Modernization, Assimilation, Cultural Renewal, and the Public Sphere: New Perspectives in the History of Eastern and Central European Jewry

Abstract

The article presents and analyses a variety of new monographs dealing with different perspectives of Modern Jewish history in Eastern and Central Europe. It begins by presenting local urban histories of the Jews of St. Petersburg and Moscow, Kiev and Bialystok – each of which also contributes to the wider picture of Eastern European Jewish history. It then turns to works that are devoted to processes of cultural modernization and secularization in Jewish Eastern Europe. The new portrait of Eastern European Jewry, as it is reflected in these works, which originated mostly from North American scholars, is much more modern, integrated in the Russian environment, and secular than it looked in the past. The emergence of modern Jewish culture and public spaces is presented as a complicated process with a variety of alternative trends. Key questions which were raised in this context continue to be debated in the Jewish world until today. 

The last parts of the article present new works in the field of German Jewish history that challenge the old paradigm of Jewish assimilation and present a more complicated relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish population in Germany. Local histories and new case studies demonstrate a much less dichotomous picture of German Jewish identity. 

All in all, the new North American scholarship challenges rigid and essentialist identity forms and suggests, instead, to concentrate on the development of more daily practices. It is also based on growing sensitivity to linguistic nuances in the sources.