reviews - Jewish Book Council

ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS
Winner:
RETHINKING EUROPEAN
JEWISH HISTORY
Jeremy Cohen and Moshe Rosman, eds.
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
This volume represents the second in a
new series of conferences and publications
entitled “New Perspectives on
European Jewry,” a project of the Goldstein-Goren
Diaspora Research Center at
Tel Aviv University. The editors explained
the purpose of this volume in the
Acknowledgements: “As the field of Jewish
history positions itself at the beginning of a new century and a new
millennium, ‘New Perspectives’ will grapple afresh with the theoretical,
topical and methodological issues that nourish the relationship
between the Jewish present and the Jewish past.”
This volume, edited by two of the leading historians of the Jewish
past, is divided into four sections. Each section focuses on a different
aspect of this “new perspective” on the Jewish past and includes essays
from leading historians and scholars. The first section is entitled “Reorienting
the Narrative” and includes essays reevaluating such central
themes as anti-Semitism and the role of women. The second section is
called “From the Middle Ages to Modernity” and contains essays that
attempt to set an agenda for the study of the Jewish past and to redefine
what is meant by modernity in Jewish history. The third section, “On
the Eve of the Spanish Expulsion,” includes essays that re-examine some
of the categories and dynamics of the experience of the Jews in 15th century
Spain. The last section is entitled “From Europe to America and
Back” and explores the relationship between Europe and America both
prior to World War II and in the post-
World War II generation.
The essays in this volume, which
are written in a scholarly yet accessible
manner, will hopefully take a prominent
place in the study of the Jewish
past during the 21st century.
Finalists:
PLACE AND DISPLACEMENT
IN JEWISH HISTORY AND
MEMORY: ZAKOR V’MAKOR
David Cesarani, Tony Kushner, Milton Shain, eds.
Vallentine Mitchell
This book is a collection of twelve
essays which analyze the concepts of
history, geography, and migration,
whether forced or voluntary, in a diverse
range of Jewish communities and individuals
and their effect on the formation of
Jewish identities and “sense of place.” The
case studies cover a wide range of geographic populations including
those in parts of Europe, North and South America, Australia, North
and South Africa and the Far East over the time periods from the early
modern era to the early 21st century. The essays originated at an inter-
www.jewishbookcouncil.org
59 TH NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS
national conference held at the University of Cape Town, South Africa
in January, 2005 comprised of 30 scholars from around the world.
The essays explore the meaning of place in the formation of Jewish
identities as the varied peoples interact with their places of origin, and also
when they leave them. After their migrations, the effect of memory of
home and the passage of time are examined as these influence their new
community experiences and resettlement. The Jewish experience, in terms
of adaptation to the worlds in which Jews find themselves, are ongoing
issues critical to the future of the Jewish people. The book will increase the
insights and understanding
of these experiences,
not only for
scholars, but for all readers
who are concerned
about the challenges to
Jewish continuity.
JEWISH MUSICAL MODERNISM,
OLD AND NEW
Philip V. Bohlman, ed.
University of Chicago Press
This volume is an important study of
Jewish music from the late 19th century
to the end of the 20th within the context
of social, cultural, political, and scientific
change. Jewish music ranges in definition
from art music to folk music; from synagogue liturgy to political
cabaret, and in languages and harmonies that reflect the Jewish Diaspora
and the State of Israel. An overview of the subject is given in the
Forward and Introduction. Subsequent chapters provide vivid examples
of the ways in which Jewish music responded to the challenge of
modernism: an account of how a small Sephardic community in Vienna
reacted to its cosmopolitan environment; the history of the long and
difficult relationship of Germans to Jews and to Jewish music with its
climax in the Shoah. The third example is the ongoing story of the Beta
Israel people of Ethiopia, whose founding myth and liturgy were utterly
transformed by contact with Europe and with Israel. They now call
themselves Jewish Ethiopians, the remnant of the lost tribe of Dan. The
last example is a persuasive analysis of the work of Charlotte Salomon,
a German Jewish artist who composed an arresting series of 769 paintings
entitled Leben? oder Theater? (Life? or Theatre?). Seemingly autobiographical,
the paintings may also reflect the social and cultural mores
of her North German background. These studies are brought to a close
with an epilogue offering a conceptual framework for understanding
the pattern of Jewish music during the past century and a half, and the
burst of creativity at the end of this period. Even in Theresienstadt,
Viktor Uhlman composed his opera “Der Kaiser Von Atlantis.” Art
music, folk music, Yiddish songs, theater and cabaret, klezmer,
Sephardic, and Ashkenazic liturgy—music from the widespread Jewish
Diaspora and music from Israel with its Hebrew texts all testify to the
vibrant energy of the creators and performers of Jewish music. An
appendix discusses Jewish popular music, illustrated in the CD that
accompanies this beautifully produced book.
Spring 5770/2010 Jewish Book World 7