Out of the Ghetto is an account of the developing interrelationship between the Jews and their Gentile environment unique in its breadth and objectivity. He presents the story of Jewish emancipation as a whole, from both Jewish and non-Jewish points of view. If the results of the Jewish emancipation process differed from country to country, the forces effecting the changes were identical—the upheaval of the French Revolution, the loosening of bonds between church and state, and the ideas of the Enlightenment. It was those humanistic ideas which made possible the Jew's transition from the ghetto to partial inclusion in society at large and which attracted Jewish intellectuals to the "secular knowledge" of languages, mathematics, philosophy, and the wider world beyond their ancient learning.
In this lovely and moving memoir, the world's most distinguished scholar of Jewish social history recalls a life that in many ways encapsulates the arduous path of the remnant of East European Jewry through the cataclysmic events of this century. After a childhood in the crumbling Hapsburg Empire, Jacob Katz left his native Hungary to attend the famous Yeshiva of Pressburg. He later entered the University of Frankfurt, where in 1934 he received the last doctorate granted to a Jew in Nazi Germany. Heeding ominous undercurrents, Katz immigrated to Palestine-Israel in 1936. There he witnessed the birth of the new state and the growth of the prestigious Hebrew University. With My Own Eyes, guided by the hand and eye of the consummate historian, poignantly recreates the atmosphere of the period in which the author has lived.
Katz here presents a major reinterpretation of modern anti-Semitism, revising the prevalent thesis that medieval and modern animosities against Jews were fundamentally different.
A new edition of Katz's study of European Jewish society at end of the Middle Ages. It taps into a rich source, the responsa literature of the Rabbinic establishment of the time, a time when self-governing communities of Jews dealt with their own civil and religious issues.
A sampling of the writing of the American rabbi and scholar Agus (1911-86), who was born and raised in an orthodox environment but was highly influenced by American liberalism, and critiqued both traditions wile seeking to integrate them. The 25 selections demonstrate his work in modern and medieval Jewish philosophy, Jewish- Christian dialogue, American Judaism, the concept of God, Jewish law as standards, and other areas. Includes a complete primary bibliography. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The contributors to this volume throw light on one of the central problems of modern Jewish historiography: How has Jewry and Judaism survived the crisis of the breakup of Jewish traditional society, the transition from the dosed, ghetto existence into a more or less open environment? The process of development, starting in eighteenth-century Germany, gradually encompassed the entire world of European Jewish experience. Toward Modernity compares modernization in Germany with its counterparts in other countries to see if the German-Jewish development had any influence on what transpired elsewhere. The authors explore the history of Jewish modernization in Russia, Galicia, Vienna, Prague, Hungary, Holland, France, England, Italy, and the United States. Topics covered include: the political and social authority of Jewish community institutions; external impediments and internal inhibitions for Jews to be absorbed by the dominant culture; the relationship of the state to the Jewish community; educational and religious reform; the influence of the rational scientific worldview; and the possibility of inclusion in the emerging middle classes. Contents: Jacob Katz, "Introduction"; Emanuel Etkes, "Immanent Factors and External Influences in the Development of the Haskala Movement in Russia"; Israel Bartal, '"The Heavenly City of Germany' and Absolutism a la Mode D'Autriche: The Rise of the Haskala in Galicia"; Robert S. Wistrich, "The Modernization of Viennese Jewry: The Impact of German Culture in a Multiethnic State"; Hillel J. Kieval, "Caution's Progress: The Modernization of Jewish Life in Prague, 1780-1830"; Michael Silber, "The German Jewish Experience and Its Impact on Hungarian Jewry, 1780-1870"; Michael Graetz, "The History of an Estrangement between Two Jewish Communities: German and French Jewry during the Nineteenth Century"; Joseph Michman, "The Impact of German-Jewish Modernization on Dutch Jewry"; Lois C. Dubin, "Trieste and Berlin: The Italian Role in the Cultural Politics of the Haskalah"; Todd M. Endelman, "The Englishness of Jewish Modernity in England"; Michael A. Meyer, "German Jewish Identity in Nineteenth Century America.
In Between and Across acknowledges the boundaries that have separated different modes of historical inquiry, but views law as a way of talking across them. It recognizes that legal history allows scholars to talk across many boundaries, such as those between markets and politics, between identity and state power, as well as between national borders and the flows of people, capital and ideas around the world.
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