Missing from most accounts of the modern history of Jews in Europe is the experience of what was once the largest Jewish community in the world - an oversight that Gershon David Hundert corrects in this history of Eastern European Jews in the eighteenth century. The experience of eighteenth-century Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not fit the pattern of integration and universalization - in short, of westernization - that historians tend to place at the origins of Jewish modernity. Hundert puts this experience ...
Read More
Missing from most accounts of the modern history of Jews in Europe is the experience of what was once the largest Jewish community in the world - an oversight that Gershon David Hundert corrects in this history of Eastern European Jews in the eighteenth century. The experience of eighteenth-century Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not fit the pattern of integration and universalization - in short, of westernization - that historians tend to place at the origins of Jewish modernity. Hundert puts this experience, that of the majority of the Jewish people, at the center of his history. He focuses on the relations of Jews with the state and their role in the economy, and on more "internal" developments such as the popularization of the Kabbalah and the rise of Hasidism. Thus he describes the elements of Jewish experience that became the basis for a "core Jewish identity" - an identity that accompanied the majority of Jews into modernity.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 650grams, ISBN: 0520238443.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Berkeley. 2004. University Of California Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0520238443. 305 pages. hardcover. keywords: History Jewish Poland Lithuania Eighteenth Century. FROM THE PUBLISHER-Missing from most accounts of the modern history of Jews in Europe is the experience of what was once the largest Jewish community in the world–an oversight that Gershon David Hundert corrects in this history of Eastern European Jews in the eighteenth century. The experience of eighteenth-century Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not fit the pattern of integration and universalization–in short, of westernization–that historians tend to place at the origins of Jewish modernity. Hundert puts this experience, that of the majority of the Jewish people, at the center of his history. He focuses on the relations of Jews with the state and their role in the economy, and on more ‘internal' developments such as the popularization of the Kabbalah and the rise of Hasidism. Thus he describes the elements of Jewish experience that became the basis for a ‘core Jewish identity'–an identity that accompanied the majority of Jews into modernity. inventory #35131.
This is an excellent and informative text for those interested in the historical past of Eastern European Jews. It is comprehensive and covers a variety of issues.
