Description
Book SynopsisModernity gave rise to a Jewish consciousness that has increasingly distanced itself from the sacred in favor of worldliness and secularity. This book traces the formulation of this secular Jewishness from its Enlightenment roots through the twentieth century to explore the variations of modern Jewish experience in central Europe and beyond.
Trade Review"Michael Steinberg is an original and powerful voice in cultural history, and virtually the only scholar who convincingly brings musical works into relationship with the cultural tensions of their time. In Judaism Musical and Unmusical, he cogently argues that there never was any such thing as a Jewish tradition free from internal complexity, tension, and complicated inter-relations with many aspects of the surrounding cultures. Steinberg's topics, impressively diverse, are woven together by a unifying set of urgent concerns." - Martha Nussbaum"
