Germans, Jews, and Antisemites: Trials in Emancipation

The ferocity of the anti-semitic Nazi attack upon the Jews took many by surprise. This book tries to explain why. The history of the Jews in modern Germany is usually told as the tale of outstanding individuals, completely immersed in German society and disproportionately contributing to its culture. This book focuses, however, on the story of ordinary German Jews, concerned not merely with being like other Germans, i.e. assimilated, but with upward social climbing and achievements as well. Although they did not seek to abandon Judaism, they tried to reformulate and reinvent it to fit their newly upgraded status. Thus, despite continuous antisemitism, Germany seemed to accept the Jews on these terms until World War II.

Author: Shulamit Volkov
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 08/01/2006
Pages: 326
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 9.04h x 6.06w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780521609593

About the Author
Volkov, Shulamit: - Shulamit Volkov is the Konrad Adenauer Chair for Comparative European History and Professor of Modern European History at Tel Aviv University. She was previously a fellow at St Anthony's College, Oxford, the Wissenschaftskolleg, and the Historisches Kolleg. Volkov is the author of The Origins of Popular Antimodernism in Germany: The Urban Master Artisans, 1873-1896 (1978) and the editor of Deutsche Juden und die Moderne (1994) and Being Different: Minorities, Aliens, and Outsiders in History (2000).