63 results for "Jewish History"

Muslims and Jews in France: history of a conflict

Mandel, Maud
This book traces the global, national, and local origins of the conflict between Muslims and Jews in France, challenging the belief that rising anti-Semitism in France is rooted solely in the unfolding crisis in Israel and Palestine. Maud Mandel shows how the conflict in fact emerged from processes internal to French society itself even as it was shaped by affairs elsewhere, particularly in North Africa during the era of decolonization. Mandel examines moments in which conflicts between Muslims and Jews became a matter of concern to French police, the media, and an array of self-appointed spokesmen from both communities: Israel's War of Independence in 1948, France's decolonization of North Africa, the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the 1968 student riots, and François Mitterrand's experiments with multiculturalism in the 1980s. She takes an in-depth, on-the-ground look at interethnic relations in Marseille, which is home to the country's largest Muslim and Jewish populations outside of Paris. She reveals how Muslims and Jews in France have related to each other in diverse ways throughout this history--as former residents of French North Africa, as immigrants competing for limited resources, as employers and employees, as victims of racist aggression, as religious minorities in a secularizing state, and as French citizens. In Muslims and Jews in France, Mandel traces the way these multiple, complex interactions have been overshadowed and obscured by a reductionist narrative of Muslim-Jewish polarization.
Princeton University Press 2014 253 pages

The making of the Jewish middle class: women, family, and identity in imperial Germany

Kaplan, Marion A.
Describes the life of Jewish middle-class women in Wilhelmine Germany. Pp. 148-152, "Anti-Semitism in the University, " state that until about 1905 women students, discriminated against because of their sex, tended to show solidarity by forming organizations open to all, in contrast to the segregated male students' organizations. Russian Jewish women were especially despised, even by German Jewish male students. Pp. 182-185 describe discrimination against Jewish teachers, noting that their chances of employment were highly limited. See also the index under "Anti-Semitism."
Oxford University Press 1991 351 pages

Yankel's tavern: Jews, liquor, and life in the Kingdom of Poland

Dynner, Glenn
In nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, the Jewish-run tavern was often the center of leisure, hospitality, business, and even religious festivities. This unusual situation came about because the nobles who owned taverns throughout the formerly Polish lands believed that only Jews were sober enough to run taverns profitably, a belief so ingrained as to endure even the rise of Hasidisms robust drinking culture. As liquor became the regions boom industry, Jewish tavernkeepers became integral to both local economies and local social life, presiding over Christian celebrations and dispensing advice, medical remedies and loans. Nevertheless, reformers and government officials, blaming Jewish tavernkeepers for epidemic peasant drunkenness, sought to drive Jews out of the liquor trade. Their efforts were particularly intense and sustained in the Kingdom of Poland, a semi-autonomous province of the Russian empire that was often treated as a laboratory for social and political change. Historians have assumed that this spelled the end of the Polish Jewish liquor trade. However, newly discovered archival sources demonstrate that many nobles helped their Jewish tavernkeepers evade fees, bans and expulsions by installing Christians as fronts for their taverns. The resulta vast underground Jewish liquor tradereflects an impressive level of local Polish-Jewish co-existence that contrasts with the more familiar story of anti-Semitism and violence. By tapping into sources that reveal the lives of everyday Jews and Christians in the Kingdom of Poland, Yankels Tavern transforms our understanding of the region during the tumultuous period of Polish uprisings and Jewish mystical revival.
Oxford University Press 2014 249 pages

In the aftermath of genocide: Armenians and Jews in twentieth-century France

Mandel, Maud
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.
Duke University Press 2003-07-04 317 pages

In my opinion..: thoughts on religion, society and life by a very opinionated rabbi

Wein, Berel
F or several decades, informed readers sought out Rabbi Berel Wein'sopinion column in his weekly Destiny Foundation blog, in the Jerusalem Post, and other publications to gain his perspective on current issues. Theproducts of his highly educated and sensitive mind, the essays were uniquely"Wein"- always original, always refreshing in their candor, and subtly thought provoking. Who else could experience uplift from an orchid plant or discover thecore values of the Jewish nation in the words of Israel's taxi drivers?His sweeping gaze simultaneously takes in past, present, and future.Continually aware of history and its impact on today's events, he looks at anempty field in the Land of Israel and sees not only the farmer with his plow today,but one who worked the same land two thousand years ago. And with heartfeltfaith and a vibrant awareness of ancient prophecy, he envisions those who willharvest that field in the future. In this troubled, insecure age of ours, he provesthat one can, one must, be a realist and an optimist at the same time.The best of these valuable essays have been collected for this volume. If youare fan of Rabbi Wein's writing, you will feel as though you are encountering anold friend. If you are not already familiar with Rabbi Wein's take on life, you are infor a treat.
The Destiny Foundation 2020 345 pages

Green crescent over Nazareth: the displacement of Christians by Muslims in the Holy Land

Israeli, Raphael
Green Crescent over Nazareth is the story of the cultural and political struggle between Christians and Muslims, and of the rapid Islamization of Nazareth - the birthplace of Christianity - ironically, under the rule of the Jewish State of Israel. Until the creation of Israel in 1948, Christians formed the majority in the township of Nazareth. However, as Muslim refugees fled adjoining villages for the safety of the city during Israel's War of Independence, the demographic balance began to shift. The higher birthrate among the less educated and poorer Muslim population and the rapid exodus of outnumbered and frustrated Christians quickened the pace of change.By the year 2000, Christians had been reduced to a mere 30 per cent of the city's population of 60,000.
F. Cass 2002 194 pages

Jewish subjects and their tribal chieftains in Kurdistan: a study in survival

Zaken, Mordechai
"Based on new oral sources, carefully analyzed, this book explores the relationships between Jewish subjects and their tribal chieftains in Kurdistan, focusing on the patronage and justice provided by the chieftains and the financial support provided by the Jews to endure troubles and caprices of chieftains. New reports and vivid tales unveil the status of Jews in the tribal setting; the slavery of rural Jews; the conversion to Islam and the defense mechanisms adopted by Jewish leaders to annul conversion of abducted women. Other topics are the trade and occupations of the Jews and their financial exploitation by chieftains. The last part explores the experience of Jewish communities in Iraqi Kurdistan between World War I and the mass-migration to Israel (1951-52)."--Jacket.
Brill 2007-01-01 375 pages

Unwelcome strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany

Wertheimer, Jack
Pt. 1 (pp. 9-74) describes the German attitude toward aliens, and antisemitism amongst the bureaucracy. Unlike Polish immigrant workers, the Jews were considered economically useless and politically subversive. The organized antisemitic movement vilified the immigrants and characterized all German Jews as aliens and parasites. They did not succeed in banning Jewish immigration through legislation, but many of their demands for restrictions were accepted. Emphasizes the influence of Prussia in formulating anti-Jewish policy, with mass expulsions, strict border controls, and naturalization of Jews only in exceptional circumstances. The rest of the book deals with the attitudes of German Jews who, in contrast to the popular view, provided legal aid, political support through self-defense organizations, and welfare. A few individuals were hostile, perhaps fueled by self-hatred, but most were ambivalent. Concludes that Germany's use of administrative measures directed specifically at Jews demonstrates the fragility of the emancipation.
Oxford University Press 1987 275 pages

My mother's house

Tobias, Lily
A remarkable insight into Jewish history in Britain, 'My Mother's House' is a poignant story of belonging, nationhood and identity set in Wales, England and Palestine. The first novel from the acclaimed author of Eunice Fleet - a poignant story of belonging, nationhood and identity set in Wales, England and Palestine. First novel from the acclaimed author of EUNICE FLEET a poignant story of belonging, nationhood and identity set in Wales, England and Palestine Simon is a troubled young manborn in Wales, of Jewish heritage, and in love with Englishness and an English heiress. He determines to reject his Jewish and Welsh identity and the industrial valleys he grew up in and seeks to fulfil his ambition to rise in the Civil Service. His experiences in love and his professional life see him reject Edith on discovering that she is not what he believed her to be, and taking up arms in the fight against Englands enemies in the Great War. Ultimately, he must embrace his family and his heritage before he can experience a sense of wholeness. Simons experience raises questions of belonging, language, nationhood and identity that are as relevant now as they were in 1931 when the novel was first published. Lily Tobiass sensitive individual and communal portraits illuminate some of the most topical personal, social and political issues of the twenty-first century.
Honno 2015 543 pages

Cultural intermediaries: Jewish intellectuals in early modern Italy

David B. Ruderman,Giuseppe Veltri
Focusing on an epoch of spectacular demographic, political, economic, and cultural changes for European Jewry, Cultural Intermediaries chronicles the lives and thinking of ten Jewish intellectuals of the Renaissance, nine of them from Italy and one a Portuguese exile who settled in the Ottoman empire after a long sojourn in Italy. David B. Ruderman, Giuseppe Veltri, and the other contributors to this volume detail how, in the relative openness of cultural exchange encountered in such intellectual centers as Florence, Mantua, Pisa, Naples, Ferrara, and Salonika, these Jewish savants sought to enlarge their cultural horizons, to correlate the teachings of their own tradition with those outside it, and to rethink the meaning of their religious and ethnic identities within the intellectual and religious categories common to European civilization as a whole. The engaging intellectual profiles created especially for this volume by scholars from Israel, North America, and Europe represent an important rereading and reinterpretation of early modern Jewish culture and society and its broader European intellectual contexts.
University of Pennsylvania Press 2004-04-23 293 pages

The geographical encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary

Randolph L. Braham
Contents: Vol. 1. Abaúj-Torna County - Máramaros County. Vol. 2. Maros-Torda County - Zemplén County. Vol. 3. Appendixes. Vol. 1 contains a "Historical Overview" by Braham (pp. xv-xcv). Divided by counties, this encyclopedia gives information on the persecution and fate of the Jews in every village, town, and city in Greater Hungary (including areas which are today part of Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine).
Northwestern University Press 2013-05-31 1520 pages

American Jewry's challenge: conversations confronting the twenty-first century

Manfred Gerstenfeld
Watershed events - including the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, September 11 2001 and the Iraq war - have created major challenges for American Jewry, leading to changes in its perceptions and environment. Through conversations with some of America's most influential Jewish leaders, Manfred Gerstenfeld sheds light on the how the tumultuous events of recent years have affected and will continue to influence the American Jewish population. These include issues surrounding education, assimilation and revitalization, relationships with other religious communities, anti-Semitism and generational change. Of enormous historical value, American Jewry's Challenge serves as a time capsule capturing American Jewry at the dawn of the 21st century.
Rowman & Littlefield 2005-01-26 305 pages

The light of learning: Hasidism in Poland on the eve of the Holocaust

Dynner, Glenn
"The available sources on Hasidic society at the turn of the twentieth century create an impression of discontented Jewish youth and panicked parents, but not inexorable crisis and decline. Though the First World War and post-war pogroms further destabilized Hasidic society, they inadvertently created opportunities for the reinvention and revitalization of traditionalist education. The challenges of the early twentieth century would prove more galvanizing than demoralizing for certain visionary, reform-minded Hasidic leaders"--
Oxford University Press 2023 309 pages

Love, work, and death: Jewish life in medieval Umbria

Toaff, Ariel
The latter part of the thirteenth century is regarded as a key period in the history of Italian Jewry. During that time many Jewish communities sprang up in the regions of central and northern Italy. Their appearance marked a turning-point in the history of Jews in the Italian peninsula as the Jewish presence had previously been focused on Rome and the south. In this much-acclaimed study, originally published in Italian, Ariel Toaff captures all the intricacies of everyday life in the medieval Jewish communities of Umbria. A thorough examination of Hebrew and Italian archival sources enables him to characterize in detail the defining features of Jewish life in the region at that time and to show clearly how the common stereotype of a single, undifferentiated Jewish community does not reflect the reality. Instead, he presents a picture of a complex society that--far from being a 'mere' minority and somewhat isolated--actually contributed greatly to contemporary society and played a significant role in shaping it, while at the same time also being influenced by the surrounding Christian society. Professor Toaff elaborates contemporary Jewish traditions and practices associated with love, marriage, food, work, sickness, and death in the context of everyday social relations between Christians and Jews. In so doing he presents a full and fascinating reconstruction of the Jewish life of the period that faithfully reflects the links and divides between the two communities. Engagingly written, Love, Work, and Death: Jewish Life in Medieval Umbria will be of interest to the general reader, while its detailed references to archival documentation make it a particularly valuable source for students of medieval Jewish history and specialists in the social history of medieval and Renaissance Italy.
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization 1996 297 pages

Poverty and charity in the Jewish community of medieval Egypt

Cohen, Mark R.
What was it like to be poor in the Middle Ages? In the past, the answer to this question came only from institutions and individuals who gave relief to the less fortunate. This book, by one of the top scholars in the field, is the first comprehensive book to study poverty in a premodern Jewish community--from the viewpoint of both the poor and those who provided for them. Mark Cohen mines the richest body of documents available on the matter: the papers of the Cairo Geniza. These documents, located in the Geniza, a hidden chamber for discarded papers situated in a medieval synagogue in Old Cairo, were preserved largely unharmed for more than nine centuries due to an ancient custom in Judaism that prohibited the destruction of pages of sacred writing. Based on these papers, the book provides abundant testimony about how one large and important medieval Jewish community dealt with the constant presence of poverty in its midst. Building on S. D. Goitein's Mediterranean Society and inspired also by research on poverty and charity in medieval and early modern Europe, it provides a clear window onto the daily lives of the poor. It also illuminates private charity, a subject that has long been elusive to the medieval historian. In addition, Cohen's work functions as a detailed case study of an important phenomenon in human history. Cohen concludes that the relatively narrow gap between the poor and rich, and the precariousness of wealth in general, combined to make charity "one of the major agglutinates of Jewish associational life" during the medieval period.
Princeton University Press 2005-09-11 287 pages

Social issues, geopolitics, and Judaica

Cahnman, Werner J.
This volume brings together thirty-four essays and ar- ticles by Werner J. Cahnman representing four decades (1940-1980) of work by an extraordinary, multidisciplinary scholar. Cahnman's work encompasses the experiences of a German Jewish refugee, an economist turned sociologist, and a scholar of Judaism. Part 1 contains personal and autobiographical writings and includes analyses of the cultural ambiguities of Jewish assimilation in Germany and Austria. Part 2 is devoted to sociological essays ranging from a critical assessment of Gunnar Myrdal's landmark study of the problems of race and democracy, An American Dilemma , to a probing look at the stigma of obesity, based on empirical research, a subject very much in the news today and that shows Cahnman ahead of his time. Part 3 offers some of Cahnman's most perceptive essays dealing with geopolitical themes. Included are theoretically based writings that help to clarify the methods and concepts of geopolitics, marking the intellectual beginnings of the global approach to world affairs. Here Cahnman broached the possibility of a united Europe (1944), realized sixty years later in the formation of the European Union. The twelve essays of Part 4 return to Cahnman's ever-present concern with Jews and Judaism. They present a wide-ranging historical-sociological view, from the Jews of Vienna in the 1930s to the American scene in the 1960s, to the still-unresolved problematics of Arab-Israeli relations, with Cahnman arguing for coexistence and a two-state solution for Jews and Arabs. The volume, carefully selected and assembled by the editors, presents for the first time essays representing the full range of Werner Cahnman's scholarship and thought. It will be of interest to students of sociology, history, political science, and Judaic studies.
Transaction Publishers 2007 387 pages