From Admission Ticket to Contribution: Remarks on the History of an Apologetic Argument

Author(s):  
Yaacov Shavit

This chapter probes the delicate balance forged by nineteenth-century German-Jewish intellectuals between an array of desiderata. It analyses Jewish acculturation, Jewish participation and partnership in the culture of the enlightened Christian majority, as well as the retention of an essential Judaic character that is deemed superior and unique. The chapter identifies the heroes of Shavit's story that envisioned neither Nazism nor the Final Solution, in which Shavit wonders if their endeavour proved a vain waste of the Jews' cultural vitality and productivity and a disastrous self-delusion. It talks about the renewal of German-Jewish culture and the birth of German-Jewish Studies as an academic discipline in post-war Germany.

Author(s):  
Jeremy Cohen

This chapter discusses the field of Jewish history that has developed in relation to the experiences of the Jews, including the matter and manner that historians study it. It explains the history of the Jews that originated in the political, social, and cultural agenda of enlightened, nineteenth-century Jewish intellectuals. It also mentions Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi who concluded in his ground-breaking study of Jewish history and Jewish memory, Zakhor, that modern Jewish historiography originated as an ideology to the crisis of Jewish emancipation and the struggle. The chapter covers the Jews, Jewish culture and, and the cultural and historical scholarship of the Jews as they entered an age called 'postmodern'. It talks about postmodernism, which has ushered the study of the Jewish past into a new world of discourse filled with challenges that shaped the conversations of Jewish historians in prior generations.


Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.


Aschkenas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-349
Author(s):  
Matthias Springborn

Abstract This biographical essay is designed to give a survey of Constantin Brunnerʼs early years, from his childhood and youth until the end of his student days, based on the available letters, manuscripts and published writings. A major focus is on Brunnerʼs intellectual development from protected child, spiritually shaped by Jewish orthodoxy, to aspiring religious scholar and finally to the secular philosopher known today. The article is therefore a contribution to a range of research topics: to the field of German-Jewish biography during the period of the German Empire; but also to the history of ideas, particularly in relation to the secularization of religious minorities. It also touches upon developments inside the Jewish community: the way different intellectual and religious currents are related to each other, the informal networks between Jewish intellectuals and how national (German or Jewish) identity is related to the Jewish self-image.


Author(s):  
Moshe Rosman

This chapter examines some problems posed by the Jewish pluralism paradigm. With regard to the metasolution of influence, there is a firm article of faith shared by practically all of today's Judaica scholars that, in all times and places, pre-modern or ‘traditional’ Jews lived in intimate interaction with surrounding cultures to the point where they may be considered to be embedded in them and, consequently, indebted to them in terms of culture. This contrasts with an older conception of Jewish culture which represented Jews as living in at least semi-isolation from the non-Jewish world. The chapter thus demonstrates that there are more than these two possible approaches to the history of Jewish culture, and that these two themselves should be understood in a more sophisticated way. It asserts that the first approach (universal cultural influence, in its incarnation as hybridity theory), when applied mechanically, unimaginatively, and uncritically can be as ideological, dogmatic, and inappropriate as the second (Jewish cultural autonomy) often has been. The chapter next contemplates the metahistories implied by the various approaches to Jewish cultural history and their relationship to intellectual presuppositions for engaging in Jewish studies in the academy.


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):  
Moritz Ege ◽  
Andrew Wright Hurley

In this first essay, we delve into significant moments in the history (and pre-history) of twentieth century Afro-Americanophilia in Germany. We establish a periodisation stretching from the nineteenth century until the mid-1960s (from which point our second essay will continue), and take in the pre-colonial, the colonial, the Weimar, the Nazi; and the post-war eras.  We draw out some of the particularly significant moments, ruptures, and continuities within that time frame. We also identify some of the salient ways scholars have interpreted ‘Afro-Americanophilia’ during the period.  Focusing on a variety of practices of appropriation, communicative media, actors and forms of agency, power differentials, and sociocultural contexts, we discuss positive images of and affirmative approaches to black people in German culture and in its imaginaries. We attend to who was active in Afro-Americanophilia, in what ways, and what the effects of that agency were. Our main focus is on white German Afro-Americanophiles, but—without attempting to write a history of African Americans, black people in Germany, or Black Germans— we also inquire into the ways that the latter reacted to, suffered under the expectations levied upon them, or were able to engage with the demand for ‘black cultural traffic.’  


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Serge Noiret

AbstractThis article traces the origins and development of public history in Italy, a field not anymore without this name today. Public history in Italy has its roots in historical institutions born in the nineteenth century and in the post WW2 first Italian Republic. The concept of “public use of history” (1993), the important role played by memory issues in post-war society, local and national identity issues, the birth of public archaeology (2015) before public history, the emergence of history festivals in the new millennium are all important moments shaping the history of the field and described in this essay. The foundation of the “Italian Association of Public History” (AIPH) in 2016/2017, and the promotion of an Italian Public History Manifesto (2018) together with the creation of Public History masters in universities, are all concrete signs of a vital development of the field in the Peninsula.


1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Susan Russinoff

In 1883, while a student of C. S. Peirce at Johns Hopkins University, Christine Ladd-Franklin published a paper titled On the Algebra of Logic, in which she develops an elegant and powerful test for the validity of syllogisms that constitutes the most significant advance in syllogistic logic in two thousand years. Sadly, her work has been all but forgotten by logicians and historians of logic. Ladd-Franklin's achievement has been overlooked, partly because it has been overshadowed by the work of other logicians of the nineteenth century renaissance in logic, but probably also because she was a woman. Though neglected, the significance of her contribution to the field of symbolic logic has not been diminished by subsequent achievements of others.In this paper, I bring to light the important work of Ladd-Franklin so that she is justly credited with having solved a problem over two millennia old. First, I give a brief survey of the history of syllogistic logic. In the second section, I discuss the logical systems called “algebras of logic”. I then outline Ladd-Franklin's algebra of logic, discussing how it differs from others, and explain her test for the validity of the syllogism, both in her symbolic language and the more familiar language of modern logic. Finally I present a rigorous proof of her theorem. Ladd-Franklin developed her algebra of logic before the methods necessary for a rigorous proof were available to her. Thus, I do now what she could not have done then.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIL RUBIN

AbstractThe German-Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) had famously opposed the establishment of a Jewish nation state in Palestine. During the Second World War, however, Arendt also spoke out repeatedly against the establishment of a binational Arab-Jewish state. Rejecting both alternatives, Arendt advocated for the inclusion of Palestine in a multi-ethnic federation that would not consist only of Jews and Arabs. Only in 1948, in an effort to forestall partition, did Arendt revise her earlier critique and endorse a binational solution for Palestine. This article offers a new reading of the evolution of Arendt's thought on Zionism and argues that her support for federalism must be understood as part of a broader wartime debate over federalism as a solution to a variety of post-war nationality problems in Europe, the Middle East and the British Empire. By highlighting the link between debates on wartime federalism and the future of Palestine, this article also underscores the importance of examining the legacy of federalism in twentieth century Europe for a more complete understanding of the history of Zionism.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document