Within German-Jewish historiography, a branch has sprouted and grown that focuses on internal development and the diversity of Jewish views and Jewish patterns of life. To that end, the Institute for the History of the German Jews (Hamburg) is organizing a conference which will be held together with the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Instituts. The conference will center on questions of Jewish autonomous organization, and will also look at aspects of socio-cultural self-assertion within Jewish history more broadly. It will explore in particular approaches in structural history, social and cultural history to Jewish society in its development in the long 19th century (ca. 1800-1914). The geographical area of the later German Kaiserreich will be at the center of attention. Papers on Austria-Habsburg and comparative research are also included.
In view of the fact that Jewish society, formerly relatively stable, underwent a dynamic process of change and adaptation since the late 18th century, one key concern of the conference will be to shed light on differing facets of the internal Jewish network on relations over time. It will look at the community as a core Jewish institution undergoing change, the distinction between peripheries and centers, paid and unpaid functionaries and institutions, associations and organizations in which Jews expressed their Jewishness collectively.
The conference is also intended to contribute to exploring the phenomenon of a continuous socio-cultural internal cohesion, rather than viewing it only as a reaction to mechanisms of anti-Jewish exclusion and Jewish experience of that. For that reason, it will seek to illuminate the consciousness of a common religion, culture and origin originally present within German Jewry. That was manifest in differing forms of Jewish association. The idea is not to exclude integrative efforts; however, this approach will not take questions of participation in the broader social context as its point of departure. Rather, it looks more to the results of sectoral studies. Attention will center on the immanent, formative forces as the source of Jewish modernity, without putting forward the case for a Jewish national historiography, and cognizant of the constructed character of Jewish society.
The working language of the conference is English. There will be no conference fee. Please send your registration to igdj@uni-hamburg.de