Early modern Jewry : a new cultural history / David B. Ruderman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ruderman, David B.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Intellectual life.

Jews.

Jews--Europe--History.

Judaism.

History.

Jewish learning and scholarship.

Social networks.

Europe.

Jews--Social networks--Europe--History.

Jews--History--70-1789.

Jewish learning and scholarship--Europe.

Judaism--Doctrines--Early works to 1800.

Judaism--Doctrines.

Judaism--History.

Judaism--Europe--History.

Rabbis--Biography.

Rabbis.

Europe--Intellectual life.

Intellectual life.

Genre:

Early works to 1800.

Biography.

Biographies.

Early works.

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 326 pages : maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2010]

Summary:

"Early Modern Jewry boldly offers a new history of the early modern Jewish experience. From Krakow and Venice to Amsterdam and Smyrna, David Ruderman examines the historical and cultural factors unique to Jewish communities throughout Europe, and how these distinctions played out amidst the rest of society. Looking at how Jewish settlements in the early modern period were linked to one another in fascinating ways, he shows how Jews were communicating with each other and were more aware of their economic, social, and religious connections than ever before." "Ruderman explores five crucial and powerful characteristics uniting Jewish communities: a mobility leading to enhanced contacts between Jews of differing backgrounds, traditions, and languages, as well as between Jews and non-Jews; a heightened sense of communal cohesion throughout all Jewish settlements that revealed the rising power of lay oligarchies; a knowledge explosion brought about by the printing press, the growing interest in Jewish books by Christian readers, an expanded curriculum of Jewish learning, and the entrance of Jewish elites into universities; a crisis of rabbinic authority expressed through active messianism, mystical prophecy, radical enthusiasm, and heresy; and the blurring of religious identities, impacting such groups as conversos, Sabbateans, individual converts to Christianity, and Christian Hebraists." "In describing an early modern Jewish culture, Early Modern Jewry reconstructs a distinct epoch in history and provides essential background for understanding the modern Jewish experience."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents:

Jews on the move

Communal cohesion

Knowledge explosion

Crisis of rabbinic authority

Mingled identities

Toward modernity: some final thoughts.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

National Jewish Book Awards - History, Winner, 2010

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780691144641

0691144648

OCLC:

433551209