Publications

What significance did Orientalism have for German-Jewish literature? In the period of upheaval that was the early 1800s, Jewish authors, through literary means, took it upon themselves to infuse their contemporary European writing scene with a touch of oriental splendour.

79 Wittler, Kathrin: Morgenländischer Glanz. Eine deutsche jüdische Literaturgeschichte (1750–1850), (2019, 620 pp.)

During the mid-19th century, the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner sparked an impulse toward German cultural renewal and social change that drew on religious myth, metaphysics, and spiritualism. The only problem was that their works were deeply antisemitic and entangled with claims that Jews were incapable of creating compassionate art. By looking at the works of Jewish composers and writers who contributed to a lively and robust biblical theatre in fin de siècle Vienna, Caroline A. Kita shows how they reimagined myths of the Old Testament to offer new aesthetic and ethical…

I. EXILE PHOTOGRAPHY

OFER ASHKENAZI AND DANIEL WILDMANN: Exile Photography: An Introduction

TALILA KOSH-ZOHAR: Family Frames as Exile Photography

REBEKKA GROSSMAN: Image Transfer and Visual Friction: Staging Palestine in the National Socialist Spectacle

DANIEL H. MAGILOW: Cute Jews: Modernist Photographic Forms and Minor Aesthetic Categories in ‘Jüdische Kinder in Erez Israel. Ein Fotobuch’

CHRISTOPH KREUTZMÜLLER AND THERESIA ZIEHE: Crossing Borders in the Summer of 1935: Fritz…

I. REINHARD RÜRUP – OBITUARY

CLAUDIA BUCHWALD: Reinhard Rürup—Ambassador Between Worlds: 27 May 1934–6 April 2018

II. BEYOND THE NEGATIVE SYMBIOSIS: GERMAN–ISRAELI RELATIONSHIPS IN FILM

OFER ASHKENAZI: Introduction

TOBIAS EBBRECHT-HARTMANN: Projected Encounters: Rolf Vogel and the Beginnings of Cinematic Relations between Germany and Israel

LISA SCHOẞ: ‘Israel’ in East German Fiction Film

HILLA LAVIE: A Critical Look at the Beloved Land: Two West German Documentary…

This volume collects together sources about the history of the Zionist movement in Germany between 1882 and 1933, which had previously been spread across the globe. This work aims to illustrate the development of German Zionism over time, as well as its inner conflicts, important ideological tendencies and different factions. It is accessible to both those with a special interest in the subject matter, as well as casual readers.

78 Nicosia, Francis R. (hrsg. u. eingel.): Dokumente zur Geschichte des deutschen Zionismus 1933–1941, (2018, 657 pp.)

Ilany, Ofri: In Search of the Hebrew People. Bible and Nation in the German Enlightenment, (2018) 

As German scholars, poets, and theologians searched for the origins of the ancient Israelites, Ofri Ilany believes they created a model for nationalism that drew legitimacy from the biblical idea of the Chosen People. In this broad exploration of eighteenth-century Hebraism, Ilany tells the story of the surprising role that this model played in discussions of ethnicity, literature, culture, and nationhood among the German-speaking intellectual elite. He reveals the novel…

In this rich transnational history, Cornelia Aust traces Jewish Ashkenazi families as they moved across Europe and established new commercial and entrepreneurial networks as they went. Aust balances economic history with elaborate discussions of Jewish marriage patterns, women’s economic activity, and intimate family life. Following their travels from Amsterdam to Warsaw, Aust opens a multifaceted window into the lives, relationships, and changing conditions of economic activity of a new Jewish mercantile elite.

Nowhere else have Jews contributed so massively and consequentially to the general culture than in Germany. From Mendelssohn to Marx, from Freud to Einstein, Jewish contributions to secular German thought have been both wide-ranging in scope and profound in their impact. But how are these intellectual innovations contributions to European Jewish culture? How are they to be defined as Jewish? Scott Spector argues for a return to the actual subjects of German-Jewish history as a way to understand them and their worlds. By engaging deeply with the individual as well as with…

Frakes, Jerold C.

While much early Yiddish literature belonged to pious genres, quasi-secular genres—epic, drama, and lyric—also developed. Jerold Frakes contends that the historical context of the emergence of Yiddish literature is an essential factor in any understanding of its cultural relevance in a time and place where Jewish life was defined by expulsions, massacres, and discriminatory legislation that profoundly altered European Judaism and shook the very foundations of traditional Jewish society.

To what extent was modern Jewish art music influenced by its dissemination in British Mandate Palestine and how did its lively discourse with Hebrew culture take shape? In this book, Assaf Shelleg analyses the history of Israeli art music and brings the different aesthetics dilemmas between Modernism and Zionism to the forefront. 

77 Shelleg, Assaf: Musikalische Grenzgänge Europäisch-jüdische Kunstmusik und der Soundtrack der israelischen Geschichte, (2017, 344 pp.)

I. ARNOLD PAUCKER – OBITUARY AND ARTICLE

PETER PULZER: Arnold Paucker: 6 January 1921–13 October 2016

ARNOLD PAUCKER: Speaking English with an Accent

II. JEWISH CONDITIONS, SHIFTING CONCEPTIONS OF NATION AND BELONGING

SCOTT SPECTOR: Introduction

ARIE M. DUBNOV: Can Parallels Meet? Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin on the Jewish Post-Emancipatory Quest for Political Freedom

MALACHI HACOHEN: Nation and Empire in Modern Jewish European History

 …

I. GERMAN JEWS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

MENASHE ANZI AND ANJA SIEGEMUND: German Jews in the Middle East: New Perspectives

OLIVIER BAISEZ: “Greater Palestine” as a German-Zionist Idea before the British Mandate Period

RAKEFET ZALASHIK: The Middle East as a Temporary Haven: Jewish Medical Refugees in Turkey during the Second World War

GUY BRACHA: ‘The Germans Are Coming!’ The Jewish Community of Beirut Facing the Question of Jewish Immigration from Germany

II. SURVIVORS:…

I. AUSTRIAN, JEWISH, GERMAN, CZECH: REFRAMING MAX BROD AND PRAGUE ZIONISM

MARK H. GELBER: Introduction Max Brod in 2014

ABRAHAM RUBIN: Max Brod and Hans-Joachim Schoeps: Literary Collaborators, Ideological Rivals

SEBASTIAN SHIRRMEISTER: On Not Writing Hebrew: Max Brod and the ‘Jewish Poet of the German Tongue’ between Prague and Tel Aviv

II. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

MATHIAS BEREK: Neglected German-Jewish Visions for a Pluralistic Society: Moritz Lazarus

NICK BLOCK:…

I. JEWS AND CITIZENSHIP

ANDREAS BRÄMER AND GIDEON REUVENI: Introduction Jews as German Citizens: The Prussian Emancipation Edict of 1812 and Beyond

GIDEON REUVENI: Emancipation through Consumption: Moses Mendelssohn and the Idea of Marketplace Citizenship

MICHAŁ SZULC: A Gracious Act or Merely a Regulation of Economic Activity? A Daily Life Perspective on the Reception of the Prussian Emancipation Edict of 1812

MIRIAM RÜRUP: The Citizen and its Other: Zionist and Israeli Responses to …

In this historical-biographical study, Stephan Steiner illuminates the genesis, constellation and context of Leo Strauss’ political philosophy. The core of this study is the reconstruction of the transfer history, which brought a uniquely German critique of the modernity from Weimar to America in the 20th century.

Weimar in Amerika. Leo Strauss’ Politische Philosophie, (2013, 306 pp.)

The ‘Society for the Promotion of the Sciences of Judaism’(Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums) (1902-38) supported numerous groundbreaking projects and publications and to this day has a lasting influence on the study of Jewish culture around the globe. Henry C. Soussan puts the organisation in its historical context and works out which social and ideological impulses led to its creation.

75 Soussan, Henry C.: The Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums in Its Historical Context, (2013, 193pp.)

I. JEWS AND THE LAW IN MODERN EUROPE: EMANCIPATION, DESTRUCTION, RECONSTRUCTION

WARREN ROSENBLUM: Introduction

DOUGLAS G. MORRIS: The Dual State Reframed: Ernst Fraenkel’s Political Clients and his Theory of the Nazi Legal System

LISA MOSES LEFF: The Jewish Oath and the Making of Secularism in Modern France

WARREN ROSENBLUM: Jews, Justice, and the Power of “Sensation” in the Weimar Republic

IRIS NACHUM: Reconstructing Life after the Holocaust: The Lastenausgleichsgesetz and the Jewish…

I. THE GERMAN-JEWISH LITERARY CANON

MARK H. GELBER: Autobiography and History: Stefan Zweig, Theodor Herzl and Die Welt von Gestern

CAROLINE JESSEN: “Vergangenheiten haben ihr eigenes Beharrungsvermögen …” Josef Kastein and the Troublesome Persistence of a Canon of German Literature in Palestine/Israel

SANDER L. GILMAN: ‘Jewish Humour’ and the Terms by Which Jews and Muslims Join Western Civilization

II. THE GERMAN RABBINATE ABROAD

CORNELIA WILHELM AND TOBIAS GRILL: The German…

I. JOHN GRENVILLE – OBITUARY AND INTERVIEW

PETER PULZER: John Grenville 1928–2011

BEA LEWKOWICZ: An Interview by Dr Bea Lewkowicz with Professor John Grenville

II. JEWISH LIFE IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

DEAN PHILLIP BELL: Navigating the Flood Waters: Perspectives on Jewish Life in Early Modern Germany

NIMROD ZINGER: Away from Home: Travelling and Leisure Activities among German Jews in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

MIRJAM ZADOFF: Travelling Writers:…

I. JEWISH AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

ISMAR SCHORSCH: Converging Cognates: the Intersection of Jewish and Islamic Studies in Nineteenth Century Germany

II. OVERLAPPING SPHERES

ROBERT LIBERLES: Jews and Christians in early modern Germany

YAACOV DEUTSCH: Jewish Anti-Christian Invectives and Christian Awareness: An unstudied form of interaction in the Early Modern Period

NATALIE NAIMARK-GOLDBERG: Health, leisure and sociability at the turn of the nineteenth century: Jewish women in German…