A Jew in the Street: New Perspectives on European Jewish History
This collection brings together original scholarship by seventeen historians drawing on the pioneering research of their teacher and colleague, Michael Stanislawski. These essays explore a mosaic of topics in the history of modern European Jewry from early modern times to the present, including the role of Jewish participants in the European revolutions of 1848, the dynamics of Zionist and non-Zionist views in the early twentieth century, the origins of a magical charm against the evil eye, and more. Collectively, these works reject ideological and doctrinal clichés, demythologize the European Jewish past, and demonstrate that early modern and modern Jews responded creatively to modern forms of culture, religion, and the state from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Contributors to this volume pose new questions about the relationship between the particular and universal, antisemitism and modernization, religious and secular life, and the bonds and competition between cultures and languages, especially Yiddish, Hebrew, and modern European languages. These investigations illuminate the entangled experiences of Jews who sought to balance the pull of communal, religious, and linguistic traditions with the demands and allure of full participation in European life.
Praise
“A Jew in the Street fully bears out the adage that ‘nothing is as unpredictable as the past.’ In this array of intellectually sparkling essays, a select group of this generation’s leading Jewish historians pay handsome tribute to their teacher and colleague, Michael Stanislawski. The book showcases acute cameo portraits of major and minor personalities and events, spanning over three centuries of Jewish history. The authors regale us with new insights, quite in the spirit of Stanislawski’s own method of upending received wisdom. The chapters, grouped into four parts, traverse the Central and Eastern European terrain and sometimes glance further afield to Israel and the Americas. This rich volume attests to the ways in which contemporary scholars are revamping popular images of the European Jewish past and creating new traditions of historiography.”
―Eli Lederhendler, academic director of the Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
“Michael Stanislawski is an exemplary historian. His works encompass events and ideas within Jewish and Zionist history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He combines professionalism with classical liberalism. This collection by his colleagues and former students greatly and freshly adds to Jewish historiography. It proves again that the research gates are widely open and open ended.”
―Elyakim Rubinstein, former vice president, Supreme Court of Israel
“The essays in this volume offer a stunning array of innovative perspectives on the history of European Jewry in modern times. The essays’ range, erudition, and originality are a worthy homage to Michael Stanislawski’s distinguished career as a scholar and teacher”
―Derek Penslar, Harvard University
“These sparkling essays are a fitting tribute to Michael Stanislawski, a scholar who has done so much to make us rethink what were once long-held assumptions about the Jews of Eastern Europe. These articles are also a homage to Stanislawski, the inspiring teacher. Having trained a generation of leading scholars, many of whom have contributed to this important volume, his legacy is here for all to see.”
―John Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History, University of California–Berkeley
“Michael Stanislawski’s extraordinary impact on the writing of modern Jewish history is well known, but this volume allows for appreciating his enormous influence as a colleague and teacher. Those in his debt have learned to take a second look at received truths and, in fidelity to the evidence, to raise self-critical historiography to the status of a high art. This volume does so at every turn.”
―Samuel Moyn, Yale University
“This collection of works by noted scholars challenges convincingly the condescending attitudes sometimes shown towards Festschrift volumes. All the chapters are products of solid research dealing with a broad range of topics in European Jewish history.”
―Gennady Estraikh, professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University
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