European Jewish History

The modern history of the Jews in Europe has its origins as much in what the Jew historically was not, or was perceived as not being, which was European. That is, partly by Jewish and partly by non-Jewish choice, Jews were very much set apart from the rest of the communities in which their culture was not dominant. A concept of Jewish self-government, independence, close community ties, and self-sufficiency emerged in Western Europe as a consequence of this isolation. In its pernicious form it manifest as the Judengasse, or walled ghetto (Sachar 3), which from the point of view of Christians ruling the communities where ghettoes were located was meant less to allow autonomous Jewish activity than to confine the Jews and prevent interchange between Jews and Gentiles.

The religious hegemony of Christianity in Western Europe made Jewish-Gentile communication and commercial intercourse

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untry. Further, Napoleon reimposed special restrictions on Jewish but not Gentile moneylenders and via the Infamous Decree (52-3) set policies aimed at containing Jewish access to new homes on one hand while mandating that urban Jews who wished to move house leave the city and start farms--thus dispersing a tightly knit political bloc. The encounter between Napoleon's march toward Russia and the German Jews who were in the path manifested the civil patriotism of German Jews even in the face of popular hostility to Jews as aliens and the prevailing view of rulers in Prussia and Bavaria (until Napoleon's victory against the Prussians at Jena) that Jews were really a "state within a state," not full-fledged citizens. Napoleon's emancipation of Prussian Jews actually fostered anti-Jewish feeling within Prussia, with Jews retaining their alien status in popular imagination. In Austria and Hungary, meanwhile, Jewish self-government (and traditional medieval-era restrictions) persisted alongside Hapsburg imperial authority (58-9) until the second half of the nineteenth century. Chapter 6. It was in the nineteenth century, in the era of the Industrial Revolution, that European Jews as a class and selected Jews of the industrial/financial
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Western Europe, Jews Indeed, II Prussia, Accordingly Jewish, Frankfurt Tradition, Christian Europe, Judaism Germany, Baron Wilhelm, Jews Sachar, Russian Jewish, jewish culture, sachar cites, nineteenth century, western europe, mainstream culture, eighteenth century, german culture, frankfurt tradition, alien status, jewish history, modern jewish history, jews mainstream culture, western culture acted, jews eastern europe, culture degree jews,
Approximate Word count = 5054
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)