The Jews of Georgian England, 1714-1830: Tradition and Change in a Liberal SocietyThe movement from tradition to modernity engulfed all of the Jewish communities in the West, but hitherto historians have concentrated on the intellectual revolution in Germany by Moses Mendelssohn in the second half of the eighteenth century as the decisive event in the origins of Jewish modernity. In The Jews of Georgian England, Todd M. Endelman challenges the Germanocentric orientation of the bulk of modern Jewish historiography and argues that the modernization of European Jewry encompassed far more than an intellectual revolution. His study recounts the rise of the Anglo-Jewish elite--great commercial and financial magnates such as the Goldsmids, the Franks, Samson Gideon, and Joseph Salvador--who rapidly adopted the gentlemanly style of life of the landed class and adjusted their religious practices to harmonize with the standards of upper-class Englishmen. Similarly, the Jewish poor--peddlers, hawkers, and old-clothes men--took easily to many patterns of lower-class life, including crime, street violence, sexual promiscuity, and coarse entertainment. An impressive marshaling of fact and analysis, The Jews of Georgian England serves to illuminate a significant aspect of the Jewish passage to modernity. "Contributes to English as well as Jewish history. . . . Every reader will learn something new about the statistics, setting or mores of Jewish life in the eighteenth century. . . ." --American Historical Review Todd M. Endelman is William Haber Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Michigan. He is also the author of Comparing Jewish Societies, Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, and Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History, 1656-1945. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
The Secular Basis for Jewish Toleration | 13 |
PhiloSemitism in AngloChristianity | 50 |
AntiJewish SentimentReligious and Secular | 86 |
The Acculturation of | 118 |
Peddlers and Hawkers | 166 |
Pickpockets and Pugilists | 192 |
Reforming the Jewish Poor | 227 |
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Abraham acculturation activity Anglo Anglo-Jewish elite Anglo-Jewish history Anglo-Jewry anti-Jewish anti-Semitism Ashkenazi believed boys Cecil Roth Chief Rabbi Christian Church City Committee congregation conversion conversionist Court D'Israeli David decades early economic eighteenth century English Jews Englishmen entry Europe European father Georgian England Georgian period German Hambro Synagogue Haskalah Hebrew Henry Hirschel Levin Hirschell House immigrants integration Isaac Isaac D'Israeli Isaac Lyon Goldsmid Israel Jacob Jew Bill Jewish community Jewish criminal Jewish emancipation Jewish history Jewish poor Jewry Jews in England Joseph Judaism Letter Levy living London Society lower classes Mahamad maskilim ment merchants millenarian Minute Book modern Jewish Moses nature nineteenth century non-Jewish non-Jews Old Bailey old-clothes Oven Parliament parnasim persons Philo-Judaean Society Philo-Patriae philo-Semitism political reforms religion religious Roth Sabbath Samson Gideon Samuel secular Sephardi social Solomon Solomon Hirschell status stolen street Synagogue tion TJHSE toleration trade vols wealthy wrote