Ezra Mendelsohn – författare

Studies in Contemporary Jewry brings together for the first time scholars working in different countries and belonging to different disciplines. Regarding modern Jewish history as a part of the ethnic explosion which has had a momentous impact on 19th- and 20th-century history, the contributors to Volume III address one of the greatest questions of modern Jewish studies: to what extent is modern Jewish history unique, and to what extent have Jews acted in ways similar to those of other minorities?

This is the fourth volume in the series published annually for the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Both the editors and the international review and advisory board include virtually all the major scholars of Jewish history in the world. The yearbook includes symposia, articles, book reviews, and lists of recent dissertations in the field. This volume's symposium title is 'The Jews and the European Crisis, 1914-1921.'

This volume analyses the levels of meaning present in a wide range of visual images - from high art by Jewish artists to Judaica, caricatures, and political propaganda.

This is the seventh volume of the annual publication of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry. The editors are distinguished professors at the Hebrew University, and the international review and advisory boards for the annual include most of the major scholars of Jewish history in the world.Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era examines the significance and meaning of messianic metaphors, themes, and ideals in modern Jewish history and culture. Contents: Jody Elizabeth Myers: The Messianic Idea and Zionist Ideologies; Aviezer Ravitzky: Forcing the End: Zionism and the State of Israel as Anti-Messianic Undertakings; Yaacov Shavit: Realism and Messianism in Zionism and the Yishuv; Hannan Hever: Poetry and Messianism in Palestine between the Two World Wars; Paul Mendes-Flohr: `The Stronger the Better': Jewish Theological Responses to Political Messianism in the Weimar Republic; Richard Wolin: Reflection on Jewish Secular Messianism; The volume also contains essays, book reviews, and a list of recent dissertations in the field.

This volume examines music's place in the process of Jewish assimilation into the modern European bourgeoisie and the role assigned to music in forging a new Jewish Israeli national identity, in maintaining a separate Sephardic identity, and in preserving a traditional Jewish life. Contributions include "On the Jewish Presence in Nineteenth Century European Musical Life," by Ezra Mendelsohn, "Musical Life in the Central European Jewish Village," by Philip V. Bohlman, "Jews and Hungarians in Modern Hungarian Musical Culture," by Judit Frigyesi, "New Directions in the Music of the Sephardic Jews," by Edwin Seroussi, "The Eretz Israeli Song and the Jewish National Fund," by Natan Shahar, "Alexander U. Boskovitch and the Quest for an Israeli Musical Style," by Jehoash Hirshberg, and "Music of Holy Argument," by Lionel Wolberger. The volume also contains essays, book reviews, and a list of recent dissertations in the field.

Literary Strategies: Jewish Texts and Contexts collects essays on Jewish literature which deal with "the manifold ways that literary texts reveal their authors' attitudes toward their own Jewish identity and toward diverse aspects of the 'Jewish question.'" Essays in this volume explore the tension between Israeli and Diaspora identities, and between those who write in Hebrew or Yiddish and those who write in other "non-Jewish" languages. The essays alsoexplore the question of how Jewish writers remember history in their "search for a useable past." From essays on Jabotinsky's virtually unknown plays to Philip Roth's novels, this book provides a strong overviewof contemporary themes in Jewish literary studies.

The Jews have been an urban people par excellence, and their influence on the urban landscape is unmistakable. Who can imagine modern Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, or New York, to name just a few examples, without their large, vibrant, and creative Jewish populations? Conversely, the urban experience has been a decisive factor in modern Jewish history. Like others in the series, this book presents current scholarship in the form of a symposium, essays, and book reviews by distinguished experts in Jewish studies from around the world. Published annually by the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Studies in Contemporary Jewry continues to be an invaluable resource for scholars of modern history and culture.

Bringing together contributions from established scholars from multiple disciplines and countries, Volume XIX of Studies in Contemporary Jewry offers a comparative view of alliances between Jewish communities and the state. Together, the volume's contents show the price Jews paid for allying with unpopular regimes. The essays cover the American South, South Africa, Canada, Algeria, Morocco, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Russia.

Volume XXIII of the distinguished annual Studies in Contemporary Jewry explores the role of sports in modern Jewish history. The centrality of sports in modern life--in popular and even in high culture, in economic life, in the media, in international and national politics, and in forging ethnic identities--can hardly be exaggerated, but in the field of Jewish studies this subject has been somewhat neglected, at least until recently. Students of American Jewish history, for example, often emphasize the role of sports in the Americanization of the immigrants, while students of Jewish nationalism pay closer attention to its appeal for the regeneration of the Jewish nation, as well as the creation of a new, healthy, Jewish body.The essays brought together in Jews and the Sporting Life expand the body of knowledge about the place sports occupied, and continue to occupy, in Jewish life. They examine the connection between sports and Jewish nationalism, particularly Zionism, and how organized Jewish sports have been an agent of nation-building. They consider the role of Jews as owners of sports teams, as amateur and professional athletes, and as fans and bettors. Other themes include sports and Jewish literature, and boxing as a sport that enabled Jewish men to prove their masculinity in a world that often stereotyped them as weak and "feminine." This volume concentrates on twentieth century developments in Israel, Europe, and the United States.

Volume XXIV of the distinguished annual Studies in Contemporary Jewry explores the question of relations between Jews and Protestants in modern times. One of the four major branches of Christianity, Protestantism is perhaps the most difficult to write about; it has innumerable sects and churches within it, from the loosely organized Religious Society of Friends to the conservative Evangelicals of the Bible Belt. Different strands of Protestantism hold vastly different views on theology, social problems, and politics. These views play out in differing attitudes and relationships between mainstream Protestant churches and Jews, Judaism, and the State of Israel. In this volume, established scholars from multiple disciplines and various countries delve into these essential questions of the "Protestant-Jewish conundrum." The discussion begins with a trenchant analysis of the historical framework in which Protestant ideas towards Jews and Judaism were formed. Contributors delve into diverse topics including the attitudes of the Evangelical movement toward Jews and Israel; Protestant reactions to Mel Gibson's blockbuster ¨The Passion of the Christ.¨; German-Protestant behavior during and after Nazi era; and mainstream Protestant attitudes towards Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict.. Taken as a whole, this compendium presents discussions and questions central to the ongoing development of Jewish-Protestant relations. Studies in Contemporary Jewry seeks to provide its readers with up-to-date and accessible scholarship on questions of interest in the general field of modern Jewish studies. Studies in Contemporary Jewry presents new approaches to the scholarly work of the latest generation of researchers working on Jewish history, sociology, demography, political science, and culture.

" . . . a carefully crafted and important book . . . a first-class contribution to the literature on modern Europe." —American Historical Review" . . . valuable . . . the first historical work to attempt a 'synthetic sketch' of the problems indicated in the title." —Journal of Polish Jewish StudiesAn illuminating study of the demographic, cultural, and socioeconomic condition of East Central European Jewry, the book focuses on the internal life of Jewish communities in the region and on the relationships between Jews and gentiles in a nationalist environment.

Beginning in the 1890s, and continuing into the twentieth century, Jewish workers in the Russian Pale of Settlement organised themselves to improve their economic and cultural situation. Their struggle was the result of an alliance with the Jewish socialist intelligentsia, which began by teaching workers in select 'circles' and ended by assuming the leadership of a mass labour movement. In this book, originally published in 1970, Dr Mendelsohn analyses the nature and condition of the Russian Jewish proletariat. There follows a discussion on the 'propaganda' period and the subsequent transition to 'agitation'. The Jewish strike movement is analysed, with special attention to the workers' aims, tactics and relations with the formal institutions of the organised labour movement. Dr Mendelson also considers the relationship between the proletarian rank-and-file and the movement's leadership, placing emphasis on movements of opposition. The study concludes by considering the ultimate value of the Jewish labour movement for its participants, and by assessing its unique position in the context of Russian labour history.

The 1905 Revolution in Russia ushered in an unprecedented (though brief) period of social and political freedom in the Russian Empire. This environment made possible the emergence of mass Jewish politics and the flourishing of a new, modern Jewish culture expressed in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian. Unfortunately, 1905 also unleashed popular anti-Semitism in the shape of pogroms on a scale previously unknown.Russian Jewry, by far the largest Jewish community in the world at that time, faced fateful decisions. Should the Jews strive to uphold Jewish national uniqueness either in the context of the Russian Empire or by emigrating to Palestine/the Land of Israel, or should they identify with and merge into the general revolutionary or liberal movements in their country of birth? What direction should Jewish culture and social organizations take within the context of democratization and modernization? In what language or languages should this culture be expressed? How should Jews abroad react to the revolutionary crisis and to the dilemmas of their coreligionists?The thought-provoking essays in this volume shed new light on these issues while placing them in the larger context of the historical, social, and cultural developments within the Russian Empire. The authors, representing various disciplines, emphasize both the highly varied Jewish responses to the great crisis and the degree to which these responses shared certain vital characteristics.

Historically leftist ideas and theories have had a profound impact on modern Jewish life. But, the left's impact on the Jewish community has greatly diminished today. Nonetheless, it can still be detected in the tendency of American Jews to vote for the liberal camp. This political tendency has also influenced Jewish communities actions as illustrated by the large numbers of Jews who participated in the civil rights movements of the post-World War II period and in the so-called new Left.Essential Papers on Jews and the Left presents a sweeping portrait of the defining impact of the left on modern Jewish politics and culture in Europe, Palestine/Israel, and the New World. The contributions in the first part, entitled The Jewish Left, discuss specifically Jewish radical organizations such as the Bund and Poale Zion. The second section, Jews in the Left, explores the activities of Jews in general left wing politics, emphasizing their role in the Russian revolutionary movement. In the final section, The Left and the Jews, the essays examine the attitudes of the left in Europe and America toward the Jewish question, including the key issue of Karl Marx and his reputedly anti-Jewish attitudes.

Historically leftist ideas and theories have had a profound impact on modern Jewish life. But, the left's impact on the Jewish community has greatly diminished today. Nonetheless, it can still be detected in the tendency of American Jews to vote for the liberal camp. This political tendency has also influenced Jewish communities actions as illustrated by the large numbers of Jews who participated in the civil rights movements of the post-World War II period and in the so-called new Left.Essential Papers on Jews and the Left presents a sweeping portrait of the defining impact of the left on modern Jewish politics and culture in Europe, Palestine/Israel, and the New World. The contributions in the first part, entitled The Jewish Left, discuss specifically Jewish radical organizations such as the Bund and Poale Zion. The second section, Jews in the Left, explores the activities of Jews in general left wing politics, emphasizing their role in the Russian revolutionary movement. In the final section, The Left and the Jews, the essays examine the attitudes of the left in Europe and America toward the Jewish question, including the key issue of Karl Marx and his reputedly anti-Jewish attitudes.

Highlighting the seminal role of German Jewish intellectuals and ideologues in forming and transforming the modern Jewish world, this volume analyzes the political roads taken by German Jewish thinkers; the impact of the Holocaust on the Central and East European Jewish intelligentsia; and the conundrum of modern Jewish identity. Several of German Jewry’s most outstanding figures such as Scholem, Strauss, and Kohn are discussed. Inspired by Steven E. Aschheim’s work, several contributors focus on the fraught relationship between German and East European Jews (the so-called Ostjuden) and between German Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors. More generally, this book examines how Central European Jewish thinkers reacted to the terrible crises of the twentieth century—to war, genocide, and the existential threat to the very existence of the Jewish people. It is essential reading for those interested in the triumphs and tragedies of modern European Jewry.