One of the most damaging and lasting anti-Semitic myths involves the relationship between Jews and money. In the advent of Wall Street's economic downturn and Bernie Madoff's ruinous schemes, these ideas have come back to rear their ugly heads. Stereotypes about Jews hoarding money, rich media moguls exerting undue influence, and a disproportionate amount of wealth and control in the hands of the Jewish community are not only false, but are also dangerous." "In his latest book, Jews and Money, Abraham Foxman, Director of the Anti-Defamation League, examines the origins, history, and politics of these ideas and how they contaminate dialogue and societies. With thorough research and powerful arguments, he shows the origins of the tendency to blame the Jews, the roots of misunderstanding "the chosen people," and the truth of Jewish philanthropy. Foxman shows how generalizations become part of common beliefs, and he lights the way to promoting fair treatment for people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds.

A comprehensive historical survey of the Jewish presence in Central Europe from the seventeenth century to the Holocaust, German-Jewish History in Modern Times is a four-volume collective project by a team of leading scholars, offering a vivid portrait of Jewish History. The series is sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute, established in 1955 in Jerusalem, London, and New York for the purpose of advancing scholarship on the Jews in German-speaking lands. Integration in Dispute 1871-1918 comprises the third volume and focuses on a period of political, economic, and social change that fundamentally transformed German Jewry. Eminent scholars consider a broad range of topics: religious and cultural life, demographics, political, legal, and socioeconomic status, relations between Jews and non-Jews, and Jewish participation in the larger context of European history. Volume 3 begins with the establishment of civil equality for Jews in Germany and Austria-Hungary and describes the complexities of their economic and social integration. The contributors explore the challenges that confronted Jews as they encountered both unprecedented opportunities and continued resistance to their full emancipation and participation in public life. The book discusses their standing as a minority group within German political and professional life and as a differentiated portion of the German middle class; how they coped with successive waves of political antisemitism; how they continued to adapt traditional religious practices to modernity; and how urban middle-class life transformed Jewish families as well as the role of Jewish women in the domestic and public spheres. The forces of social change, coupled with the persistence of antisemitism formed the context for the emergence of Zionism, which posed a powerful challenge to the dominant principle of integration. This volume also seeks to understand the nature and timing of the exceptional contributions of German Jews to the thriving modern culture of such cities as late imperial Vienna and Berlin as well as to the specific religious culture of Judaism. Each volume includes a bibliographical essay referring readers to the most important secondary literature, a chronology covering the major events discussed, and a series of maps and illustrations. Encompassing the most up-to-date research on the topic, German Jewish History in Modern Times is an achievement to be valued by historians, educators, and any reader seeking to understand the singular heritage of the Jewish people in Central Europe.

While today the Nazi genocide of Jews is seen as a massacre unique in its savagery and a central feature of World War II, in 1933-45 it was accepted in the USA, and in the Western world in general, as one of the many wartime brutalities, almost understandable and predictable. Political leaders, public opinion, and later the Allied military greeted the first news concerning the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews with disbelief; later, when the facts of the Nazi mass murder of Jews became apparent, they tended to conflate the Nazi victimization of Jews with that of other ethnic groups. There was a tendency to diminish the scope of the genocide and even to see it as, at least partly, deserved by the victims. These views found expression in a commonly shared reluctance to receive Jewish refugees from Nazism. Opinion polls of the late 1930s-early 1940s show that the American public was consistently against any relaxation of immigration restrictions. In Western Europe and the rest of the Americas, sentiments were similar: some countries were ready to admit Poles, Czechs, and other refugees, but not Jews. These sentiments can only partly be ascribed to the economic hardships of the 1930s; their main cause was antisemitism, ethnic opposition to the Jewish alien. In the postwar years, the tendency to silence and trivialize the Holocaust persevered; it was only in the 1960s that public opinion recognized the Holocaust as unique. Argues against Peter Novick's view, according to which Holocaust memory initially fell victim to the Cold War. Contends that, in the 1960s, most people thought that the "Jewish question" was finally solved - by emancipation, assimilation and, last but not least, by the Nazi mass murder.

This interdisciplinary study examines patterns of migration, acculturation, assimilation and economic activity of successive waves of Jewish arrivals in China from approximately AD 1100 to 1949.

Between 1938-41 some 17,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and Poland reached Shanghai, then under Japanese control. Ch. 7 (pp. 169-266), "Japanese Policy vis-à-vis the Jews", explains Japan's unusual behavior in opening the door to Jewish refugees. Describes the influence of the so-called "experts on Jewish affairs" in Japan and their unique approach to antisemitism - to make use of alleged Jewish wealth and influence on behalf of Japan's "New Order". This approach lasted until America's entry into the war when it became unfeasible and Nazi propaganda gained more influence. Discusses immigration restrictions imposed in August 1939, Nazi antisemitic propaganda, and the establishment of a ghetto in 1943 under German instigation. Japan's attitude towards Jews evolved from favorable to highly antagonistic, blaming the Jews for all economic and social ills and for a conspiracy to overthrow the government and dominate the media, aid the communists, and halt Japanese development.

In the first English-language edition of a general, synthetic history of French Jewry from antiquity to the present, Esther Benbassa tells the intriguing tale of the social, economic, and cultural vicissitudes of a people in diaspora. With verve and insight, she reveals the diversity of Jewish life throughout France's regions, while showing how Jewish identity has constantly redefined itself in a country known for both the Rights of Man and the Dreyfus affair. Beginning with late antiquity, she charts the migrations of Jews into France and traces their fortunes through the making of the French kingdom, the Revolution, the rise of modern anti-Semitism, and the current renewal of interest in Judaism.

The history of Jews in interwar Germany and Austria is often viewed either as the culmination of tremendous success in the economic and cultural realms and of individual assimilation and acculturation, or as the beginning of the road that led to Auschwitz. By contrast, this volume demonstrates a reemerging sense of community within the German-speaking Jewish population of these two countries in the two decades after World War I. The fresh research presented here shows that although Jews may have experiences a deepening sence of impending crisis and economic decline, a renewal of Jewish communal life was taking place, as new groupings sprang up, including organizations for youth, for rural Jews, and for political groups such as Zionists and Bundists. Several chapters consider the impact of economis and political crises on German Jewish family life. Together, these engrossing essays form a complex mosaic of German Jewry on the eve of its demise.

Egypt's indigenous Jewish population comprised Arabic-speaking Rabbanite and Karaite Jews, some of whom had been in the country since the early Islamic era. Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 took refuge in Egypt, and their numbers were augmented in the mid-nineteenth century by Sephardic immigrants. Originally welcomed elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, these Spanish Jews came to Egypt seeking economic opportunity in the era of Suez Canal construction and the cotton boom. The late nineteenth century brought Ashkenazi Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. The different groups formed a heterogeneous community of cosmopolitan hybrids, which was both an element of strength and a factor in its eventual demise. The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry examines the history of the Egyptian Jewish community after 1948, focusing on three major areas: the life of the majority of the community, which remained in Egypt from the1948 Arab-Israeli War until the aftermath of the 1956 Suez/Sinai War; the dispersion and reestablishment of Egyptian Jewish communities in the United states, France, and Israel; and contested memories of Jewish life in Egypt since President Anwar al-Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977. Beinin argues that the experiences of Egyptian Jews cannot be adequately accounted for by either Egyptian nationalist or Zionist narratives. Fusing history, ethnography, literary analysis, and autobiography, Joel Beinin conducts an interdisciplinary investigation into identity, dispersion, and the retrieval of identity that is relevant for anyone interested in Egypt, the Jewish diaspora, or the formation of cultures and identities.

"This book re-evaluates the prevailing notion that Jews in medieval Christian Europe lived under an appalling regime of ecclesiastical limitation, governmental exploitation and expropriation, and unceasing popular violence. Robert Chazan argues that, while Jewish life in medieval Western Christendom was indeed beset with grave difficulties, it was nevertheless an environment rich in opportunities; the Jews of medieval Europe overcame obstacles, grew in number, explored innovative economic options, and fashioned enduring new forms of Jewish living. His research also provides a reconsideration of the legacy of medieval Jewish life, which is often depicted as equally destructive and projected as the underpinning of the twentieth-century catastrophes of antisemitism and the Holocaust. Dr Chazan's research proves that, although Jewish life in the medieval West laid the foundation for much Jewish suffering in the post-medieval world, it also stimulated considerable Jewish ingenuity, which lies at the root of impressive Jewish successes in the modern West"--

A study of antisemitism in Poland in the 20th century. Describes the increase in antisemitism between 1918-39. Reflects on the question of the role of Polish antisemitism in the Holocaust. During the war, most Poles either collaborated with the Nazis or at least approved of the economic measures against the Jews. The rightist anti-German resistance (e.g. Narodowe Sily Zbrojne) regarded Jews as enemies of Poland and sometimes cooperated with the Nazis in the murders. The Armia Krajowa was also antisemitic, and sometimes killed Jews. Many Poles profited from the Holocaust. The Catholic Church was silent. Discusses, also, the Poles who rescued Jews and their motivations. At the end of the war there was a wave of murders of Jews who had survived the Holocaust or were repatriated from the USSR. Antisemitism remained a political factor in Poland both in the communist and post-communist periods.

In this wide-ranging exploration of the economic roots of antisemitism, Hillel Levine trace the position of Jews from the end of the sixteenth century to the demise of the Polish state in 1795. Levine explains why Poland was not able to to modernize its backward social, economic, and political system at a time when Western European countries were rapidly evolving, and he shows that Jews were blames for this failure to modernize, furling an economic antisemitism that contributed to the Holocaust and is with us still.

International scholars and specialists in Jewish, German, British and European history offer this first comparative approach to the study of German and British Jewish history from the late 18th century to the 1930s. The volume's comparative dimension goes beyond a parallel exploration of the Jewish experience in the two societies by examining British and German Jewries in equal measure and discussing a broad spectrum of social, political, cultural and economic issues.

Ch. 2 (pp. 11-29), "The Status of Jews in Alsace, " discusses the Jews' economic role as intermediaries (e.g. moneylenders, peddlers) and the hostility it aroused, from the eve of the French Revolution until 1870. The Infamous Decree (1808-18), although not strictly enforced, restricted Jewish rights (e.g. commercial activities) in an effort to reorient the Jews to crafts and agriculture. The occupational resentment compounded with the legacy of Christian antisemitism and the peasant resentment of capitalistic inroads in agriculture, which was associated with the Jews, led to violent antisemitic incidents in 1819-20s, in the early 1830s, and especially during the 1848 revolution. Discrimination was expressed by local government authorities, the courts, the press, etc. By the 1850s-60s, antisemitism declined.

The reform era in Russia (1855-1881) witnessed the emancipation of the serfs, economic and social change, the reform of all imperial institutions, and the growth of national identity among Russians and the Empire's expanding Jewish population. Consequently, the 'Jewish Question' became one of most hotly debated topics in Russia. Attitudes toward the Jews which evolved during this period persisted up to the Revolution and beyond. This book, based on exhaustive archival research of materials published during the period, studies the interplay of public opinion and official policy. The author examines the attitudes of all sectors of Russian educated society towards the Jews. He also explores how a new group, the Russian Jewish intelligentsia, sought to define a modern Jewish identity in the midst of a multi-ethnic Empire.

...balanced and well informed...a striking piece of scholarship aimed at demythologizing the origins of the Ethiopian Falasha. -Foreign AffairsKaplan's definitive treatment will be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish history, African history, and comparative religion, as well as anyone interested in Jewish affairs and the modern Middle East. The Midwest Book ReviewKaplan's conceptualizations are judicious and clearly expressed...incisive and well documented... and provides essential background for the process of assimilation now taking lace in Israel. -The International Journal of African Historical Studies Kaplan's able interdisciplinary approach is of great value for persons interested in religion, civilization, and process of change. -Religious Studies Review Kaplan's well-written, lucid presentation make[s] this important, competent contribution accessible to all levels of readers. Highly recommended.ChoiceInsightful and thorough, a welcome contribution.Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Professor of Music, Harvard UniversityUndoubtedly the most detailed, most scholarly, and most dispassionate argument of Falasha history hitherto published. [T]his work deserves ... the most careful study by all those (and in particular in Israel) who have any practical or scholarly connection with the Beta Israel. -- Edward UllendorffEmeritus Professor of Ethiopian Studies, University of LondonFellow of the British AcademyGiven Kaplan's facility with both written and oral sources, he is in a unique position to synthesize and reconcile the new historical findings of ethnographers with the written sources and differing conclusions of earlier historians and linguists. His work is insightful and thorough, a welcome contribution. -- Kay Shelemay, Wesleyan University The origin of the Black Jews of Ethiopia has long been a source of fascination and controversy. Their condition and future continues to generate debate. The culmination of almost a decade of research, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia marks the publication of the first book-length scholarly study of the history of this unique community. In this volume, Steven Kaplan seeks to demythologize the history of the Falasha and to consider them in the wider context of Ethiopian history and culture. This marks a clear departure from previous studies which have viewed them from the external perspective of Jewish history. Drawing on a wide variety of sources including the Beta Israel's own literature and oral traditions, Kaplan demonstrates that they are not a lost Jewish tribe, but rather an ethnic group which emerged in Ethiopia between the 14th and 16th century. Indeed, the name, Falasha, their religious hierarchy, sacred texts, and economic specialization can all be dated to this period. Among the subjects the book addresses are their links with Ethiopian Christianity, the medieval legends concerning their existence, their wars with the Ethiopian emperors, their relegation to the status of a despised semi-caste, their encounters with European missionaries, and the impact of the Great Famine of 1888-1892. Kaplan's definitive treatment will be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish history, African history, and comparative religion, as well as anyone interested in Jewish affairs and the modern Middle East.

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.

"'The economic history of European jews' attempts to make sense of the economic foundations of Jewish life in the different parts of late antique and early medieval Europe. In the first part Michael Toch describes the demographic arc, decline, subsequent rise, and spatial distribution of Jewish populations. This data is then broadened to include the range of economic activities. The second part analyses the actual share of Jews in different branches of the economy. This includes the idea of their pioneer role and the notion of an intercontinental network of Jewish commerce, the phenomenon of Jews in agriculture and entrepreneurship, gender roles and the household mode of production, and the difficult subject of the significance of minority status for economic activity, among others"--provided by publisher.

Warsaw. The Jewish Metropolis offers analyses of the cultural, religious, political and intellectual history of Warsaw Jewry, once the leading Jewish metropolis in Europe and the world.