Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550-1950

by Cesarani,David; Cesarani,David

• ISBN13: 9780714682860
• ISBN10: 0714682861
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2002-07-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The history of Jews in cosmopolitan maritime trading centres is a field of research that is reshaping our understanding of how Jews entered the modern world. The "port Jew" has been identified as a "social type" whose characteristics dramatically pre-figured conscious efforts to modernize Jewish life in 18th-century Europe. The classic "social type" was a Spanish or Portuguese Jew who fled the Inquisition to settle in ports on the Atlantic seaboard. These "New Christians", sometimes secret Jews, had already lived "double lives" and looked upon Jewish tradition with a detached eye. They were open to secular learning and other cultures. When they took advantage of the pragmatic environment of port cities such as Amsterdam, Hamburg and London and openly returned to Jewish life, it was in a way that typified the modern, voluntary Jewish community. Contributors to this book challenge the normal interpretation of Jewish history by showing that thinkers who reinterpreted Judaism on philosophical grounds ordrew up programmes for reform and modernization looked enviously at the unforced, natural evolution of Jewish communities in cosmopolitan ports, notably Trieste. The "civil inclusion" enjoyed by "port Jews" uniquely eased the way to full emancipation.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Port Jews: Concepts, Cases and Questions	1	(11)
David Cesarani
Fields of Tension: Development Dynamics at the Port-City Interface	12	(19)
Brian Hoyle
Port Jews and the Three Regions of Emancipation	31	(16)
David Sorkin
Researching Port Jews and Port Jewries: Trieste and Beyond	47	(12)
Lois Dubin
Portmanteau Jews: Sephardim and Race in the Early Modern Atlantic World	59	(16)
Jonathan Schorsch
Germany's Door to the World: A Haven for the Jews? Hamburg, 1590-1933	75	(12)
Rainer Liedtke
A Tale of Two Port Jewish Communities: Southampton and Portsmouth Compared	87	(24)
Tony Kushner
The Forgotten Port Jews of London: Court Jews Who Were Also Port Jews	111	(14)
David Cesarani
Port Jewry of Salonika: Between Neo-colonialism and Nation-state	125	(30)
Mark Levene
Greeks and Jews in Salonika and Odessa: Inter-ethnic Relations in Cosmopolitan Port Cities	155	(18)
Maria Vassilikou
A Port, Not a Shtetl: Reflections on the Distinctiveness of Odessa	173	(6)
John D. Klier
The Sorkin and Golab Theses and Their Applicability to South, Southeast, and East Asian Port Jewry	179	(18)
Jonathan Goldstein
Conclusion: Future Research on Port Jews	197	(2)
David Cesarani
Notes on Contributors	199	(2)
Abstracts	201	(3)
Index	204