Paths of Emancipation – Jews States & Citizenship (Paper) (Princeton Legacy Library) - Softcover

Katznelson, Ira

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691034613 ISBN 13: 9780691034614

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Throughout the nineteenth century, legal barriers to Jewish citizenship were lifted in Europe, enabling organised Jewish communities and individuals to alter radically their relationships with the institutions of the Christian West. In this volume, one of the first to offer a comparative overview of the entry of Jews into state and society, eight leading historians analyse the course of emancipation in Holland, Germany, France, England, the United States, and Italy as well as in Turkey and Russia. The goal is to produce a systematic study of the highly diverse paths to emancipation and to explore their different impacts on Jewish identity, dispositions, and patterns of collective action. Jewish emancipation concerned itself primarily with issues of state and citizenship. Would the liberal and republican values of the Enlightenment guide governments in establishing the terms of Jewish citizenship? How would states react to Jews seeking to become citizens and to remain meaningfully Jewish? The authors examine these issues through discussions of the entry of Jews into the military, the judicial system, business, and academic and professional careers, for example, and through discussions of their assertive political activity.

About this title

Review

"The terrain covered by Paths of Emancipation is vast. The editorial agenda required that 'emancipation' be understood by the contributors in its broadest sense, and that it be set in the context of social and political developments within each state. . . . The result of such painstaking contextualization is a book that is stronger on particulars than it is on more general comparative insights. But this does not detract from the excellence of the individual contributions, or from the historiographical value of the project."--Christopher Clark, Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Professeur emerite de science politique de Paris-I, membre de l'Institut universitaire de France, professeur invite a Columbia University, Pierre Birnbaum est l'auteur de nombreux ouvrages relatifs a l'Etat et aux Juifs de France depuis deux siecles (- La Republique juive -; Les Fous de la Republique; le Moment antisemite)".

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691034613
• ISBN 13: 9780691034614
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320