Taking as its basis an epistemological culture-historical concept, this book enquires into the independence of cultural self-perception from the ever-changing social models for the interpretation of community. The interacting aspects of unity and uniqueness tied the German Jews into numerous discourses debating their place and recognition in a society defined increasingly in national terms. External demands for distance on the one hand and for integration on the other stimulated the redefinition processes until new, workable concepts emerged of a self-conscious Judaism that was at the same...

Schwerpunkt sind zum einen die Beziehungen zwischen judischem Binnenraum und nicht-judischer Umwelt, zum anderen das Spannungsverhaltnis zwischen Landesherrschaft und den imperialen, durch Kaiser und Reich bestimmten Rahmenbedingungen judischer Existenz. Beitrage von: Anette Baumann, J. Friedrich Battenberg, Stefan Ehrenpreis, Rainer S. Elkar, Andreas Gotzmann, Andre Griemert, Karl Harter, Vera Kallenberg, Verena Kasper-Marienberg, Thomas Lau, Gerhard Rechter ( ), Ursula Reuter, Stephan Wendehorst

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The book deals with Jewish history and the present in Germany since 1989. The focus is on a quantitative and qualitative study in which young Russian-speaking Jews express themselves about their relationship to Germany and Israel, as well as about familiar cultures of remembrance and theirs Experiences as "Russians" and Jews in the German immigration society speak about social advancement and discrimination. Their understanding of Judaism, of largely secular life plans, but also of religious search, as well as old and new forms of Jewish communalization, are discussed. If these descriptions...