The Making of the Jewish Middle Class Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany

by Kaplan, Marion A.

• ISBN13: 9780195093964
• ISBN10: 0195093968
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-09-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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 socialservice. 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 agentsof class formation and acculturation and determined upholders of tradition.

Author Biography

Marion Kaplan is the author of several books on German and women's history and is currently Professor of History at Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 3
Women and the Construction of Bourgeois Culture
Cultivating Respectability: A Family Enterprise	p. 25
Housework and Household	p. 25
Motherhood: Bringing Up German-Jewish Children	p. 41
Domestic Judaism: Religion and German-Jewish Ethnicity	p. 64
Women in Judaism: Personal Piety, Synagogue, and Community	p. 64
Women in the Home: The Tenacity and Decline of Jewish Traditions	p. 69
For Love or Money: Jewish Marriage Strategies	p. 85
To the Highest Bidder: Arranged Marriages and Dowries, 1871-1918	p. 86
The Dowry Chase: Critical Perspectives	p. 99
"Modern" Marriages in Imperial Germany	p. 108
The Labor of Leisure	p. 117
What Does "Leisure" Mean to Women?	p. 117
Home and Family: Domestic Ideals and the Goals of Leisure	p. 119
Beyond the Family: The Female World of Sociability	p. 126
Jewish Women Redefine Their "Place"
Jewish Women Confront Academia	p. 137
Biases Against Women Students	p. 138
Choices: Turning Liabilities into Assets	p. 143
Student Life	p. 146
Anti-Semitism in the University	p. 148
Double Barriers, Double Burdens: Women's Employment	p. 153
Recognized and Unrecognized Work	p. 153
Working Population	p. 157
Attitudes Toward Middle-Class Women and Work	p. 168
Professional Career Women	p. 171
Her Sister's Keeper: Women's Organizations from the Chevra to Feminism	p. 192
Traditions and Social Change	p. 192
From Charity to Social Work	p. 199
World War I	p. 219
Conclusion	p. 228
Notes	p. 235
Selected Bibliography	p. 304
Index	p. 321
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