Jews in the metropolis : urban Jewish cultures in London, Berlin, and Paris, c1880-1940

Abstract

The modern Jew had become indeed a homo urbanus declared Karl Kautsky in 1914. Taking this remark as a point of departure, this thesis raises the question how Jews in different urban setting throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century responded to the challenges of the modern urban environment and what cultural practices they developed and employed in coming to terms with it. Bringing together so far disparate and detached aspects of Jewish historiography, this study unfolds three case studies to explore the formation and functionality of urban Jewish cultures and cultural practices employed by urban Jews in late nineteenth century London, interwar Berlin and 1930s Paris. Reconstructing and analysing paradigmatic components of Jewish urbanity this thesis investigates the urban encounters between native Jewish community and East European Jewish immigrants, attempts to constitute Jewish community and a suitable urban Jewish identity in the modern metropolis and the trajectories of Jewish refugees for whom the city became both refuge and exile. Giving space and its production a greater prominence in the context of Jewish history this thesis emphasises that cities are more than mere framework for the analysis of historical development but that they shape it sustainably. Hence, the experiences of urban Jews are integral and integrated in the general urban trajectories, allowing a specific insight into the modern condition and its discontents. Investigating manifold aspects of urbanity for the modern Jewish experience, this thesis thus offers new readings of Jewish cultural history and allows new insights into the diversity, complexity and ambivalence of modernity.

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