John M. Efron . German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. 343 pp. - Carsten Schapkow . Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation. Translated by Corey Twitchell . Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. 305 pp.

AJS Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 266-269
Author(s):  
Tobias Brinkmann
Author(s):  
Mark H. Gelber

This chapter delineates the parameters of developments and relationships to the 'Jewish contribution discourse'. It notes the marginality of Jewish culture in present-day Germany that has enabled the emergence of the quintessential post-modern field of cultural studies in Germany and the basis for diverse criticism. It also mentions Moritz Goldstein, who boldly claimed in his 'Deutsch-jüdischer Parnass' that the Jews in Germany had become the custodians and arbiters of the spiritual treasures of German society. The chapter explores the understanding of European culture as largely Jewish, which militates against the idea of a possible Jewish contribution to that culture since the term 'contribution' appears to make little sense if the Jewish element is the dominant one. It explains the concept of a contribution that rests on the notion of a dominant host culture to which guests might contribute.


Author(s):  
Marc B. Shapiro

This chapter takes a step back to consider the state of the German Jewry at length after the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in 1933. Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, for his part, held a rather hopeful view of the situation that year, going so far as to repeatedly express that the Jews had nothing to fear from the Nazis, and the controversies his optimistic views caused within the German Jewish intellectual community. In the meantime, Hitler was beginning to implement more antisemitic reforms. His banning of the sheḥitah — the Jewish practice of ritually slaughtering meat — in particular shocked the Jewish community. At the same time that discussions about the sheḥitah issue were going on, Weinberg was confronted by plans to transfer the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary to Palestine. Though a minor episode in Weinberg's life, through it the chapter provides further insight into the relationship between east European talmudists and the modern rabbinical seminary.


2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 78-112

Martin Dean, Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Reviewed by Jürgen Lillteicher 78George Last, After the ‘Socialist Spring’: Collectivisation and Economic Transformation in the GDR (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009)Reviewed by Katja M. GuentherAnton Kaes, Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).Reviewed by Larson PowellY. Michal Bodemann, ed., The New German Jewry and the European Context: The Return of the European Jewish Diaspora (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)Reviewed by Miriam Intrator Noah Isenberg, ed., Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008)Reviewed by Ofer AshkenaziAnika Leithner, Shaping German Foreign Policy. History, Memory, and National Interest (Boulder and London: First Forum Press, 2009)Reviewed by Helge F. JaniDavid Bloxham, The Final Solution: A Genocide. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)Reviewed by Jutta A. HelmJoyce Marie Mushaben, The Changing Face of Citizenship: Integration and Mobilization among Ethnic Minorities in Germany (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008)Reviewed by Randall Hansen


Author(s):  
Amir Engel

Abstract The fact that bizarre intellectual trends and teachings, like occultism, parapsychology, and neopaganism played an important role in modern German culture is thoroughly documented by scholars of German history. Experts on German-Jewish history, however, still tend to describe German-Jewish culture as one formed around the ideals of ‘Bildung’ and the Enlightenment. As a result, German-Jewish occultism, mysticism, and other non-Enlightenment texts and authors have received relatively little scholarly attention. The present article aims to help correct this bias by introducing a new framework for the study of German-Jewish culture, and by examining an all but forgotten case study: Meir Wiener and his work. After introducing the term ‘Western esotericism’, developed by scholars of religious studies, the article uses it to explore two of Meir Wiener’s strangest and virtually forgotten works. Wiener, it is shown, produced fantastically esoteric works in the context of German expressionism and Kabbalah studies, which better represent their time and place than scholars have thus far acknowledged.


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