Mediating Modernity: Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World PDF
Preview Mediating Modernity: Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World
Michael Brenner is professor of Jewish Jewish studies / Jewish thought S In Mediating Modernity, contemporary t r history and culture at the University of a Jewish scholars pay tribute to Michael u Munich. s s A. Meyer, scholar of German-Jewish history “The richness of these offerings and their probing explorations of how a n and the history of Reform Judaism, with a Lauren B. Strauss is a lecturer in modern the identity, religion, and culture of the Jews have been transformed in d B Jewish history and literature at the George the modern era serve as a fitting tribute to the prodigious scholarship re collection of essays that highlight growing Washington University and the American n diversity within the discipline of Jewish n of Professor Michael Meyer, one of the most influential interpreters of University in Washington, DC. e r studies. The occasion of Meyer’s seventieth the modern Jewish experience.” birthday served as motivation for his Contributors: Arnold J. Band, —Jack Wertheimer, Joseph and Martha Mendelson Professor of American colleagues Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Avraham Barkai, Michael Brenner, M Elisheva Carlebach, Richard I. Cohen, Jewish History and the director of the Joseph and Miriam Ratner Center Brenner to compile this volume, with David Ellenson, Shmuel Feiner, for the Study of Conservative Judaism at the Jewish Theological Seminary e essays by twenty-four leading academics, Evyatar Friesel, Karla Goldman, d representing institutions in five countries. Susannah Heschel, Christhard i “The sweep of the essays in this volume serves as a fitting testament a Hoffmann, Paula E. Hyman, Marion Mediating Modernity is introduced by an Kaplan, Richard N. Levy, Steven M. to the prodigious impact of Michael Meyer’s scholarship not only on t Lowenstein, David N. Myers, Peter i overview of modern Jewish historiography, his immediate field of inquiry—modern German-Jewish history—but n Pulzer, Monika Richarz, David B. largely drawing on Meyer’s work in that on Jewish history more generally, across time and space. His dazzling g Ruderman, Jonathan D. Sarna, Ismar field, delineating important connections Schorsch, Gershon Shaked, Michael contribution and his essential humanity make him not only one of the between the writing of history and the M Stanislawski, Lauren B. Strauss, Ernst- ‘great ones of his generation,’ as the Hebrew expression has it, but one environment in which it is written. Meyer’s Peter Wieckenberg of the ‘great ones’ for all time.” o Mediating Modernity own areas of specialization are reflected in d Jacket design by Maya Rhodes —John M. Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History at the University of essays on Moses Mendelssohn, German- e Challenges and Trends in the Jewish California–Berkeley Jewish historiography, the religious and Wayne State University Press r Encounter with the Modern World social practices of German Jews, Reform Detroit, Michigan 48201-1309 n Judaism, and various Jewish communities i t Essays in Honor of Michael A. Meyer in America. The volume’s field of inquiry is y broadened by essays that deal with gender issues, literary analysis, and the historical relationship of Israel and the Palestinians. Scholars of Jewish studies, German history, ISBN 978-0-8143-3395-2 and religious history will appreciate this timely volume. 9 780814 333952 edited by Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner FnL1 00 0000 Mediating Modernity Mediating Modernity Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World Essays in Honor of Michael A. Meyer edited by Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner Wayne State University Press Detroit © 2008 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America. 12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mediating modernity : challenges and trends in the Jewish encounter with the modern world : essays in honor of Michael A. Meyer / edited by Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8143-3395-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8143-3395-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Identity—History. 2. Jews—History—1789–1945. 3. Enlightenment. 4. Reform Judaism— History. 5. Meyer, Michael A. I. Strauss, Lauren B. II. Brenner, Michael. III. Meyer, Michael A. DS143.M356 2008 909’.0976608—dc22 ISBN 978-0-8143-3395-2 eISBN 978-0-8143-3993-0 Contents Preface ix Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner ix M odernity through the Eyes of Its Chroniclers: The Scholar as Interpreter and Shaper of Modern Jewish Life 1 Lauren B. Strauss Part 1. Perspectives on a Scholar of Modern Jewish History 1. Michael A. Meyer: An Appreciation 11 Ismar Schorsch 2. Michael A. Meyer and His Vision of Reform Judaism and the Reform Rabbinate: A Lifetime of Devotion and Concern 17 David Ellenson Part 2. Between Tradition and Modernity 3. Michael A. Meyer’s Periodization of Modern Jewish History: Revisiting a Seminal Essay 27 David B. Ruderman 4. When Does the Modern Period of the Jewish Calendar Begin? 43 Elisheva Carlebach 5. The Controversy over the Salvation of the Jews, Turks, and Heathens in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century: A Theological Path to Tolerance? 55 Ernst-Peter Wieckenberg v 6. The Merchant of Venice and the Theological Construction of Christian Europe 74 Susannah Heschel 7. Toward the Popular Religion of Ashkenazic Jews: Yiddish-Hebrew Texts on Sex and Circumcision 93 Michael Stanislawski Part 3. The Construction of Modern Jewish History 8. Analyzing the Zeitgeist: Ludwig Philippson as Historian of the Modern Era 109 Christhard Hoffmann 9. German Historians and the Jews 121 Peter Pulzer 10. The “Return of the Jews to History”: Considerations about an Ideological Concept 133 Evyatar Friesel 11. Simon Rawidowicz on the Arab Question: A Prescient Gaze into the “New History” 143 David N. Myers 12. Jewish Religion and Capitalism 168 Avraham Barkai Part 4. Jewish Communitities Negotiating Modernity 13. The Mystical World of Colonial American Jews 185 Jonathan D. Sarna 14. Public Faith and Private Virtue: Cincinnati’s American Israelites 195 Karla Goldman 15. Gender, Antisemitism, and Jewish Identity in the Fin de Siècle 205 Paula E. Hyman 16. Apprenticeships in Work and Love: Jewish Youth Growing Up in Imperial Germany 224 Marion Kaplan vi Contents 17. Lukewarm Establishment or Militant Religious Ideology? German Liberal Judaism in the 1920s 247 Steven M. Lowenstein Part 5. The Evolving Legacy of Moses Mendelssohn 18. Moses Mendelssohn’s Dreams and Nightmares 263 Shmuel Feiner 19. The Construction and Deconstruction of a Jewish Hero: Moses Mendelssohn’s Afterlife in Early-Twentieth-Century Germany 274 Michael Brenner 20. Singing New Songs: Translation as a Metaphor for Modernity 290 Richard N. Levy Part 6. Cultural Explorations in Modern Jewish Life 21. Reflections on Jewish Nostalgia in the Era of Globalization 305 Richard I. Cohen 22. From Klausner to Oz and Back 315 Arnold J. Band 23. Stumbling Stones: Marks of Holocaust Memory on German Streets 325 Monika Richarz 24. Is Literary History Possible? Reflections on Literary History 339 Gershon Shaked Selected Bibliography of the Works of Michael A. Meyer 351 List of Contributors 359 Index 365 Contents vii
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