Ebook: German Jews Beyond Judaism

In searching for a new Jewish identity after their emancipation in the early 19th-century, German Jews adopted the concept of Bildung—a term reaching beyond "education" to include character formation and moral education—as synonymous with their Jewishness. Bildung, according to George Mosse, became a "new faith" for German Jews which suited their German citizenship.

After the German defeat in World War I, the noble elements of Bildung were coopted by the Political right. The National Socialists, Moore shows, completed this process by totally subordinating culture to the aims of politics. Committed to a German-Jewish identity that no longer corresponded to the realities of German life, German Jews found themselves increasingly isolated. Yet even under attack, they hoped and worked for the restoration of reason, enlightenment, and the primacy of culture. According to Mosse, it was German Jewry's attempt to humanize nationalism that remains one of its most important legacies.