Rethinking European Jewish History

National Jewish Book Awards Winnerof the Anthologies and Collections Award, 2009.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