Jews The Making of a Diaspora People.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Judaism--History.

Judaism.

History.

Jews--History.

Jews.

Jewish diaspora.

Physical Description:

xii, 298 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : Polity Pr, 2012.

Summary:

This book is a comprehensive account of how the Jews became a diaspora people. The term "diaspora" was first applied exclusively to the early history of the Jews at they began it has come to express the characteristic uniqueness of the Jewish historical experience. Zeitlin retraces the history of the Jewish diaspora from the ancient world to the present, beginning with expulsion from their ancestral homeland and concluding with the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In mapping this process, Zeitlin argues that the Jews' religious self-understanding was crucial in enabling them to cope with the serious and recurring challenges they have had to face throughout their history. He analyzes the varied reactions the Jews encountered from their so-called "host peoples," paying special attention to the attitudes of famous thinkers such as Luther, Hegel, Nietzsche, Wagner, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, the Left Hegelians, Marx, and others, who didn't shy away from making explicit their opinions of the Jews.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish studies, diaspora studies, history, and religion, as well as to general readers keen to learn more about the history of the Jewish experience. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 "Diaspora": On the Genealogy of a Concept 1

The Relation of Theory to History and the Role of the Ideal Type 2

Global Diasporas by Robin Cohen 4

Diasporas by Stéphane Dufoix 9

Powers of Diaspora by Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin 13

The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness by Paul Gilroy 18

Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century by James Clifford 26

2 Varieties of Jewish Religious Experience (Resting, however, on Unifying Jewish Religious Principles) 29

Moshe Rosman's Rethinking European Jewish History 32

Cultures of the Jews 33

Syncretism in Jewish History 35

Polytheism and Monotheism 35

The Nature of Polytheism 36

3 Max Weber's Ancient Judaism 39

The Hebrew Prophets: The Setting 40

The Prophetic Ethic 45

4 The Babylonian Empire 50

The Revolt and the Destruction of the First Temple 53

The Emigration to Egypt 55

5 The Babylonian Exile and the Persian Supremacy (586-332 BCE) 57

The Diaspora in Babylon and Persia 61

6 Alexander the Great and the New Hegemony of the West 64

7 The World Diaspora 67

The Beginnings of the European Diaspora: Greece and Rome 70

8 The Diaspora in the First Century CE 72

Judaism's Proselytism 74

9 The Jews in the Roman Near East 78

10 The Jews Move to Poland 83

The Chmelnitzky Uprising of 1648-1649 86

11 Sabbatai Zevi 90

12 Gershom Scholem's Error 97

Dubnow on the Sabbatian Movement 100

13 The Rise of Hasidism and the Baal-Shem-Tob 104

Enter the Man, Israel, Who Became the Baal-Shem-Tob 105

The Fundamental Principles of the Besht's Teachings 107

The Growth of Tzaddikism 109

Hasidism, Rabbinism, and the Forerunners of the Enlightenment 112

14 The Jews of Spain 114

The Inquisition 117

The Jews, the Spanish, and the "Conversos Problem" 122

The Aftermath of the Pogroms 126

Jewish Mysticism: The Kabbalah in Spanish-Jewish Life 128

15 The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain 131

The Conquest of Granada 132

16 The Enlightenment and the Jews 136

The English Deists 138

Varieties of Enlightenment Views on Religion 141

Voltaire 143

Rousseau 146

Rousseau on Judaism and the Jews 148

17 The Germanies 152

The Emerging German National Mind 154

Luther 154

Luther's Attitude toward the Jews 158

Hegel 160

Hegel on Jews and Judaism 162

18 The Left Hegelians and the so-called "Jewish Question" 166

Bruno Bauer on the "Jewish Question" 168

Marx 272

Marx's Use of the Terms "Jew" and "Judaism" 174

Weber vs Sombart on the Spirit of Capitalism 176

19 From Religion to Race 179

Afro-American and Jewish Parallels 179

Arthur de Gobineau 181

20 From Gobineau and H. Stewart Chamberlain to Wagner 185

Nietzsche, the Jews, and Judaism 188

Nietzsche's Legacy 193

21 The Rise of Nazism 195

The Versailles Treaty 197

The Origins of the Nazi Party 199

After the Putsch 207

22 The Early Nazi Regime and the Jews as Perceived by Non-Jewish Contemporaries 206

23 World War I, the Collapse of the Old Regimes, and the Rise of Totalitarianism 212

More on Nazi Ideology, Internal Factions, and Foreign Policy Aims 214

The Turning Point: The Attack on Poland 216

24 Max Weber on Bureaucracy and its Relevance for an Analysis of the Shoah (Holocaust) 219

Bureaucracy 219

German Ideology and Bureaucracy 221

Weber's Serious Error 223

25 Charisma, Bureaucracy, and the "Final Solution" 226

Raul Hilberg's, The Destruction of the European Jews 226

The Administration of the Destructive Process 228

The Reich-Protektorat Area 230

The Creation of a Centralized Authority in Ghettoized Jewish Communities 230

The Polish Jews under the Nazis 232

The Jewish Councils (Judenräte) 234

Nazi Food Controls 237

Mobile Killing Operations 238

The Role of the Other Ethnic Groups 240

Definition of "Jew" Again, and Himmler 241

Ian Kershaw's Recent Re-examination of the Issues 243

26 Leon Poliakov's Complementary Analysis of the Shoah 246

Hitler's Euthanasia Program 247

Auschwitz 249

The "Death's Head" Formations (SS Totenkopf) 251

Back to the Question of a Distinctive German National Character 252

Significant Political Differences Between Eastern and Western Europe 254

The Role of the Christian Churches 255

Postscript 256

27 The Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto 258

A Reflection on Jewish Resistance 261

28 Zionism, Israel, and the Palestinians 263

Theodor Herzl 264

The Historical Jewish Presence in the Arab World 265

The Peace Conference of 1919 266

"The Unseen Question" 268

Arab Rebellion 273.

ISBN:

9780745660172

0745660177

OCLC:

769991370

Publisher Number:

99947784886