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    ENDELMAN, 19-48

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    34 views17 pages

    Endelman, 19-48

    Uploaded by

    Adina Kurt
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    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 17
    ‘THE LITTMAN LIBRARY OF JEWISH CIVILIZATION Dedicated tothememaryof Louis THoseas Stoxey Lertacaw ho founded the Litman iar forthe lve of Ga and as act of hay in menor hfaher JOSEPH AAwoN Lartaase ramos (Get wisdom get wnderstandig: rs hernotandshe sal reser the? tint fet cn ad ty Sp > a a BROADENING M4 JEWISH HISTORY Towards a Social History of Ordinary Jews TODD M. ENDELMAN AST) Linkaey oem FC By Csre Hono ‘oxford - Portland, Oregor “The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization CHAPTER ONE Making Jews Modern Jewish Self-Identification and Wesi European Categories of Belonging Tis atte tro anche see ht ny — everywhere ad stl ines is fad, fragmento, and contingent. Thi assumption, whatever ts value laminating Jewish behavior in recent entries, sno very useful in understanding the experience of ews inex lee periods n medieval and early moder Europe, Jews canstited wel defined callectve unit for whom questions of seldentfcation—who ae ‘ead whit sour place here?—rarl arose Preamodern European Jews di fered rom theirneighbousby virtue oftheir religion, nationaly/ehnciy, leg status, and in most case Language, costime, employment and soca sod cultural habits. Mos led in quastautonomous,elEregolating corpo ratlons (io) chartered bodies with welldefined privileges and bln tins. With the equent exception oflte medial lian ad Spanish ews and those in small slated communities elsewhere, ther contacts with Christians wee largely instrumental Religious tations Jewish and Chis ian alike), social structures, and lslcategoris defined the borders ofthe Jesh word, which remained more oe les stable througheut the medieval and aly moder periods Jewishess’ was not endlessly constructed and negotiated. The line between Christin ad Jew was Gear and sable, not fay of indterisinate, for ver one thousund years, Within the Jewish world the nature of comrect bli and practice (bat dais required) was rch disputed of course. The rabbis cashed over host best to know and serve God and how best to interpret the Lave These were not, however, detates abot the boundary beeen Jews an non Jews o abot he fund ‘mental ofewish self denon suchas origins choses ee redemg") tion, andthe ike. "The one exception to this gneralzation—the case o Former New Chit tans or Converse—is the proverbial exception that proves the proverbial 2 Making Jews Modern rule, The descendants of Tberian Jews who had converted to Catholicism in the fourrenth and fifeenth centuries under duress, Convers Lived as rominal Christians before resetting i tolerated Jewish communis in the Netherlands, Brain, souh-vesten Fence, norther Germany, an the ‘New Worl. Regardless of the extent to which they harboured Sense oF Jesh descent or maintained remnants of Jewish obserance, they Were cdvcated and socsied as Christians. In Yosef Verushalmi’s now elssic | [Ferman hy wee the rst considerbe gop of open Jet have had thei mot extensive and direct personal experiences completely outside the organi Jewish community and the spel univers of worms |v Jewish wadition. Before leaving the Iberian peninsula, and especially afterwards, they expevienced the tensions that ater beeame characertical Jee whose identities were mille and fragmented ss the esl of ving ‘mulanenusly i vo oF more ovepping worlds. Convers commun ties confronted the ak of collective sefefnion,requzing them to bal. nce. vcore, or negotiate wo clsters of tradons-~one associated wit the normative, abbinic Judaism of proesing Jewish communities, the ‘her with the values, non, ad behavioural tat of Spin and Porigal! ormer Conversos, however, were tnrepresetave of the European Jewish popultion wth ot n northern id ental Europe (Ashen. ‘The Jowshness ofthe Aslkenazim foy which I mean their subjective se ‘understanding and thir objective behavioural and sitstional distinctive ‘ess ater than any essen pinta or biological quali) remained ‘undistirbed until de eighteenth and nineteen centuries. It Decame rob Jematc or hen, a mate of reflection and debate, only when the state of sate and society tat had supported it weakened nd then dslved ‘When the anc ge gave way, when tats erased o be constituted as casters of lal structed corporate ranks and otders, and ews, like ‘thers whose cil status previously derived fom the collective unit to ‘which dey belonged, were incorporated int the emerging Merl order as Individuals oniy then di ews turn to forging new ef defntons. ‘The transformation ofthe Jews thei movement out ofthe get ose ‘het of fcob Kat's well nown acco) id not follow a unitary. near trjectory. Iwasa complet, mkidimensionalmesy process, wi a ast Fords components—emanclpatin,accltuation, secularization, and (Yess am pn Court talon ht 4 ace sets (sn Botan HessieNae Dap Maing Js Modem a integration which, while inerdependent, were alo distinc rom each ther ‘oth concep and in practic: In western and central Europe te tas formation othe jovs entailed th acqsition of cizenship andthe rights it ‘ested emancipation the adoption of new soil an cultural alisand sew mdes of deportment, res, and spech acaltrtion|; the rejection fr nepect of me honoured religious bei and practices, chang both ‘hose sanctioned by custom and those required by aw secularization); and the struggle fr social acceptance in no Jewish eles integration) ® Their twansocmtion lo Incuded fr-eaching changes in ele peeepion, for a Jes move from exclusion fo inclusion, font periphery fo mainstream, ‘hey found themselves reconsidering and redefining how they sa thers selves—and how they wanted others ose them. Formerly, they had viewed ‘hemslves—and were viewed by ohers—as a discrete peopl, diferent in ind from other peoples. I the werds of the Alain peyer the closing prayer ofthe Jewish tung, Gd had made them difeent rom theater rations ofthe world and assigned to them a distinct fate. Moreover, they ‘were a people whose national and religous identities were Indssolubly Tink and whose es othe Chisins arnong whom they lived were more instrumental han affective. Religion and ethnicity were omnipresent and inseparable filing the whole oftheir extence, The integration of Jews ino ste increasingly bitarond indivi ight rather than cole ps leget made the survival ofthis wndiferentsed sence of self dentication

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