National Jewish Book Awards Winner of the Anthologies and
Collections Award, 2009. Europe has changed greatly in the last
century. Political, social, and ideological transformations have
not only redrawn the map of the continent but have rewoven the
fabric of its culture. These changes have nourished widespread
reassessment in European historical research: in terms of its
presuppositions, its methodologies, its directions, its emphases,
and its scope. The political boundaries between nations and states,
along with the very concepts of 'nation' and 'boundary', have
changed significantly, and the self-consciousness of ethnic
minorities has likewise evolved in new directions. All these
developments have affected how the Jews of Europe perceive
themselves, and they help to shape the prism through which
historians view the Jewish past. This volume looks at the Jewish
past in the spirit of this reassessment. Part I reconsiders the
basic parameters of the subject as well as some of its fundamental
concepts, suggesting new assumptions and perspectives from which to
conduct future studies of European Jewish history. Topics covered
here include periodization and the definition of geographical
borders, antisemitism, gender and the history of Jewish women, and
notions of assimilation. Part II is devoted to articulating the
meaning of 'modernity' in the history of European Jewry and
demarcating key stages in its crystallization. Contributors here
reflect on the defining characteristics of a distinct early modern
period in European Jewish history, the Reformation and the Jews,
and the fundamental features of the Jewish experience in modern
times. Parts III and IV present two scholarly conversations as case
studies for the application of the critical and programmatic
categories considered thus far: the complex web of relationships
between Jews, Christians, and Jewish converts to Christianity
(Conversos, New Christians, Marranos) in fifteenth-century Spain;
and the impact of American Jewry on Jewish life in Europe in the
twentieth century, at a time when the dominant trend was one of
migration from Europe to the Americas. This timely volume suggests
a new framework for the study of Jewish history and helps to
contextualize it within the mainstream of historical scholarship.
CONTRIBUTORS: Ram Ben-Shalom, Miriam Bodian, Jeremy Cohen, Judah M.
Cohen, David Engel, Gershon David Hundert, Paula Hyman, Maud
Mandel, David Nirenberg, Moshe Rosman, David B. Ruderman, Daniel
Soyer
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