Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770-1870

by Jacob Katz

Overview

Out of the Ghetto is an account of the developing interrelationship between the Jews and their Gentile environment unique in its breadth and objectivity. He presents the story of Jewish emancipation as a whole, from both Jewish and non-Jewish points of view. If the results of the Jewish emancipation process differed from country to country, the forces effecting the changes were identical-the upheaval of the French Revolution, the loosening of bonds between church and state, and the ideas of the Enlightenment. It was those humanistic ideas which made possible the Jew's transition from the ghetto to partial inclusion in society at large and which attracted Jewish intellectuals to the "secular knowledge" of languages, mathematics, philosophy, and the wider world beyond their ancient learning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815605324
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	11/01/1998
Series:	Modern Jewish History Series
Edition description:	Syracuse University Press Edition
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)
Lexile:	1510L (what's this?)

About the Author

Jacob Katz was professor of Jewish social and educational history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Editorial Reviews

Katz has illuminated with delicacy, calmness and deep insight a revolution in European Jewish life that does at the same time bring the unfamiliar historical experience of modern Jewry to bear on the evolution of modern European history.

Times Literary Supplement

Reprint of a 1973 work (Harvard U. Press). Studies the process by which the Jews, isolated in ghettos on the fringe of society until well near the end of the 18th century, made their first steps toward integrating into the mainstream of European life. Argues that the French Revolution, the loosening of bonds between church and state, and the ideals of the enlightenment made possible the Jew's transition from the ghetto to partial inclusion in society at large; during this transition, Jewish intellectuals were attracted to the "secular knowledge" of languages, mathematics, philosophy, and the wider world beyond their ancient learning. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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