The Berlin Jewish Community Enlightenment, Family and Crisis, 1770-1830 [Hardcover]

The Berlin Jewish community was both the pioneer in intellectual modernization and the first to experience a crisis of modernity. This original and imaginative book connects intellectual and political transformation with the social structures and daily activities of the Jewish community. Steven M. Lowenstein has used extraordinarily rich documentation about the life of Berlin Jewry in the period and assembled a collective biography of the entire community of Berlin Jews. He has examined tax lists, subscription lists, genealogical records, and address lists as well as kosher meat accounts to give us a vivid picture of daily life. On another level in detailing the complexity of Jewish life in Berlin during this period, this book illuminates the connections between the peaceful stage of enlightenment and the crisis that followed.

[T]his book is a wonderful addition to the knowledge about Berlin Jews and the complexities of existing as a minority community in changing times. --Journal of Social History

Steven M. Lowenstein is the first to undertake a thoroughgoing social history of Berlin Jewry, basing his research largely on quantitative data drawn, for example from lists of converts, subscribers to Enlightenment publications, payers of the tax on kosher meat, and supporters of religious reform. --American Historical Review

Because his own findings emerge forcefully from a careful examination of the evidence, they carry great weight in this ongoing debate. A first-rate study of an important subject. --CHOICE

This is an important book in modern European Jewish history. --Central European History

This book offers English-speaking readers an overview of the most significant religious and cultural issues and historical figures. --German Studies Review