In and out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany

Description

This is the first comprehensive account of Jewish-Gentile relations in central Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, with particular emphasis on cultural, economic, social, and political issues, and incorporating much new research. Individually, the essays probe the central questions of Jewish development within the territorial states, secular and clerical, and in both rural and urban environments. The authors grapple with such relevant issues as cultural identity, representation, toleration, and minority/majority relations.

"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