Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Building a Public Judaism : Synagogues and Jewish Identity in Nineteenth-Century Europe / / Saskia Coenen Snyder.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©2012Description: 1 online resource (330 p.) : 20 halftonesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674059894
  • 9780674067493
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 296.4/6 23
LOC classification:
  • NA4690 .C64 2013
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 An Architecture of Emancipation or an Architecture of Separatism? -- 2 "There Should Be Sermons in Stone" -- 3 From Café Chantant to Jewish House of Worship -- 4 "We Want a Synagogue; the Jews of Paris Are Ready to Pay for It" -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index
Summary: Summary: Nineteenth-century Europe saw an unprecedented rise in the number of synagogues. Building a Public Judaism considers what their architecture and the circumstances surrounding their construction reveal about the social progress of modern European Jews. Looking at synagogues in four important centers of Jewish life-London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Berlin-Saskia Coenen Snyder argues that the process of claiming a Jewish space in European cities was a marker of acculturation but not of full acceptance. Whether modest or spectacular, these new edifices most often revealed the limits of European Jewish integration. Debates over building initiatives provide Coenen Snyder with a vehicle for gauging how Jews approached questions of self-representation in predominantly Christian societies and how public manifestations of their identity were received. Synagogues fused the fundamentals of religion with the prevailing cultural codes in particular locales and served as aesthetic barometers for European Jewry's degree of modernization. Coenen Snyder finds that the dialogues surrounding synagogue construction varied significantly according to city. While the larger story is one of increasing self-agency in the public life of European Jews, it also highlights this agency's limitations, precisely in those places where Jews were thought to be most acculturated, namely in France and Germany. Building a Public Judaism grants the peculiarities of place greater authority than they have been given in shaping the European Jewish experience. At the same time, its place-specific description of tensions over religious tolerance continues to echo in debates about the public presence of religious minorities in contemporary Europe.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674067493

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 An Architecture of Emancipation or an Architecture of Separatism? -- 2 "There Should Be Sermons in Stone" -- 3 From Café Chantant to Jewish House of Worship -- 4 "We Want a Synagogue; the Jews of Paris Are Ready to Pay for It" -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Nineteenth-century Europe saw an unprecedented rise in the number of synagogues. Building a Public Judaism considers what their architecture and the circumstances surrounding their construction reveal about the social progress of modern European Jews. Looking at synagogues in four important centers of Jewish life-London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Berlin-Saskia Coenen Snyder argues that the process of claiming a Jewish space in European cities was a marker of acculturation but not of full acceptance. Whether modest or spectacular, these new edifices most often revealed the limits of European Jewish integration. Debates over building initiatives provide Coenen Snyder with a vehicle for gauging how Jews approached questions of self-representation in predominantly Christian societies and how public manifestations of their identity were received. Synagogues fused the fundamentals of religion with the prevailing cultural codes in particular locales and served as aesthetic barometers for European Jewry's degree of modernization. Coenen Snyder finds that the dialogues surrounding synagogue construction varied significantly according to city. While the larger story is one of increasing self-agency in the public life of European Jews, it also highlights this agency's limitations, precisely in those places where Jews were thought to be most acculturated, namely in France and Germany. Building a Public Judaism grants the peculiarities of place greater authority than they have been given in shaping the European Jewish experience. At the same time, its place-specific description of tensions over religious tolerance continues to echo in debates about the public presence of religious minorities in contemporary Europe.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2023)