Meïr Aaron Goldschmidt and the Poetics of Jewish Fiction presents a bold new reading of one of Denmark’s greatest writers of the nineteenth century, situating him, first and foremost, as a Jewish artist. Offering an alternative to the nationalistic discourse so prevalent in the scholarship, Gurley examines Goldschmidt’s relationship to the Hebrew Bible and later rabbinical traditions, such as the Talmud and the Midrash. At the same time, he shows that Goldschmidt’s midrashic style in a secular context predates certain narrative movements within Modern-ism that are usually associated with the twentieth century and especially Czech writer Franz Kafka. Goldschmidt was remarkable in his era, both as a writer who explored his peripheral identity in the mainstream of European culture and as a writer of the first truly Jewish bildungsroman. In this groundbreaking study of Goldschmidt’s narrative art, Gurley refashions his position in both the Danish and Jewish literary canons and introduces his extraordinary work to a wider, non-Scandinavian audience.

In October of 1943, the Danish resistance rescued almost all of the Jews in Copenhagen from roundups by the occupying Nazis. In the years since, Jews have become deeply engaged in a Danish culture that presents very few barriers of antisemitism or prejudice. This book explores the questions that such inclusion raises for the Danish Jews, and what their answers can tell us about the meaning of religion, ethnicity and community in modern society. Social scientists have long argued that modernity poses challenges for traditional ethnic communities, by breaking down the networks of locality, kinship, religion and occupation that have held such communities together. For the Danish Jews, inclusion into the larger society has led to increasing fragmentation, as the community has split into a bewildering array of religious, social, and political factions. Yet it remains one of Scandinavia's most vital religious organizations, and Jewishness remains central to self-understanding for thousands of its members. How this has happened - how the Jewish world has maintained its significance while losing any sense of coherence or unity - suggests a new understanding of the meaning of ethnic community in contemporary society.

First published in 1957, this one-volume source for everything Jewish has delighted and instructed several generations in the English-speaking Jewish world. Fully updated through 2007, it provides snapshots and in-depth entries on every important Jewish personality, place, concept, event and value in Israel, the United States, and all other parts of the world.

This book is the study of two different kinds of variation across the Germanic languages. One involves the position of the finite verb, and the other the possible positions of the "logical" subject in constructions with expletive (or "dummy") subjects. The book applies the theory of Principles-and-Parameters to the study of comparative syntax. Several languages are considered, including less frequently discussed ones like Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, and Yiddish.

Hannah Arendt is increasingly recognised as one of the most original social and political thinkers of the twentieth century. In this important book, Richard Bernstein sets out to show that many of the most significant themes in Arendt's thinking have their origins in their confrontation with the Jewish Question. By approaching her mature work from this perspective, we can gain a richer and more subtle grasp of her main ideas. Bernstein discusses some of the key experiences and events in Arendt's life story in order to show how they shaped her thinking. He examines her distinction between the Jewish parvenu and the pariah, and shows how the conscious pariah becomes a basis for understanding the independent thinker. Arendt's deepest insights about politics emerged from her reflections on statelessness, which were based on her own experiences as a stateless person. By confronting the horrors of totalitarianism and the concentration camps, Arendt developed her own distinctive understanding of authentic politics - the politics required to express our humanity and which totalitarianism sought to destroy. Finally, Bernstein takes up Arendt's concern with the phenomenon of the banality of evil. He follows her use of Eichmann in order to explore how the failure to think and to judge is the key for grasping this new phenomenon. Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question offers a new interpretation of Arendt and her work - one which situates her in her historical context as an engaged Jewish intellectual.

Recent scholarship has brought to light the existence of a dynamic world of specifically Jewish forms of literature in the nineteenth century—fiction by Jews, about Jews, and often designed largely for Jews. This volume makes this material accessible to English speakers for the first time, offering a selection of Jewish fiction from France, Great Britain, and the German-speaking world. The stories are remarkably varied, ranging from historical fiction to sentimental romance, to social satire, but they all engage with key dilemmas including assimilation, national allegiance, and the position of women. Offering unique insights into the hopes and fears of Jews experiencing the dramatic impact of modernity, the literature collected in this book will provide compelling reading for all those interested in modern Jewish history and culture, whether general readers, students, or scholars.

The present volume features articles that employ source-work research in order to explore the individual Danish sources of Kierkegaard's thought. The volume is divided into three tomes in order to cover the different fields of influence.Tome III is dedicated to the diverse Danish sources that fall under the rubrics Literature, Drama and Aesthetics. The Golden Age is known as the period when Danish prose first established itself in genres such as the novel; moreover, it was also an age when some of Denmark's most celebrated national poets flourished. Accordingly, this tome contains articles on Kierkegaard's use of the great Danish poets and prose writers, whose works are frequently quoted and alluded to throughout his writings. Kierkegaard regularly attended dramatic performances at Copenhagen's Royal Theater, which was one of Europe's leading playhouses at the time. In this tome his appreciation for the art of Denmark's best-known actors and actresses is traced. Finally, this tome features articles on the leading literary critics and aesthetic theorists of the Golden Age, who served as foils for Kierkegaard's own ideas.