In the second half of the 19th century, Southeastern Europe was home to a vast and heterogeneous constellation of Jewish communities, mainly Sephardic to the south (Bulgaria, Greece) and Ashkenazi to the north (Hungary, Romanian Moldavia), with a broad mixed area in-between (Croatia, Serbia, Romanian Wallachia). They were subject to a variety of post-Imperial governments (from the neo-constituted principality of Bulgaria to the Hungarian kingdom re-established as an autonomous entity in 1867), which shared a powerful nationalist and modernising drive. The relations between Jews and the nation-states’ governments led to a series of issues relating to the enjoyment of civil rights, public and private education, and political participation, which found varying solutions, sometimes satisfactory for the Jews, but often undermined by the political instability of the region. In this book, the position of the Jews is also approached from the point of view of contemporary western Judaism, perhaps more sensitive to the sufferings of “our poor brothers in the East”; a western Judaism, emancipated, integrated, intellectually advanced, liberal, and able to intervene in situations under observation through diplomatic networks, its international philanthropic agencies and its political representatives. For readers interested in modern history, this book offers a detailed survey of the Jewish question in the various states of Southeastern Europe before the Shoah.

By looking at the very specific case of the Greek-speaking Romaniote and the Ladino-speaking Sephardic communities in Southern Greece, Epirus and Macedonia, this book explores the attitudes and policies of the Greek state with regards to the Jewish communities both within its borders and in the areas of the Ottoman Empire it craved. Evdoxios Doxiadis traces the evolution of these policies from the time of Greek independence to the expansion of the Greek state in the early-20th century, telling us a great deal about the Jewish experience and the changing face of modern Greek nationalism in the process. Based on the evidence of numerous Greek consular reports, speeches, memoirs, political interviews and coverage of the status and treatment of the communities by the international Jewish press, State, Nationalism, and the Jewish Communities of Modern Greece sketches a detailed picture of the Greek political elite and the state's bureaucratic view of the various Jewish communities. By focusing on the state, though not ignoring popular attitudes, the book successfully argues that the Greek state followed policies that did not conform, and often were in opposition to, popular attitudes when it came to minorities and the Jews in particular. By focusing on the Jewish communities in modern Greece separately the book allows us to recognize how Greek governments recognized and used divisions and conflicts between the communities, and other minorities, to achieve their goals. As a result Greek state policies can be seen in a new light, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the Jewish people and the Greek state. Using this case study, Doxiadis then discusses broader questions of state, nationalism and minorities in a volume of significant interest for students and scholars of modern Greek or modern Jewish history alike.

The volume investigates the interconnections between the Italian Jewish worlds and wider European and Mediterranean circles, situating the Italian Jewish experience within a transregional and transnational context mindful of the complex set of networks, relations, and loyalties that characterized Jewish diasporic life. Preceded by a methodological introduction by the editors, the chapters address rabbinic connections and ties of communal solidarity in the early modern period, and examine the circulation of Hebrew books and the overlap of national and transnational identities after emancipation. For the twentieth century, this volume additionally explores the Italian side of the Wissenschaft des Judentums; the role of international Jewish agencies in the years of Fascist racial persecution; the interactions between Italian Jewry, JDPs and Zionist envoys after Word War II; and the impact of Zionism in transforming modern Jewish identities.

The Third Reich and Yugoslavia focuses on economic and political affairs between the Third Reich and Yugoslavia before Germany attacked in April 1941. It observes the relations between the two countries primarily from an economic perspective, with the political dimension forming a backdrop within which the economy operated. Perica Hadzi-Jovancic challenges the conventional scholarly wisdom which recognises economics as mainly being a tool of German foreign policy towards Yugoslavia. Instead, he successfully places economic dealings on both sides within the broader context of both the German economic and financial plans and policies of the 1930s, as well as the existing trading ties between the two countries as they had been developing since the 1920s. At the same time, through detailed analysis of unpublished archival material, Hadzi-Jovancic explores the shared political relations from a new perspective; one from which there is a much deeper understanding of Yugoslavia's motives and the resulting implications for the other great powers and the wider regional framework. The book concludes that, contrary to the traditional view in historiography and despite the dependency of Yugoslavia's foreign trade on the German market at the dawn of the Second World War, Yugoslavia maintained both its economic and political agency in the shadow of the Third Reich. It was only international political developments beyond Yugoslavia's control in the years ahead that lead to a more receptive stance towards German demands.

Jewish designers and architects played a key role in shaping the interwar architecture of Central Europe, and in the respective countries where they settled following the Nazi's rise to power. This book explores how Jewish architects and patrons influenced and reformed the design of towns and cities through commercial buildings, urban landscaping and other material culture. It also examines how modern identities evolved in the context of migration, commercial and professional networks, and in relation to the conflict between nationalist ideologies and international aspirations in Central Europe and beyond. Pointing to the production within cultural platforms shared by Jews and Christians, the book's research sheds new light on the importance of integrating Jews into Central European design and aesthetic history. Leading historians, curators, archivists and architects present their critical analyses further to 'design' the past and push forward a transformation in the historical consciousness of Central Europe. By reconsidering the seminal role of Central European émigré and exiled architects and designers in shaping today's global design cultures, this book further strengthens humanistic, progressive and pluralistic cultural trends in Europe today.

Sephardic and Ashkenazic Judaism have long been studied separately. Yet, scholars are becoming ever more aware of the need to merge them into a single field of Jewish Studies. This volume opens new perspectives and bridges traditional gaps. The authors are not simply contributing to their respective fields of Sephardic or Ashkenazic Studies. Rather, they all include both Sephardic and Ashkenazic perspectives as they reflect on different aspects of encounters and reconsider traditional narratives. Subjects range from medieval and early modern Sephardic and Ashkenazic constructions of identities, influences, and entanglements in the fields of religious art, halakhah, kabbalah, messianism, and charity to modern Ashkenazic Sephardism and Sephardic admiration for Ashkenazic culture. For reasons of coherency, the contributions all focus on European contexts between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries.