Space and Spatiality in Modern German-Jewish History eds. by Simone Lässig and Miriam Rürup (review)

• Published in: German studies review Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 654 - 656
• Main Author: Geller, Jay
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.10.2018
• Subjects: Jewish people; Literary devices; Modernity; Politics; Rituals; Space; Synagogues; Poland
• ISSN: 0149-7952; 2164-8646; 2164-8646
• DOI: 10.1353/gsr.2018.0117

Leading German historians Simone Lässig and Miriam Rürup collect seventeen contributions that demonstrate how attention to multiple spatial perspectives ("epistemological category … analytical approach … subject of historical analysis") on historical processes and interactions among individuals and institutions can generate new insights into the history of a minority, specifically of Jews in German lands, and their interactions with the majority population (1). [...]Sylvia Necker reads the promotion of synagogue visibility (including public dedication ceremonies) in postemancipation German city centers as a display of the Jewish contribution to Germanness rather than of Jewish difference; yet, this public presence was paired with a constriction of Jewish-defined space by relocating certain public rituals—such as weddings—inside synagogues. [...]as the editors emphasize, their collection offers only a sample of research possibilities, and its advances into spatial terrain portend the value of other forays that could include, for example, the relationship between periphery and metropole in the perception of Jews as internal colonials or how that other boundary-removing aspect of German modernity, capitalism and its political face liberalism, had major effects on German Jewish life.