Description
Book SynopsisThe experience of eighteenth-century Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not fit the pattern of integration and universalization that historians tend to place at the origins of Jewish modernity. This work focuses on the relations of Jews with the state and their role in the economy, and on more "internal" developments.
Trade Review"Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century provides a wide-ranging synthesis of the current scholarship on Polish-Lithuanian Jewry. Gershon David Hundert's control of the secondary literature is magnificent: he incorporates the findings of over a century of research up to and including the most recent works in every relevant language. Only a handful of scholars in the world today could approach this level of mastery." - Benjamin Nathans, author of Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia "Gershon David Hundert's Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century is likely to be viewed as the standard scholarly survey of the topic of 'classic' Polish Jewry for years to come." - Moshe Rosman, author of Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba'al Shem Tov"
Table of ContentsList of Maps List of Tables Preface A Note on Place-Names and Transliteration List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. The Largest Jewish Community in the World 2. Economic Integration 3. The Polish Church and Jews, Polish Jews and the Church 4. The Community 5. Was There a Communal "Crisis" in the Eighteenth Century? 6. The Popularization of Kabbalah 7. Mystic Ascetics and Religious Radicals 8. The Contexts of Hasidism 9. Hasidism, a New Path 10. Jews and the Sejm Afterword Select Bibliography Acknowledgments Index
