Between hope and despair: Conceptions of time and the German-Jewish experience in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Despite German Jews' social, political, and cultural integration into the German society in the nineteenth century, distinct notions of time continued to shape their social discourses. This article analyzes the various ways in which German Jews comprehended the relation between past, present, and future. Throughout this period, German Jews formulated in the face of political, cultural, and religious changes,their own visions of the present and future. To characterize German Jews' notions of time as simply linear neglects the complex and dynamic aspects of their temporal notions. An investigation of the changing interrelation of past, present, and future provides an avenue for a more nuanced understanding of German Jews' experiences and expectations, as well as of their various responses to modernity.