Jewish Masculinities: German Jews, Gender, and History - Softcover

[A]n excellent introduction to the Zionist remasculinization of the Jewish male.Feb. 2015 * H-Judaic * Historians of central Europe will be enriched by the interrogations of 'theory' along with excavations of little-known yet critical avenues of Jewish history in this excellent volume. * Central European History * [This book] assembles innovative, vivid, and inspiring inquiries into the intersection of Jewish history, German history, and gender history. By focusing on the male side of Jewish gender history . . . [this] book establishes a new field, profiting from a broad range of never (or rarely) before used primary sources, such as memoirs, letters, interviews, and obscure tabloids.May 2014 * German Studies Review * [I]nsightful, innovative and largely entertaining . . . . [T]his volume makes a very valuable and original contribution to German-Jewish history. * German History *

Stereotyped as delicate and feeble intellectuals, Jewish men in German-speaking lands in fact developed a rich and complex spectrum of male norms, models, and behaviors. Jewish Masculinities explores conceptions and experiences of masculinity among Jews in Germany from the 16th through the late 20th century as well as emigrants to North America, Palestine, and Israel. The volume examines the different worlds of students, businessmen, mohels, ritual slaughterers, rabbis, performers, and others, shedding new light on the challenge for Jewish men of balancing German citizenship and cultural affiliation with Jewish communal solidarity, religious practice, and identity.