3 Review(s)

Not only the Jews but Dutch society at large was caught up in a cultural maelstrom in the years between 1880 and 1940. The question is whether or not the Jewish experience was unique. In failing to form a separate pillar in a period when various population groups were doing just that, the Jews were certainly unlike contemporary Catholics or Protestants. But were those involved in the socialist, labor and women's movements different from non-Jewish members of the same organizations? The traditional answer is that their high degree of assimilation made them indistinguishable. However, the authors in this volume suggest that the category of assimilation does not suffice to explain the attraction of Jews to these very movements and their disproportionate representation. In fact the Jews were not trying to gain entrance in a pre-existing culture but were involved with non-Jews in constructing a new culture. Thus the complexity of Dutch Jewish history once more becomes evident if not new. The authors whose essays are included in this volume have attempted firstly to go beyond the listing of demographic facts and convey the mentality of both Dutch Jews and non-Jews in the period at hand.The three more general essays included on Jews in European Culture, Jewish historiography in European context and the changing roles of Jewish women in modern Europe are intended to help the reader understand the Dutch (Jewish) situation in a broader and therefore even more complex context. All of the essays, general and specific, reflect and embellish upon the lectures presented during the conference on Dutch Jewry in a Cultural Maelstrom, 1880-1940 held in Amsterdam and organized by the Committee for the History and Culture of the Jews in the Netherlands of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.