The Berlin Jewish Community: Enlightenment, Family and Crisis, 1770-1830

by Steven M. Lowenstein

Overview

The Berlin Jewish community was both the pioneer in intellectual modernization and the first to experience a crisis of modernity. This original and imaginative book connects intellectual and political transformation with the social structures and daily activities of the Jewish community. Steven M. Lowenstein has used extraordinarily rich documentation about the life of Berlin Jewry in the period and assembled a collective biography of the entire community of Berlin Jews. He has examined tax lists, subscription lists, genealogical records, and address lists as well as kosher meat accounts to give us a vivid picture of daily life. On another level in detailing the complexity of Jewish life in Berlin during this period, this book illuminates the connections between the "peaceful stage" of enlightenment and the crisis that followed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195083262
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/02/1994
Series:	Studies in Jewish History
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.44(w) x 9.62(h) x 0.93(d)

Table of Contents

Part I	Berlin Before Modernity	1
1.	The Crisis of Berlin Jewry: Introduction to the Problem	3
2.	A Traditional Jewish Community: Berlin Jewry Before the Changes	10
Part II	The Stage of "Peaceful Modernization"	23
3.	The Seven Years War (1756-1763) and the Emergence of a New Economic Elite	25
4.	The Intellectuals of the Berlin Haskala	33
5.	The Lifestyle of Modernizing Berlin Jews	43
6.	Those Outside the Modernizing Groups: Poor Jews and Orthodox Jews in Berlin	55
Part III	The Crisis of Berlin Jewry	69
7.	The Struggle for Emancipation and Its Radicalizing Impact	75
8.	Intellectual Radicalization and Economic Crisis	89
9.	The Salons	104
10.	The Crisis: Illegitimacy and Family Breakdown	111
11.	The Crisis--Conversion: Its Scope and Characteristics	120
12.	Religious Reform: An Attempt to Deal with the Crisis	134
Part IV	The Social Analysis of the Crisis and Its Connection to the Enlightenment	149
13.	Family, Ideology, and Crisis: The Personal Connections Between the Enlightened and the Converts	151
14.	Was the Experience of Women Different from Men's Experience?	162
15.	The Aftermath of the Crisis: Berlin Jewry After 1823	177
Part V	Conclusion	183
	Conclusion	185
	Notes	197
	Bibliography	277
	Index	284

Editorial Reviews

"[T]his book is a wonderful addition to the knowledge about Berlin Jews and the complexities of existing as a minority community in changing times."—Journal of Social History

"Steven M. Lowenstein is the first to undertake a thoroughgoing social history of Berlin Jewry, basing his research largely on quantitative data drawn, for example from lists of converts, subscribers to Enlightenment publications, payers of the tax on kosher meat, and supporters of religious reform."—American Historical Review

"Because his own findings emerge forcefully from a careful examination of the evidence, they carry great weight in this ongoing debate. A first-rate study of an important subject."—CHOICE

"This is an important book in modern European Jewish history."—Central European History

"This book offers English-speaking readers an overview of the most significant religious and cultural issues and historical figures."—German Studies Review

From the Publisher