Cambridge University Press In and out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Publications of the German Historical Institute)

During the 1920s much attention was paid to the history of Jews in Germany since the Enlightenment and the subject became popular again, with renewed emphasis, after 1945. Many historians were deeply committed to understanding and explaining the tragic path that led from the emancipation of the Jews to the Holocaust. For a long time, much less work was done on the history of Jews in Germany in earlier periods, particularly the period between the late Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. This book is the first comprehensive account of Jewish-Gentile relations in central Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. It lays particular emphasis on cultural, economic, social, and political issues, and incorporates much new research. Review "Here we have the ideal introduction to the scholarly debates that have been transforming the field....Any library acquiring the best work on early modern Europe should have this book." Religious Studies Review"In and Out of the Ghetto succeeds admirably as a Zwischenbilanz, a report on the state of research in German Jewish history of the early modern period. Its contributors use a variety of methods in their attempt to reconstruct Jewish life and experience from the perspective of intellectual, social, and political history. The book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the topic and contains many suggestions for future research. The book's interdisciplinary character makes it particularly useful for integrating the Jeish experience into the overall history of early modern Germany." Stephen G. Burnett, Sixteenth Century Journal"...to stimulate further inquiry seems to be the general purpose of this volume....Students of Jewish or German history in the early modern period will find much to recommend this volume. It offers a varity of approaches that range from traditional studies of political, social, and economic structures to postmodern analyses of textx and dialects....it renders, faithfully the contradictions and conundrums that beset Jewish-Gentile relations, the knowledge of which is the best antidote to the recurrent fascination of ahistorical over-simplification." Thomas Max Safley, Renaissance Quarterly"This impressive volume, another in the valuable series sponsored in recent years by the German Historical Institute in Washington, is the result of a 1991 conference the editors organized through the Clark Library at UCLA." Amy Nelson Burnett, Central European History Book Description A comprehensive account of Jewish-Gentile relations in central Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. From the Back Cover The essays examine the role of economics, politics, social organization, language, and religion in the relations between Jews and non-Jews in central Europe from the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. The authors grapple with such relevant issues as cultural identity, representation, toleration, and minority-majority relations. Individually, the essays probe the central questions of Jewish social, economic, and cultural development within the territorial states, secular and clerical, and in both rural and urban environments. Collectively, they focus more attention on the period before the emancipation of the nineteenth century and the destruction of German Jewry in the middle of the twentieth, emphasizing both continuities and discontinuities in the history of Jews in Germany.