The Jewish Contribution To European Integration

This edited collection seeks to present a valuable guide to the Jewish contribution to the European integration process, and to enable readers to obtain a better understanding of the unknown Jewish involvement in the European integration project. Adopting both a national and a pan-European approaches, this volume brings together the work of leading international researchers and senior practitioners to cover a wide range of topics with an interdisciplinary approach under three different parts: present challenges, Jews and pan-European identity, and unsung heroes.

This first-of-its-kind edited collection examines the role that Jewish history, values, and individuals played in inspiring and promoting the European integration process.

In the context of unifying Europe, Jews of the “Old Continent” are re-thinking their role as ethno-cultural minority. European Jewry is developing a remarkable new assertiveness, but faces inner divisions and new anti-Semitism. This volume gives insight into controversial experiences and perspectives.

Departing from the recent critical literature on the emergence of a new German Jewry, this volume proposes a new perspective on the post-1980s phenomenon of re-emerging Jewish culture in Germany as a case study for wider developments in Europe and the international context.

This book investigates the idea of a distinct ‘Jewish contribution to civilization’ as it has been understood from the seventeenth century to the present. Offering a broad spectrum of academic opinion, it explores the role that the concept has played in Jewish self-definition and how it has influenced the history of the Jews and of others. It also considers the centrality of the concept in modern Jewish culture and for modern Jewish studies.

Jewish life in Europe has undergone dramatic changes and transformations within the 20th century and also the last two decades. The phenomenon of the dual position of the Jewish minority in relation to the majority, not entirely unusual for Jewish Diaspora communities, manifested itself most distinctly on the European continent. This unique Jewish experience of the ambiguous position of insider and outsider may provide valuable views on contemporary European reality and identity crisis. The book focuses inter alia on the main common denominators of contemporary Jewish life in Central Europe, such as an intense confrontation with the heritage of the Holocaust and unrelenting antisemitism on the one hand and on the other hand, huge appreciation of traditional Jewish learning and culture by a considerable part of non-Jewish Europeans. The volume includes contributions on Jewish life in central European countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Germany.

Far from being a blank space on the Jewish map, or a void in the Jewish cultural world, post-Shoah Europe is a place where Jewry has continued to develop, even though it is facing different challenges and opportunities than elsewhere. Living on a continent characterized by highly diverse patterns of culture, language, history, and relations to Jews, European Jewry mirrors that kaleidoscopic diversity. This volume explores such key questions as the new roles for Jews in Europe; models of Jewish community organization in Europe; concepts of diaspora and galut; a European-Jewish way of life in the era of globalization; and European Jews' relationship to Israel and to non-Jews. Some contributions highlight experiences of Jews in Britain, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. Helping us to understand the special and common characteristics of European Jewry, this collection offers a valuable contribution to the continued rebuilding of Jewish life in the postwar era.