-Israel Christian organization in the United States—had, on the whole, succeeded in its mission to develop a solid grass-roots basis for Protestant support for Israel in the United States.Less

The Journey to Palestine

Gur Alroey

in An Unpromising Land: Jewish Migration to Palestine in the Early Twentieth Century

The aim of this chapter is to examine the journey to Palestine in a comparative perspective, beginning with the bureaucracy involved in the emigration process, tracing the journey by train to the ... More

The aim of this chapter is to examine the journey to Palestine in a comparative perspective, beginning with the bureaucracy involved in the emigration process, tracing the journey by train to the ports of departure Odessa and Trieste, and ending with the sea voyage and arrival in the port of Jaffa.Less