Jewish Cultural Nationalism


Book Description

Jewish Cultural Nationalism explores the development of Jewish nationalism from the Bible to modern times, focusing on particular movements and places as well as texts which signified, or themselves brought about, change: the Bible (Hebrew prayer book), and the modern Hebrew literature, particularly in Tsarist Russia. While the influence of the Hebrew Bible alone on nationalism in individual periods has been subject to much scholarly study, the present work is unusual in its emphasis on the continuity of Jewish cultural nationalism and its influences through Hebrew texts.




Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia


Book Description

The triumph of Zionism has clouded recollection of competing forms of Jewish nationalism vying for power a century ago. This study explores alternative ways to construct the modern Jewish nation. Jewish nationalism emerges from this book as a Diaspora phenomenon much broader than the Zionist movement. Like its non-Jewish counterparts, Jewish nationalism was first and foremost a movement to nationalize Jews, to construct a modern Jewish nation while simultaneously masking its very modernity. Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia traces this process in what was the second largest Jewish community in Europe, Galicia. The history of this vital but very much understudied community of Jews fills a critical lacuna in existing scholarship while revisiting the broader question of how Jewish nationalism - or indeed any modern nationalism - was born. Based on a wide variety of sources, many newly uncovered, this study challenges the still-dominant Zionist narrative by demonstrating that Jewish nationalism was a part of the rising nationalist movements in Europe.




Jews and Diaspora Nationalism


Book Description

An anthology of Jewish diaspora nationalist thought across the ideological spectrum




German as a Jewish Problem


Book Description

The German language holds an ambivalent and controversial place in the modern history of European Jews, representing different—often conflicting—historical currents. It was the language of the German classics, of German Jewish writers and scientists, of Central European Jewish culture, and of Herzl and the Zionist movement. But it was also the language of Hitler, Goebbels, and the German guards in Nazi concentration camps. The crucial role of German in the formation of Jewish national culture and politics in the late nineteenth century has been largely overshadowed by the catastrophic events that befell Jews under Nazi rule. German as a Jewish Problem tells the Jewish history of the German language, focusing on Jewish national movements in Central and Eastern Europe and Palestine/Israel. Marc Volovici considers key writers and activists whose work reflected the multilingual nature of the Jewish national sphere and the centrality of the German language within it, and argues that it is impossible to understand the histories of modern Hebrew and Yiddish without situating them in relation to German. This book offers a new understanding of the language problem in modern Jewish history, turning to German to illuminate the questions and dilemmas that largely defined the experience of European Jews in the age of nationalism.




Nationalism, Zionism and ethnic mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and beyond [electronic resource]


Book Description

European, US, and Israeli historians and social scientists try to skirt the political controversies involved in the origin of Israel to offer academic perspectives on Jewish nationalism, of which Zionism comprised a prominent alternative beginning in the late 19th century. They look in particular at aspects that have been undervalued in examining J.




Jewish Cultural Nationalism


Book Description

Jewish Cultural Nationalism explores the development of Jewish nationalism from the Bible to modern times, focusing on particular movements and places as well as texts which signified, or themselves brought about, change: the Bible (Hebrew prayer book), and the modern Hebrew literature, particularly in Tsarist Russia. While the influence of the Hebrew Bible alone on nationalism in individual periods has been subject to much scholarly study, the present work is unusual in its emphasis on the continuity of Jewish cultural nationalism and its influences through Hebrew texts.




Confronting the Nation


Book Description

Originally published by the University Press of New England under the title Confronting the Nation: Jewish and Western Nationalism, copyright Ã1993 by Trustees of Brandeis University.




Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism


Book Description

Contrary to the widespread view that nationalism is a modern phenomenon, Goodblatt argues that it can be found in the ancient world. He argues that concepts of nationalism compatible with contemporary social scientific theories can be documented in the ancient sources from the Mediterranean Rim by the middle of the last millennium BCE. In particular, the collective identity asserted by the Jews in antiquity fits contemporary definitions of nationalism. After the theoretical discussion in the opening chapter, the author examines several factors constitutive of ancient Jewish nationalism. He shows how this identity was socially constructed by such means as the mass dissemination of biblical literature, retention of the Hebrew language, and through the priestly caste. The author also discusses each of the names used to express Jewish national identity: Israel, Judah and Zion.




The Tragedy of a Generation


Book Description

The Tragedy of a Generation is the story of a failed ideal: an autonomous Jewish nation in Europe. It traces the origins of two influential strains of Jewish thought—Yiddishism and Diaspora Nationalism—and documents the waning hopes and painful reassessments of their leading representatives against the rising tide of Nazism and the Holocaust.




Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution


Book Description

Between 1917 and 1921, Jewish intellectuals and writers across the Russian empire pursued a “Jewish renaissance.” Here is a revisionist argument about the nature of cultural nationalism, the relationship between nationalism and socialism, and culture itself—the pivot point for the encounter between Jews and European modernity over the past century.




Recent Books