Publisher's Synopsis
This volume is an enquiry into the central processes and events that changed the course of Jewish history in the modern era. Five central historical processes in modern Jewish history are described: emigration, emancipation, secularization, anti-Semitism and Zionism. The genesis of these processes derive from the revolutionary upheavals experienced by the Jewish people in the 1870s and 1880s, though their roots, in the form of marginal historical movements, were discerned as early as the 17th century. The historical perspective is taken up to present-day Israel.;In the historical process of emigration: the diminishment of European Jewry is contrasted with the build-up of Jewish communities in the United States and Israel. In the process of emancipation: the Munich laws and their undermining of the basic principles of Jewish equality with the surrounding society, constituted the turning point in the emancipation of Jews. In the process of social-cultural revolution: for increasing numbers of Jews attachment to Judaism was based more on sentimentalism and nationalism than on religious faith. In the process of anti-Semitism: anti-Jewish ideology and the adoption of race theory translated into the murder of six million Jews. Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and the Arab States is contrated with the historical roots of such attitudes.;And in the historical process of Zionism: developments that led to the proclamation of Israel's independence - the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and the 1948-49 War - are linked to the earlier emergence of a national movement that aimed to create a Jewish entity in the land of Israel.
