The transformation of the human sciences into the social sciences in the third part of the 19th century was closely related to attempts to develop and implement methods for dealing with social tensions and the rationalization of society. This book studies the connections between academic disciplines and notions of Jewish assimilation and integration and demonstrates that the quest for Jewish assimilation is linked to and built into the conceptual foundations of modern social science disciplines. Focusing on two influential "assimilated" Jewish authors—anthropologist Franz Boas and sociologist Georg Simmel—this study shows that epistemological considerations underlie the authors' respective evaluations of the Jews' assimilation in German and American societies as a form of "group extinction" or as a form of "social identity." This conceptual model gives a new "key" to understanding pivotal issues in recent Jewish history and in the history of the social sciences.

France is the only Western European nation home to substantial numbers of survivors of the World War I and World War II genocides. In the Aftermath of Genocide offers a unique comparison of the country’s Armenian and Jewish survivor communities. By demonstrating how—in spite of significant differences between these two populations—striking similarities emerge in the ways each responded to genocide, Maud S. Mandel illuminates the impact of the nation-state on ethnic and religious minorities in twentieth-century Europe and provides a valuable theoretical framework for considering issues of transnational identity. Investigating each community’s response to its violent past, Mandel reflects on how shifts in ethnic, religious, and national affiliations were influenced by that group’s recent history. The book examines these issues in the context of France’s long commitment to a politics of integration and homogenization—a politics geared toward the establishment of equal rights and legal status for all citizens, but not toward the accommodation of cultural diversity. In the Aftermath of Genocide reveals that Armenian and Jewish survivors rarely sought to shed the obvious symbols of their ethnic and religious identities. Mandel shows that following the 1915 genocide and the Holocaust, these communities, if anything, seemed increasingly willing to mobilize in their own self-defense and thereby call attention to their distinctiveness. Most Armenian and Jewish survivors were neither prepared to give up their minority status nor willing to migrate to their national homelands of Armenia and Israel. In the Aftermath of Genocide suggests that the consolidation of the nation-state system in twentieth-century Europe led survivors of genocide to fashion identities for themselves as ethnic minorities despite the dangers implicit in that status.

Now in paperback! Taking Hold of Torah Jewish Commitment and Community in America Arnold M. Eisen A personal meditation on the meaning of Judaism today and a vision for revitalizing Jewish community and tradition in America. "Arnold M. Eisen offers a personal plea for—and a vision of—the revitalizing of American Judaism through a renewed relationship to Jewish tradition and the strengthening of Jewish communities." —Jewish Book News "...required reading for Jewish communal professionals, [Taking Hold of Torah] spells out the discontents and dreams of the baby boomers and their children who are reinventing Jewish communal life for the modern world." —Jewish Exponent "Melding autobiography with biblical exegesis, philosophical speculation and a program for Jewish educational reform, the book is an unbuttoned riff on what's ailing modern Jews." —Forward "...a personal story of a modern Jew trying to make sense of Judaism in a time when Jews can choose whether and how to be Jewish...." —The Jewish Advocate Jews, like other Americans, have both benefitted and suffered from the fraying of traditional loyalties that has come to characterize modern American culture. In each of the five chapters, Arnold M. Eisen examines a major issue or theme related to his vision for the renewal of Jewish communities—in terms of one of the five books of the Torah. What is the meaning and purpose of Jewish tradition? What is the significance of faith and covenant? What are the contemporary uses of ritual? What should a new agenda for politics in American Jewish life include? What legacy is to be left to future generations? This encouraging work is essential reading for anyone concerned with questions of Jewish faith and the future of Judaism in America. Arnold M. Eisen is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Stanford University, a frequent speaker on issues related to contemporary Jewish life before lay and scholarly audiences throughout North America, and an active participant in communal discussions concerning the future of American Judaism. His publications include The Chosen People in America (Indiana University Press) and Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community, winner of a Koret Jewish Book Award. The Helen and Martin Schwartz Lectures in Jewish Studies Contents: Introduction 1. Genesis: Taking on Tradition 2. Exodus: History, Faith, and Covenant 3. Leviticus: Ritual and Community 4. Numbers: Politics in the Wilderness 5. Deuteronomy: Legacies

Up until the 1970s, a large proportion of Aboriginal people in Australia had some experience in institutions as part of government assimilation and protection policies. By focusing on three communities in South Australia, this book attempts to understand the consequences of this institutionalization for Aborigines and Australian society in general. Peggy Brock uses the word "ghetto" to evoke the nature of the missions in which many Aboriginal people settled for generations, as ghettos both oppress and nurture. The book shows that Aboriginal people often chose to live in the missions as part of creative strategies to ensure their own survival. This constructive and insightful study should become a central text in Aboriginal Studies and Australian history.

Headlines from France suggest that the country's Jews and Muslims are inevitably at odds. But the past tells a different story. In this sweeping history from World War I to the present, Ethan Katz shows that Jewish-Muslim relations were more complex, shaped by everyday encounters and perceptions of deeply rooted similarities as well as differences.

In September 1791, two years after the Revolution, French Jews were granted full rights of citizenship. Scholarship has traditionally focused on this turning point of emancipation while often overlooking much of what came before. In Rites and Passages, Jay R. Berkovitz argues that no serious treatment of Jewish emancipation can ignore the cultural history of the Jews during the ancien régime. It was during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that several lasting paradigms emerged within the Jewish community—including the distinction between rural and urban communities, the formation of a strong lay leadership, heightened divisions between popular and elite religion, and the strain between local and regional identities. Each of these developments reflected the growing tension between tradition and modernity before the tumultuous events of the French Revolution.Rites and Passages emphasizes the resilience of religious tradition during periods of social and political turbulence. Viewing French Jewish history through the lens of ritual, Berkovitz describes the struggles of the French Jewish minority to maintain its cultural distinctiveness while also participating in the larger social and economic matrix. In the ancien régime, ritual systems were a formative element in the traditional worldview and served as a crucial repository of memories and values. After the Revolution, ritual signaled changes in the way Jews related to the state, French society, and French culture. In the cities especially, ritual assumed a performative function that dramatized the epoch-making changes of the day. The terms and concepts of the Jewish religious tradition thus remained central to the discourse of modernization and played a powerful role in helping French Jews interpret the diverse meanings and implications of emancipation. Introducing new and previously unused primary sources, Rites and Passages offers a fresh perspective on the dynamic relationship between tradition and modernity.