An Epitaph for German Judaism

An Epitaph for German Judaism
Author: Emil L. Fackenheim
Publisher: Modern Jewish Philosophy and R
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2007
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

"His second great turning point came in 1967, as he saw Jews threatened with another Holocaust, this time in Israel. This crisis led him on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and ultimately back to Germany, where he continued to grapple with the question, How can the Jewish faith - and the Christian faith - exist after the Holocaust?"--BOOK JACKET.

German Rabbis in British Exile

German Rabbis in British Exile
Author: Astrid Zajdband
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2016-06-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110469723

The rich history of the German rabbinate came to an abrupt halt with the November Pogrom of 1938. The need to leave Germany became clear and many rabbis made use of the visas they had been offered. Their resettlement in Britain was hampered by additional obstacles such as internment, deportation, enlistment in the Pioneer Corps. But rabbis still attempted to support their fellow refugees with spiritual and pastoral care. The refugee rabbis replanted the seed of the once proud German Judaism into British soil. New synagogues were founded and institutions of Jewish learning sprung up, like rabbinic training and the continuation of “Wissenschaft des Judentums.” The arrival of Leo Baeck professionalized these efforts and resulted in the foundation of the Leo Baeck College in London. Refugee rabbis now settled and obtained pulpits in the many newly founded synagogues. Their arrival in Britain was the catalyst for much change in British Judaism, an influence that can still be felt today.

The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany

The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany
Author: Michael Brenner
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1998-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780300077209

Although Jewish participation in German society increased after World War I, Jews did not completely assimilate into that society. In fact, says Michael Brenner in this intriguing book, the Jewish population of Weimar Germany became more aware of its Jewishness and created new forms of German-Jewish culture in literature, music, fine arts, education, and scholarship. Brenner presents the first in-depth study of this culture, drawing a fascinating portrait of people in the midst of redefining themselves. The Weimar Jews chose neither a radical break with the past nor a return to the past but instead dressed Jewish traditions in the garb of modern forms of cultural expression. Brenner describes, for example, how modern translations made classic Jewish texts accessible, Jewish museums displayed ceremonial artifacts in a secular framework, musical arrangements transformed synagogue liturgy for concert audiences, and popular novels recalled aspects of the Jewish past. Brenner's work, while bringing this significant historical period to life, illuminates contemporary Jewish issues. The preservation and even enhancement of Jewish distinctiveness, combined with the seemingly successful participation of Jews in a secular, non-Jewish society, offer fresh insight into modern questions of Jewish existence, identity, and integration into other cultures.

Jews, Germans, and Allies

Jews, Germans, and Allies
Author: Atina Grossmann
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2009-08-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400832748

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, more than a quarter million Jewish survivors of the Holocaust lived among their defeated persecutors in the chaotic society of Allied-occupied Germany. Jews, Germans, and Allies draws upon the wealth of diary and memoir literature by the people who lived through postwar reconstruction to trace the conflicting ways Jews and Germans defined their own victimization and survival, comprehended the trauma of war and genocide, and struggled to rebuild their lives. In gripping and unforgettable detail, Atina Grossmann describes Berlin in the days following Germany's surrender--the mass rape of German women by the Red Army, the liberated slave laborers and homecoming soldiers, returning political exiles, Jews emerging from hiding, and ethnic German refugees fleeing the East. She chronicles the hunger, disease, and homelessness, the fraternization with Allied occupiers, and the complexities of navigating a world where the commonplace mingled with the horrific. Grossmann untangles the stories of Jewish survivors inside and outside the displaced-persons camps of the American zone as they built families and reconstructed identities while awaiting emigration to Palestine or the United States. She examines how Germans and Jews interacted and competed for Allied favor, benefits, and victim status, and how they sought to restore normality--in work, in their relationships, and in their everyday encounters. Jews, Germans, and Allies shows how Jews were integral participants in postwar Germany and bridges the divide that still exists today between German history and Jewish studies.

Making German Jewish Literature Anew

Making German Jewish Literature Anew
Author: Katja Garloff
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2022-12-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0253063744

In Making German Jewish Literature Anew, Katja Garloff traces the emergence of a new Jewish literature in Germany and Austria from 1990 to the present. The rise of new generations of authors who identify as both German and Jewish, and who often sustain additional affiliations with places such as France, Russia, or Israel, affords a unique opportunity to analyze the foundational moments of diasporic literature. Making German Jewish Literature Anew is structured around a series of founding gestures: performing authorship, remaking memory, and claiming places. Garloff contends that these founding gestures are literary strategies that reestablish the very possibility of a German Jewish literature several decades after the Holocaust. Making German Jewish Literature Anew offers fresh interpretations of second-generation authors such as Maxim Biller, Doron Rabinovici, and Barbara Honigmann as well as of third-generation authors, many of whom come from Eastern European and/or mixed-religion backgrounds. These more recent writers include Benjamin Stein, Lena Gorelik, and Katja Petrowskaja. Throughout the book, Garloff asks what exactly marks a given text as Jewish—the author's identity, intended audience, thematic concerns, or stylistic choices—and reflects on existing definitions of Jewish literature.

Fackenheim's Jewish Philosophy

Fackenheim's Jewish Philosophy
Author: Michael L. Morgan
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2013-10-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1442660503

Emil L. Fackenheim, one of the most significant Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, is best known for his deep and rich engagement with the implications of the Nazi Holocaust on Jewish thought, Christian theology, and philosophy. However, his career as a philosopher and theologian began two decades prior to his first efforts to confront that horrific event. In this book, renowned Fackenheim expert Michael L. Morgan offers the first examination of the full scope of Fackenheim’s 60-year career, beyond simply his work on the Holocaust. Fackenheim’s Jewish Philosophy explores the most important themes of Fackenheim’s philosophical and religious thought and how these remained central, if not always in immutable ways, over his entire career. Morgan also provides insight into Fackenheim’s indebtedness to Kant, Hegel, and rabbinic midrash, as well as the changing character of his philosophical “voice.” The work concludes with a chapter evaluating Fackenheim’s legacy for present and future Jewish philosophy and philosophy more generally.

To Mend the World

To Mend the World
Author: Emil L. Fackenheim
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 1994-06-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780253321145

"This subtle and nuanced study is clearly Fackenheim's most important book." —Paul Mendes-Flohr " . . . magnificent in sweep and in execution of detail." —Franklin H. Littell In To Mend the World Emil L. Fackenheim points the way to Judaism's renewal in a world and an age in which all of our notions—about God, humanity, and revelation—have been severely challenged. He tests the resources within Judaism for healing the breach between secularism and revelation after the Holocaust. Spinoza, Rosenzweig, Hegel, Heidegger, and Buber figure prominently in his account.

The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate

The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate
Author: Cornelia Wilhelm
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2024-10-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 025307021X

After the Nazi seizure of power on January 30, 1933, over 250 German rabbis, rabbinical scholars, and students for the rabbinate fled to the United States. The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate follows their lives and careers over decades in America. Although culturally uprooted, the group's professional lives and intellectual leadership, particularly those of the younger members of this group, left a considerable mark intellectually, socially, and theologically on American Judaism and on American Jewish congregational and organizational life in the postwar world. Meticulously researched and representing the only systematic analysis of prosopographical data in a digital humanities database, The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate reveals the trials of those who had lost so much and celebrates the legacy they made for themselves in America.

Oxford History of Modern German Theology

Oxford History of Modern German Theology
Author: Barrett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 830
Release: 2023-05-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198845766

From the closing decades of the eighteenth century, German theology has been a major intellectual force within modern western thought, closely connected to important developments in idealism, romanticism, historicism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Despite its influential legacy, however, no recent attempts have sought to offer an overview of its history and development. Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848, the first of a three-volume series, provides the most comprehensive multi-authored overview of German theology from the period from 1781-1848. Kaplan and Vander Schel cover categories frequently omitted from earlier overviews of the time period, such as the place of Judaism in modern German society, race and religion, and the impact of social history in shaping theological debate. Rather than focusing on individual figures alone, Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848 describes the narrative arc of the period by focusing on broader intellectual and cultural movements, ongoing debates, and significant events. It furthermore provides a historical introduction to each of the chronological subsections that divides the book. Moreover, unlike previous efforts to introduce this time period and geographical region, the volume offers chapters covering such previously neglected topics as religious orders, the influence of Romantic art, secularism, religious freedom, and important but overlooked scholarly initiatives such as the Corpus Reformatorum. Attention to such matters will make this volume an invaluable repository of scholarship and knowledge and an indispensable reference resource for decades to come.

Historical Dictionary of the Jews

Historical Dictionary of the Jews
Author: Alan Unterman
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2010-11-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 081087508X

The Historical Dictionary of the Jews presents the history of the Jewish people and their religious culture in a way that makes clear how and why this small, ancient people have survived nearly four millennia and managed to play such an important role in the world-well out of proportion to their population. The Jews trace their origins far back in history to the early tribes of Judah and Moses. Over the centuries, they spread across much of the Western world, as well as into parts of Africa and Asia, until they were crushed by the Holocaust and were forced to find refuge in the United States and the new state of Israel. Because of that horrific event, of the estimated 15 million Jews living today, approximately six million reside in Israel, with almost the same number living in the United States, making these two countries the main center of Jewish life today. This ready reference tells the history of the Jewish people through a detailed chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, places, events, institutions, and aspects of culture, society, economy, and politics. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Jewish people.