German Jewry and the Development of the Jewish Question in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Abstract This chapter outlines the changes in the social and political location of German Jews from early modern Germany through the Empire established by Bismarck. It traces how gradually over time the place of Jews became a fixation in German culture, specifically in regard to how they were first denigrated as adherents of an obsolete religion, and subsequently maligned as members of a race that bore a foreign culture and therefore posed a threat to the German nation. In the course of outlining the key episodes in these developments, the chapter also discusses such themes as Jewish emancipation, Jewish religious reform, and the rise of anti-Semitism as the product of a distinctly modern framework for understanding religious difference.