The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, 2nd edition

by Jehuda Reinharz, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Paul R. R. Mendes-Flohr

Book Overview

The last two centuries have witnessed a radical transformation of Jewish life. Marked by such profound events as the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel, Judaism's long journey through the modern age has been a complex and tumultuous one, leading many Jews to ask themselves not only where they have been and where they are going, but what it means to be a Jew in today's world.
Tracing the Jewish experience in the modern period...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019507453X
• ISBN13: 9780195074536
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 766 Pages
• Weight: 2.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Great book!

This is a great resource. I highly recommend this book. Anyone with an interest in modern Jewish history should have this book in their library.

Excellent compendium of translated documents

This is an excellent supplementary reader for a Jewish studies course at the undergraduate upper division or graduate level. It contains a wealth of translated documents from the European Jewish experience in the modern period. It covers both the Western and Eastern European experience, and is an excellent source for studying the encounter of Judaism with modernity, particularly the haskalah and Hasidism.

Essential documents

The work contains essential documents of Jewish history from 1700 to 1948. The question of its political balance is however a real one, and I felt perhaps wrongly a ' tilt left'. It seems to me too there was too scanty coverage of Zionism.

This is a collection of articles

This book is a collection of articles and excerpts from many of the main sources of Jewish History from the 1700's until present. The articles are grouped by topic. The topics start with emancipation and end off with Zionism and the Holocaust. Each article has a nice mini-biography at the end telling who the author of the article was ( or is ), and includes explanatory notes for those who aren't familiar with that era of Jewish History. The editors were quite even handed and give all sides space in their book, the only group over represented is converted Jews. After all less than .25% of all Jews converted in the 1800's. My only complaint is that they neglected two subjects. One, the Tshuva movement of the 70's to present and also the Shas phenamana of the 80's and 90's.

Filled with great articles

You needn't read this book cover to cover. The book is a series of articles starting in the 1600's and progressing to recent times. Gives perspectives of people "dealing" with the Jews and perspectives of Jewish people. An article by the commandant of Auschwitz is followed by an article from a prisoner. Both will stay with me forever.