How Jewish is Jewish History? » (New Edition)

With great vigour and from the vantage point of long experience of writing and teaching, Moshe Rosman treats the key questions that postmodernism raises for the writing of Jewish history. What is the relationship between Jewish culture and history and those of the non-Jews among whom Jews live? Can we-in the light of postmodernist thought-speak of a continuous, coherent Jewish People, with a distinct culture and history? What in fact is Jewish cultural history, and how can it be written? How does gender transform the Jewish historical narrative? How does Jewish history fit into the multicultural paradigm? Jewish historians need to think about these and similar questions if their work is to be taken seriously by mainstream historians and intellectuals, as do educated Jews interested in understanding their own cultural and historical past.

Introduction: Writing Jewish History in the Postmodern Climate 1
1 Some a priori Issues in Jewish Historiography 19
2 The Postmodern Period in Jewish History 56
3 Hybrid with What? The Relationship between Jewish Culture and Other People's Cultures 82
4 The Jewish Contribution to (Multicultural) Civilization 111
5 Prolegomenon to the Study of Jewish Cultural History 131
6 Methodological Hybridity: The Art of Jewish Historiography and the Methods of Folklore 154
7 Jewish Women's History: First Steps and a False Start - The Case of Jacob Katz 168 Conclusion: Jewish History and Postmodernity - Challenge and Rapprochement 182