Cultures of the Jews Volume III: Modern Encounters »

Scattered over much of the world throughout most of their history, are the Jews one people or many? How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews in other places and times? What have their relationships been to the cultures of their neighbors? To address these and similar questions, some of the finest scholars of our day have contributed their insights to Cultures of the Jews, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award upon its hardcover publication in 2002.

Constructing their essays around specific cultural artifacts that were created in the period and locale under study, the contributors describe the cultural interactions among different Jews–from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including women–as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish world. What they conclude is that although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions, Jewish identity cannot be considered the fixed product of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. Rather, it has shifted and assumed new forms in response to the cultural environment in which the Jews have lived.

Modern Encounters, the third volume in Cultures of the Jews, examines communities, ways of life, and both high and folk culture in the modern era in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe; the Ladino Diaspora; North Africa and the Middle East; Ethiopia; mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel; and the United States.

List of Contributors Acknowledgments

Preface: Toward a Cultural History of the Jews
by David Biale

Introduction
by David Biale

ONE:
Urban Visibility and Biblical Visions: Jewish Culture in Western and Central Europe in the Modern Age
by Richard I. Cohen

TWO:
A Journey Between Worlds: East European Jewish Culture from thePartitions of Poland to the Holocaust
by David Biale

THREE:
The Ottoman Diaspora: The Rise and Fall of Ladino Literary Culture
by Aron Rodrigue

FOUR:
Multicultural Visions: The Cultural Tapestry of the Jews of North Africa
by Lucette Valensi

FIVE:
Challenges to Tradition: Jewish Cultures in Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Bukhara
by Yosef Tobi

SIX:
Religious Interplay on an African Stage: Ethiopian Jews in Christian Ethiopia
by Hagar Salamon

SEVEN:
Locus and Language: Hebrew Culture in Israel, 1890–1990
by Ariel Hirschfeld

EIGHT:
The “Other” Israel: Folk Cultures in the Modern State of Israel
by Eli Yassif

NINE:
Declarations of Independence: American Jewish Culture in the Twentieth Century
by Stephen J. Whitfield

Conclusion
by David Biale

Index