The Jews in the Modern World: A History since 1750

The Jews in the Modern World covers the period from 1750 until the present, with an emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explores in detail the diverse ways in which the Jewish people have reacted to Modernity. As well as covering the Holocaust, the Diaspora and the Arab-Israeli conflict, the authors have included material on anti-Semitism, philo-Semitism, Sephardi and Oriental Jewry and the development of rival ideologies within the Jewish community. An important section of the book is devoted to the often neglected topic of the role of women in Judaism. Interest in modern Jewish history has never been greater, but despite the huge amount of recent research, this is the first major textbook in forty years to deal with the topic in a clear and undogmatic manner.
"During the past thirty years, the study of modern Jewish history has moved from the periphery to the centre of academic historiography. Hardly taught at the university level a generation ago, and all but ignored in mainstream history textbooks, modern Jewish history has become a widely-recognised subject attracting considerable interest and a vast, ever-growing volume of monographs, journals, conferences, and dissertations. In part this has occurred because of the centrality of the Holocaust to contemporary con- sciousness, of a general awareness of the Jews as the archetypal persecuted minority, and of the popularity of ethnicity as a mode of social analysis. In part it has occurred because of the breakdown, regretted by many, of the familiar 'kings, dates, and battles' history oriented around the nation-state, and its supercession, in part, by categories derived from social history. In part it has occurred because of the sheer volume of writing on this subject, generally by Jewish scholars, but often and increasingly by non-Jews."