The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749-1824

by Michael A. Meyer

Until the 18th century Jews lived in Christian Europe, spiritually and often physically removed form the stream of European culture. During the Enlightenment intellectual Europe accepted a philosophy which, by the universality of its ideals, reached out to embrace the Jew within the greater community of man. The Jew began to feel European, and his traditional identity became a problem for the first time. the response of the Jewish intellectual leadership in Germany to this crisis is the subject of this book.
Chief among those men who struggled with the problems of Jewish consciousness were Moses Mendelssohn, David Friedlander, Leopold Zunz, Eduard Gans, and Heinrich Heine. By 1824, liberal Judaism had not yet produced a vision of it future as a separate entity within European society, but it had been exposed to and grappled with all the significant problems that still confront the Jew in the West.

Genres: History, Judaism, Jewish, Nonfiction

252 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 1972

Reviews

[Quinn Hoang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Meyer tries to be clear and impartial in the book, and for that he is likeable.
His summary of Mendelssohn's life, especially towards the latter years of Jerusalem is particularly well done and interesting.
A good introductory book into Modern Jewry.

[Cary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into how *some* types of Jews responded to the cultural changes of Enlightment and then Romanticism.

I think the book would have benefited from a chapter on responses from what came to be known as Orthodox Jews: it's reductive to say that they "ignored" the modern world. Orthodox Jews faced similar challenges of Jewish Emancipation, and tenuous relationships with both the state and their Christian neighbours.