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The second volume of Shmuel Feiner's The Jewish Eighteenth Century covers the period from 1750 to 1800, a time of even greater upheavals, tensions, and challenges. The changes that began to emerge at the beginning of the eighteenth century matured in the second half. Feiner explores how political considerations of the Jewish minority throughout Europe began to expand. From the "Jew Bill" of 1753 in Britain, to the surprising series of decrees issued by Joseph II of Austria that expanded tolerance in Austria, to the debate over emancipation in revolutionary France, the lives of the Jews of Europe became ever more intertwined with the political, social, economic, and cultural fabric of the continent. The Jewish Eighteenth Century, Volume 2: A European Biography, 1750-1800 concludes Feiner's landmark study of the history of Jewish populations in the period. By combining an examination of the broad and profound processes that changed the familiar world from the ground up with personal experiences of those who lived through them, it allows for a unique explanation of these momentous events.
List of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: 1750-1763
1. Three Astounding Proclamations: Class Division, Pressure from the State, and a Rift in the Rabbinical Elite
2. The Specter: Earthquake, the Horror of War, and Patriotism
3. The Pursuit of Honor and the Masked Ball: Azulai and Geldern Wander About in Europe and the East
4. Get Out, Jews! Tests for Tolerance between London, Zhitomir, Yampol, and Rome
5. Blood for Blood: The Frankist Scandal and the Subversiveness of Religious Awakening
6. Intimate Life: Bodily Ailments, Quarrels, Crime, and Emigration
7. "We Are All Citizens of the World": The Jewish Question in the Age of the Philosophes
Part II: 1764-1780
8. "The Great Change": The Crisis in Poland, Awareness of Progress and Humanistic Sentiment
9. "They Made My Flesh and Blood Fair Prey": Tolerance and Fissures in the Walls of Society
10. 1772: A Year That Challenged the Old Order
11. "Let Every Man Do as He Pleases": The Winds of Revolt
12. Curing the "Malady of My Nation": Days of Individualism and Reform
Part III: 1781-1800
13. "Great Thoughts Bubble Up and Awaken": The Tangle of the Years 1781-1782
14. The Eve of Revolution: "The Happiest Period" or "The Great Confusion"?
15. From the Boxing Ring to the Halls of Parliament: Confrontations and Initiatives for Regeneration and Citizenship
16. "A Generation of Upheavals": Euphoria, Terror, and the Rebellion of the Young in the 1790s
17. The Future of the Jews: A New Politics, a Religion in Dispute, and Freedom of the Individual
18. The Three Last Years: "We Have Reason to Congratulate Ourselves, That We Were Born in This Enlightened Period"
Conclusion: "No More Fear, No Shame . . . I Live in Peace with Everything around Me"
Index
About the author
Shmuel Feiner. translated by Jeffrey M. Green
