Creating a Jewish History of Early Modern Germany: Review Essay

Creating a Jewish History ofEarly Modern Germany CREATING A JEWISH HISTORY OF EARLY MODERN GERMANY Review Essay by Dean Phillip Bell DePaul University Introduction 119 The growing interest in Jewish Studies in Germany and the methodological innovations and careful sourcework in early modern history more generally have combined to make the study ofJewish history in early modern Germany a burgeoning and important field. Two recent books, both of which are compilations of conference essays, demonstrate the very exciting research with which a very diverse and distinguished group of scholars of varying national, historiographical, and methodological perspectives (Hsia) is occupied. These books reveal not only the great amount of knowledge that has been gleaned and the very promising questions that have been asked in the past few years, but they also betray the tremendous gaps in our current understanding and research agendas. These works do, however, indicate profitable directions for future research. New Works In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) is the result of a conference held at UClA in May of 1991. Papers submitted at that conference have been edited by R. Po-chia Hsia and Hartmut Lehmann and divided into six parts: "The Legacy of the Middle Ages: Jewish Cultural Identity and the Price of Exclusion," "The Social and Economic Structure of German Jewry from the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries," "Jewish-Gentile Contacts and Relations in the Pre- 120 SHOFAR Fall 1996 Vol. 15, No.1 Emancipation Period," "Representations of German Jewry: Images, Prejudices, and Ideas," "The Pattern of Authority and the Limits of Toleration: The Case of German Jewry," and "Through the Looking Glass: Four Perspectives on German-Jewish History." Retaining something oftheir conference feel, each section concludes with a brief assessment of the papers included in that section. The great value of this collection is that it brings together not only significant scholars of late medieval and early modern German Jewish history but also experts from other periods and other fields, who can offer an important comparative perspective. Jewish Communities in Swabia in the Context of the Old Empire (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995) is similarly a collection of very scholarly, interdisciplinary articles whose genesis was a conference held at the Institute for European Cultural History of the University of Augsburg in July of 1992. The essays in this volume are culled from a variety of scholars, some ofwhom also contributed to In and Out ofthe Ghetto, but they are on average longer than the papers included in In and Out of the Ghetto and cover a broader historical, if more narrowly defined regional, content. The book is divided into four sections: "Urban Jewry in the Middle Ages," "Rural Jewry in the Early Modern Period," "Mechanisms of Discrimination," and "Emancipation and Assimilation." All of the essays in this volume are in German and are edited by the very talented Rolf Kie8ling. This volume reveals with particular force the very rich documentation available to historians after the middle of the sixteenth century and calls out for an analysis and understanding of the "inner Jewish perspective." According to Kie8ling, the impetus for the conference and then the book has been the increased interest in the topic ofJewish history and culture in Germany as reflected in the 1988 collaborative exhibit of the Germanische Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte entitled "Siehe der Stein schreit aus der Mauer," as well as other late 80's initiatives to restore monuments to the former Jewish presence in Germany, through the restoration of the synagogues in Ichenhausen and Augsburg, for example. One wonders, however, if the penchant for interest in dead Jews and monuments might not detract from the very work with living Jews: put another way, is the focus of these studies on Jewish history looking in from the outside, or can it also accommodate seeing Jewish history from the inside looking out, as the title of the first book suggests? Creating a Jewish History ofEarly Modern Germany Contours of Early Modern German Jewish History 121 The general contours of early modern German Jewish history are as follows. Despite great regional variation, after the middle...