Forging Modern Jewish Identities Public Faces and Private Struggles

Forging Modern Jewish Identities illuminates facets of modern Jewish identity through engagement with diverse historical moments, political and social currents and literature as an aspect of popular culture. This volume is distinctive, and it can be enjoyed by the general reader as well as having potential as a teaching tool, as the experience of Jewry in the United States, Britain, Central and Western Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union is addressed by experts in each of these fields. Its introduction places the volume within the burgeoning genre of anthologies that constitutes a significant - but little noticed - development in Jewish and ethnic-national historiography. Cutting across disciplinary and national boundaries, the articles highlight Jewry's encounter with modernity from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. While acknowledging the power of acculturation, each of the contributions details how Jews transformed themselves, individually and communally, while reshaping notions of Jewish community and what it means to be a Jew in the modern world.

Michael Berkowitz is Reader in Modern Jewish History at University College London Sam W. Bloom is Lecturer in the Department of French Language and Literature at the University of Haifa, Israel Lawrence G. Charap, Independent Scholar, is employed by Digital Learning Interactive Miriam Dean-Otting is Professor of Religious Studies, Kenyon College, Ohio Musya Glants is at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University Mark Levene is Reader in Comparative History, the Parkes Centre for Jewish-Non-Jewish Relations and the Department of History, University of Southampton Michelle Mart is Assistant Professor of History, Pennsylvania State University, Berks Campus Alice S. Nakhimovsky, is Professor of Russian, Colgate University, New York Stanislao G. Pugliese is Associate Professor of Modern European History at Hofstra University and a former Visiting Research Fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University Glenn Sharfman is Professor of History, Hiram College, Ohio Daniel Soyer is Associate Professor of History, Fordham University, New York Susan L. Tananbaum is Associate Professor of History, Bowdoin College, Maine Peter Vardy is Emeritus Lecturer in Philosophy, Twente University, Enschede, The Netherlands