Jews at the Crossroads: Tradition and Accomodation During the Golden Age of the Hungarian Nobility

ISBN-13: 9789637326660 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 333 str.

Howard N. Lupovitch

Opis

Examines the social and political history of the Jews of Miskolc - the third largest Jewish community in Hungary - and presents the wider transformation of Jewish identity during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It explores the emergence of a moderate, accomodating form of traditional Judaism that combined elements of tradition and innovation, thereby creating an alternative to Orthodox or Neolog Judaism. This form of traditional Judaism reconciled the demands of religious tradition with the expectations of Magyarization and citizenship, thus allowing traditional Jews to be patriotic Magyars. By focusing on Hungary, this book seeks to correct a trend in modern Jewish historiography that views Habsburg Jewish History as an extension of German Jewish History. Rather than trying to fit Hungarian Jewry into a conventional Germano-centric taxonomy, this work places Hungarian Jews in the distinct contexts of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Danube basin.