Synopses & Reviews
A social history of Jewish women in Imperial Germany, this study synthesizes German, women's, and Jewish history. The book explores the private--familial and religious--lives of the German-Jewish bourgeoisie and the public roles of Jewish women in the university, paid employment and social service. It analyzes the changing roles of Jewish women as members of an economically mobile, but socially spurned minority. The author emphasizes the crucial role women played in creating the Jewish middle class, as well as their dual role within the Jewish family and community as powerful agents of class formation and acculturation and determined upholders of tradition.
Review
"A fascinating reconceptualization of German-Jewish history which is both fact-filled and scholarly as well as eminently readable."--Lilith
"Charts a fascinating process of class building and identity construction."--Labor History
"This exciting new social history of Jewish women in Wilhelmine Germany constitutes a pathbreaking contribution....Kaplan's highly original study...significantly deepens our understanding of Jewish history, women's history, and German history....Dramatically reshapes the way we understand the German-Jewish past."--American Historical Review
"In her earlier work on German Jewish woman, Marion Kaplan ventured to attack tricky, emotion-laden subjects without the usual preconceptions and with impeccable scholarship. Now, in broadening her canvas, she once again sheds far more light than heat, and her readers have good reason to be grateful."--Peter Gay, Yale University
"First-rate social history. With great empathy for her subjects, Kaplan reveals the structural realities and emotional significance of Jewish class and ethnicity in Germany."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Synopsis
The Making of the Jewish Middle Class eloquently explores the multiple and contradictory intersections of women's Jewish, and German history in the Imperial era.