Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770-1870 (Modern Jewish History)

Rating:
Summary: This is a fairly good book.
Review: This book is about the changes in Jewish sociaty in Germany mainly between 1770 and 1840. Though the author claims to be equally analysing all of Western European Jewry, in fact he only focuses on German Jewry. The reason for this may be that he wasn't so happy with the outcome in Ausria and Hungary. Most of what happened after 1840 is mostly in the political realm, i.e. when exactly Jews had legal rights to serve in Parliment and not have swear the standard Anglican oath etc. The main problem the book has is the author is one-sided in that he favors the Jewish reformers to the extent of not even mentioning Rabbi S.R. Hirsh. Rabbi Hirsh was able to construct a system that showed that there is no contridiction between the Jewish religion and the Modern era. A side effect of the problem is that the author gives very little statistical records to back up his ideas. If one wants to try and figure out what the total picture of German Jewry was in this period, one will be either misled or just confused. However all in all the book is clearly written and carefully footnoted.