Voltaire's Jews and Modern Jewish Identity

Rethinking the Enlightenment
1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-0-415-77617-2
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 296 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 590 g

Reihe: Routledge Jewish Studies Series

Harvey Mitchell’s book argues that a reassessment of Voltaire’s treatment of traditional Judaism will sharpen discussion of the origins of, and responses to, the Enlightenment. His study shows how Voltaire’s nearly total antipathy to Judaism is best understood by stressing his self-regard as the author of an enlightened and rational universal history, which found Judaism’s memory of its past incoherent, and, in addition, failed to meet the criteria of objective history—a project in which he failed.

Calling on an array of Jewish and non-Jewish figures to reveal how modern interpretations of Judaism may be traced to the core ideas of the Enlightenment, this book concludes that Voltaire paradoxically helped to foster the ambiguities and uncertainties of Judaism’s future.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mitchell, Harvey

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Geschichte des Judentums Antisemitismus, Pogrome, Shoah
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Antisemitismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: 19. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Jüdische Identität & Biographien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Enlightenment and its Discontents Part 1 1. Spinoza, Bayle and Voltaire: Issues in Contention 2. Images, Imagination, Tolerance and the Uses of Reason 3. Voltaire’s Jews Among the World’s Peoples and Nations 4. Voltaire’s Jews in the World of Commerce 5. Voltaire and the Old Testament Part 2 6. Reinventing French Judaism and Rethinking the Enlightenment 7. Modern Jewish Identity and the Jewish Question: The Power of Ancestral Voices in a Post-Enlightenment Age 8. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Harvey Mitchell is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Canada