Author: Selma Stern Publisher: Transaction Publishers ISBN: 9781412836364 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
The period of court absolutism and early capitalism extended from the end of the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. A new world view was created, along with a new type of individual possessing new economic orientations to the marketplace and new social attitudes deriving from such concerns. The unified political and religious world of medieval Europe broke into parts: national differentiation and religious options abounded. The autonomy of the nation-state created a need for new attitudes toward religious minorities, even despised ones such as the Jews. The court Jew phenomenon, as Selma Stern details, was inextricably linked to these larger developments, including the emancipation of Jews as a whole. Dr. Stern's work is an effort to reconstruct this unusual group of Jews who became politically and economically influential and through that mechanism were able to enhance Jewish community life as a whole. In his very existence the court Jew necessarily enlarged, beyond its original meaning, the concept of free expression in European societies. As the dominating idea of defending one church and one emperor collapsed under the weight of the new European system of power balances, a new conception of the Jew developed, one of a transforming agent in economic and political positions. With trade no longer condemned as sinful, collecting interest for loans no longer prohibited, and the merchant no longe'r compared to a thief, the Jewish money changer and tradesman came to be viewed in a more favorable light. In this new environment, the claims of Christianity remained supreme, but the rights of religious minorities were considered. At the time of the book's initial appearance, the Saturday Review hailed it as a "picturesque work giving evidence of great writing talent." The reviewer went on to note that "Dr. Stern's work provided exhaustive historical background of European Jewryâfrom 1650 to 1750âthat period during which the modern European genius emerged." Dr. Stern's work relies heavily upon European archives up to 1938, when the advances of Nazism made further work impossible. As a result, what was started in Europe was completed in America.
Author: Yair Mintzker Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691192731 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
New historical insights into one of the most infamous episodes in the history of anti-Semitism Joseph Süss Oppenheimer—“Jew Süss”—is one of the most iconic figures in the history of anti-Semitism. In 1733, Oppenheimer became the “court Jew” of Carl Alexander, the duke of the small German state of Württemberg. When Carl Alexander died unexpectedly, the Württemberg authorities arrested Oppenheimer, put him on trial, and condemned him to death for unspecified “misdeeds.” On February 4, 1738, Oppenheimer was hanged in front of a large crowd just outside Stuttgart. He is most often remembered today through several works of fiction, chief among them a vicious Nazi propaganda movie made in 1940 at the behest of Joseph Goebbels. Investigating conflicting versions of Oppenheimer’s life and death as told by his contemporaries, Yair Mintzker conjures an unforgettable picture of “Jew Süss” in his final days that is at once moving, disturbing, and profound. The Many Deaths of Jew Süss is a masterful work of history and an illuminating parable about Jewish life in the fraught transition to modernity.
Author: Laura Jockusch Publisher: Wayne State University Press ISBN: 081433878X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 410
Book Description
Scholars of Jewish, European, and Israeli history as well as readers interested in issues of legal and social justice will be grateful for this detailed volume.
Author: David N. Myers Publisher: UPNE ISBN: 1611684137 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 377
Book Description
From his first book, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto, to his well-known volume on Jewish memory, Zakhor, to his treatment of Sigmund Freud in Freud's Moses, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1932-2009) earned recognition as perhaps the greatest Jewish historian of his day, whose scholarship blended vast erudition, unfettered creativity, and lyrical beauty. This volume charts his intellectual trajectory by bringing together a mix of classic and lesser-known essays from the whole of his career. The essays in this collection, representative of the range of his writing, acquaint the reader with his research on early modern Spanish Jewry and the experience of crypto-Jews, varied reflections on Jewish history and memory, and Yerushalmi-s enduring interest in the political history of the Jews. Also included are a number of little-known autobiographical recollections, as well as his only published work of fiction.
Author: Selma Stern Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000675262 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
The period of court absolutism and early capitalism extended from the end of the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. A new world view was created, along with a new type of individual possessing new economic orientations to the marketplace and new social attitudes deriving from such concerns. The unified political and religious world of medieval Europe broke into parts: national differentiation and religious options abounded. The autonomy of the nation-state created a need for new attitudes toward religious minorities, even despised ones such as the Jews. The court Jew phenomenon, as Selma Stern details, was inextricably linked to these larger developments, including the emancipation of Jews as a whole. Dr. Stern's work is an effort to reconstruct this unusual group of Jews who became politically and economically influential and through that mechanism were able to enhance Jewish community life as a whole. In his very existence the court Jew necessarily enlarged, beyond its original meaning, the concept of free expression in European societies.As the dominating idea of defending one church and one emperor collapsed under the weight of the new European system of power balances, a new conception of the Jew developed, one of a transforming agent in economic and political positions. With trade no longer condemned as sinful, collecting interest for loans no longer prohibited, and the merchant no longer compared to a thief, the Jewish money changer and tradesman came to be viewed in a more favorable light. In this new environment, the claims of Christianity remained supreme, but the rights of religious minorities were considered.At the time of the book's initial appearance, the Saturday Review hailed it as a "picturesque work giving evidence of great writing talent." The reviewer went on to note that "Dr. Stern's work provided exhaustive historical background of European Jewry - from 1650 to 1750 - that period during which the modern European genius emerged." Dr. Stern's work relies heavily upon European archives up to 1938, when the advances of Nazism made further work impossible. As a result, what was started in Europe was completed in America.
Author: Benedetto Blanis Publisher: University of Toronto Press ISBN: 1442643838 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
Edward Goldberg shares his sensational discovery of the largest body of surviving correspondence from any Jew in Early Modern Europe. Over the course of six years, Benedetto Blanis — a scholar and entrepreneur in the Florentine Ghetto — wrote nearly 200 letters to his princely patron Don Giovanni dei Medici. For the first time, these letters are available in a definitive critical edition — with full transcriptions in the original Italian, English language summaries, and explanatory notes. This book is a companion volume to Jews and Magic in Medici Florence, in which Goldberg narrates Blanis's startling rise and fall. Readers can now take a step closer and hear Blanis's compelling story in his own words — tracing his fraught relations with Jews and Christians, his desperate (and often illegal) business schemes, his disastrous strategies for advancement at the Medici Court, and his pursuit of arcane knowledge, including astrology, alchemy, and Kabbalah.
Author: Cedric Cohen-Skalli Publisher: Brandeis University Press ISBN: 1684580234 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 367
Book Description
"An intellectual biography of Don Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, a 15th century Portuguese rabbi, scholar, Bible commentator, philosopher, and statesman"--
Author: Sergei Nilus Publisher: ISBN: 9781947844964 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 96
Book Description
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is almost certainly fiction, but its impact was not. Originating in Russia, it landed in the English-speaking world where it caused great consternation. Much is made of German anti-semitism, but there was fertile soil for "The Protocols" across Europe and even in America, thanks to Henry Ford and others.
Author: Andrew Porwancher Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 069123728X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
The untold story of the founding father’s likely Jewish birth and upbringing—and its revolutionary consequences for understanding him and the nation he fought to create In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion: Hamilton, in all likelihood, was born and raised Jewish. For more than two centuries, his youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery. Hamilton himself wanted it that way, and most biographers have simply assumed he had a Christian boyhood. With a detective’s persistence and a historian’s rigor, Porwancher upends that assumption and revolutionizes our understanding of an American icon. This radical reassessment of Hamilton’s religious upbringing gives us a fresh perspective on both his adult years and the country he helped forge. Although he didn’t identify as a Jew in America, Hamilton cultivated a relationship with the Jewish community that made him unique among the founders. As a lawyer, he advocated for Jewish citizens in court. As a financial visionary, he invigorated sectors of the economy that gave Jews their greatest opportunities. As an alumnus of Columbia, he made his alma mater more welcoming to Jewish people. And his efforts are all the more striking given the pernicious antisemitism of the era. In a new nation torn between democratic promises and discriminatory practices, Hamilton fought for a republic in which Jew and Gentile would stand as equals. By setting Hamilton in the context of his Jewish world for the first time, this fascinating book challenges us to rethink the life and legend of America's most enigmatic founder.
Author: Selma Stern
Author: Yair Mintzker
Author: David G. Dalin
Author: Laura Jockusch
Author: David N. Myers
Author: Selma Stern
Author: Benedetto Blanis
Author: Cedric Cohen-Skalli
Author: Sergei Nilus
Author: Andrew Porwancher