Abstract: In October of 1943, the Danish resistance rescued almost all of the Jews in Copenhagen from roundups by the occupying Nazis. In the years since, Jews have become deeply engaged in a Danish culture that presents very few barriers of antisemitism or prejudice. This book explores the questions that such inclusion raises for the Danish Jews, and what their answers can tell us about the meaning of religion, ethnicity and community in modern society.
Social scientists have long argued that modernity poses challenges for traditional ethnic communities, by breaking down the networks of locality, kinship, religion and occupation that have held such communities together. For the Danish Jews, inclusion into the larger society has led to increasing fragmentation, as the community has split into a bewildering array of religious, social, and political factions. Yet it remains one of Scandinavia's most vital religious organizations, and Jewishness remains central to self-understanding for thousands of its members. How this has happened - how the Jewish world has maintained its significance while losing any sense of coherence or unity - suggests a new understanding of the meaning of ethnic community in contemporary society.
Topics: Citizenship, Jewish Renewal, Jewish Revival, Jewish Community, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Diaspora, Immigration, LGBT, Post-1989, Russian-Speaking Jews, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The politics of Israeli governments in recent years and a drift to neo-conservatism among segments of Diaspora Jewry have substantially polarised the Jewish community abroad. Among many other Jews however, we observe a new insistence on the centrality of Diaspora life and we see re-inventions of Diaspora. These re-inventions are coming from the Jewish periphery: new visibility of women in Jewish affairs with new creative energy regarding religious services and community work at large; a rise of egalitarian religious services, Gay-Lesbian Jewish life, acceptance of intermarried couples, non-halachic (patrilineal) Jews and converts to Judaism who are seeking full acceptance via Reform Judaism or other, local, frameworks. These developments are especially pronounced in Germany, and this book addresses some of its characteristics: the transnational character of German Jewry, its relationship to the state and to other minorities, particularly Moslems, the astonishing revival of Jewish studies and Jewish culture especially also among non-Jews, and most of all, the massive influx of Russian speaking Jews after 1989 who are often at the forefront of redefining Jewish life in Germany. In these respects, Germany has become a laboratory of the ways in which Jewish life in Europe might develop in the future.
Contents:
Introduction: The Return of the European Jewish Diaspora; Y.M.Bodemann
PART I: A EUROPEAN JEWISH SPACE?
Can One Reconcile the Jewish World and Europe?; D.Pinto
Residues of Empire: The Paradigmatic Meaning of Jewish Trans-Territorial Experience for an Integrated European History; D.Diner
PART II: THE NEW DIASPORIC FIELD
Can the Experience of Diaspora Judaism Serve as a Model for Islam in Today's Multicultural Europe?; S.Gilman
Learning Diaspora: German Turks and the Jewish Narrative; Y.M.Bodemann & G.Yurdakul
PART III: GERMAN-JEWISH LIMINALITIES
Jewish Studies or Gentile Studies? A Discipline in Search of its Subject; L.Weissberg
How Jewish is it? W.G. Sebald and the Question of "Jewish" Writing in Germany Today: L.Morris
PART IV: RUSSIAN SPEAKING JEWS AND TRANSNATIONALISM
Homo Sovieticus in Disneyland: The Jewish Communities in Germany Today; J.Kessler
Fifteen Years of Russian-Jewish Immigration to Germany: Successes and Setbacks; J.H.Schoeps & O.Glöckner
In the Ethnic Twilight: The Paths of Russian Jews in Germany; Y.M.Bodemann & O.Bagno
Afterword; J.M.Peck
