Hammel, Andrea

German - Jewish Dilemma From the Enlightenment to the Shoah

1999 0-7734-8195-8
Essays analyze the principal problems which have affected the evolution of German-Jewish relations since the Enlightenment, showing how the project of emancipation was subverted by powerful countercurrents of antisemitism and anxieties about national identity in a society in the throes of modernization. It emphasizes the importance of social and historical context, offering a differentiated account of the difficulties of emancipation, the sense of alienation which is such a characteristic feature of German-Jewish discourse, and the culmination of various forms of antisemitism in the politics of persecution and genocide. The close focus on specific journals and institutions, writers and texts, reveals the tortuous complexity of German-Jewish relations, with a final emphasis on resistance, survival and commemoration.