A collection of essays that provide an overview of the Jews in Eastern Europe.
Most American Jews have roots in Eastern Europe. The experiences of our nineteenth and twentieth century ancestors continue to influence, in one way or another, thinking about Jewish art, literature, theatre, education, religious observance, and political activities. The Eastern European experience was far from monolithic for these Jews, however, and wide gaps separate the realities of their lives from the often idealized, sometimes romanticized views still popular today.
This volume contains a series of lucidly written, well-argued essays that identify key features of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, provide insight into its abiding relevance, and comment on the history of related scholarship. In the process, these authors bring to life many little-known as well as prominent individuals and the communities they inhabited and influenced. With its solid scholarly foundations, full annotations, and graceful narratives, this collection should appeal to general readers as well as specialists.
Leonard J. Greenspoon holds the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University. Ronald A. Simkins is the director of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University. Brian Horowitz holds the Sizeler Family Chair at Tulane University.
Content:
Enlightened Self-Interest: The Men and Women Who Opened Schools for Jewish Girls in Late Imperial Russia; ; Nokhem-Meyer Shaykevitsh: Another classic of Yiddish theater?; ; The Radical Assimilated: Hungarian "Urbanists" and Jewish Identity in the 1930s; The Politics and Priorities of Jewish Music Publishing in Eastern Europe; Language Violence: Auschwitz Convent Controversy; The Russian Rabbinate under the Czars; The Image of Russian Jews in Russian-Jewish Historiography, 1860-1914; From "Little Man" to "Milkman": Does Jewish Art Reflect Jewish Life?; The Politics of Philanthropy: Migration, Emigration, and the Transformation of Jewish; Communal Governance in Bialystok, 1885-1939; Karl Emil Franzos' and Bertha Pappenheim's Portraits of the (Eastern European Jewish) Artist; Searching for "Catholic Israel" in Focsani: Solomon Schechter's Childhood in Romania; New Jews: David Bergelson and Birobidzhan; Beyond "Jewish Luck": The Institutional Context of Early Russian-Jewish Art; Russian Literature and Jewish Death; The Transformaiton of Zionist Religious Rhetoric as Seen Through Its Yiddish-Language; Propaganda: The Case of Galicia; Aristotle and the Ostjuden: Philosophical Thought Among the First Generation of Eastern European Maskilim; "---even beyond Pinsk": Yizker Bikher [Memorial Books] and Jewish Cultural Life in the Shtetl; The Transformation of Jewish Vilna, 1881-1939; Coming into Their Inheritance: Jewish-American Autobiographers Encounter Eastern Europe; The Ashkenazic Gaze: Creating the Jewish Art Book
Most American Jews have roots in Eastern Europe. The experiences of our nineteenth and twentieth century ancestors continue to influence, in one way or another, thinking about Jewish art, literature, theatre, education, religious observance, and political activities. The Eastern European experience was far from monolithic for these Jews, however, and wide gaps separate the realities of their lives from the often idealized, sometimes romanticized views still popular today.
This volume contains a series of lucidly written, well-argued essays that identify key features of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, provide insight into its abiding relevance, and comment on the history of related scholarship. In the process, these authors bring to life many little-known as well as prominent individuals and the communities they inhabited and influenced. With its solid scholarly foundations, full annotations, and graceful narratives, this collection should appeal to general readers as well as specialists.
Leonard J. Greenspoon holds the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University. Ronald A. Simkins is the director of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University. Brian Horowitz holds the Sizeler Family Chair at Tulane University.
Content:
Enlightened Self-Interest: The Men and Women Who Opened Schools for Jewish Girls in Late Imperial Russia; ; Nokhem-Meyer Shaykevitsh: Another classic of Yiddish theater?; ; The Radical Assimilated: Hungarian "Urbanists" and Jewish Identity in the 1930s; The Politics and Priorities of Jewish Music Publishing in Eastern Europe; Language Violence: Auschwitz Convent Controversy; The Russian Rabbinate under the Czars; The Image of Russian Jews in Russian-Jewish Historiography, 1860-1914; From "Little Man" to "Milkman": Does Jewish Art Reflect Jewish Life?; The Politics of Philanthropy: Migration, Emigration, and the Transformation of Jewish; Communal Governance in Bialystok, 1885-1939; Karl Emil Franzos' and Bertha Pappenheim's Portraits of the (Eastern European Jewish) Artist; Searching for "Catholic Israel" in Focsani: Solomon Schechter's Childhood in Romania; New Jews: David Bergelson and Birobidzhan; Beyond "Jewish Luck": The Institutional Context of Early Russian-Jewish Art; Russian Literature and Jewish Death; The Transformaiton of Zionist Religious Rhetoric as Seen Through Its Yiddish-Language; Propaganda: The Case of Galicia; Aristotle and the Ostjuden: Philosophical Thought Among the First Generation of Eastern European Maskilim; "---even beyond Pinsk": Yizker Bikher [Memorial Books] and Jewish Cultural Life in the Shtetl; The Transformation of Jewish Vilna, 1881-1939; Coming into Their Inheritance: Jewish-American Autobiographers Encounter Eastern Europe; The Ashkenazic Gaze: Creating the Jewish Art Book