The German-Jewish Dilemma From the Enlightenment to the Shoah

These essays analyze the problems which have affected the evolution of German-Jewish relations since the Enlightenment, showing how the project of emancipation was subverted by countercurrents of antisemitism and anxieties about national identities in a society in the throes of modernization. It emphasises the importance of social and historical context, offering a differentiated account of the difficulties of emancipation, the sense of alienation which is such a characteristic feature of German-Jewish discourse, and the culmination of various forms of anti semitism in the politcs of persecution and genocide. THe close focus on specific journals and inistutions, writers and texts reveals the tortous complexity of German-Jewish relations, with a final emphasis on resistance, survival and commemoration.