Jewish Masculinities
German Jews, Gender, and History

Benjamin Maria Baader (Edited by), Sharon Gillerman (Edited by), Paul Lerner (Edited by), Judith Gerson (Contributions by), Etan Bloom (Contributions by), Stefanie Schueler-Springorum (Contributions by), Andreas Gotzmann (Contributions by), Robin Judd (Contributions by)

9780253002068

Paperback / softback, published 18 July 2012

254 pages, 6 b&w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.386 kg

"A valuable addition to the growing field of Jewish gender history."—Derek Penslar, University of Toronto
"[This book] assembles innovative, vivid, and inspiring inquiries into the intersection of Jewish history, German history, and gender history. By focusing on the male side of Jewish gender history . . . [this] book establishes a new field, profiting from a broad range of never (or rarely) before used primary sources, such as memoirs, letters, interviews, and obscure tabloids.May 2014"—German Studies Review
"[A]n excellent introduction to the Zionist remasculinization of the Jewish male.Feb. 2015"—H-Judaic
"[I]nsightful, innovative and largely entertaining . . . . [T]his volume makes a very valuable and original contribution to German-Jewish history."—German History
"Historians of central Europe will be enriched by the interrogations of 'theory' along with excavations of little-known yet critical avenues of Jewish history in this excellent volume."—Central European History

Stereotyped as delicate and feeble intellectuals, Jewish men in German-speaking lands in fact developed a rich and complex spectrum of male norms, models, and behaviors. Jewish Masculinities explores conceptions and experiences of masculinity among Jews in Germany from the 16th through the late 20th century as well as emigrants to North America, Palestine, and Israel. The volume examines the different worlds of students, businessmen, mohels, ritual slaughterers, rabbis, performers, and others, shedding new light on the challenge for Jewish men of balancing German citizenship and cultural affiliation with Jewish communal solidarity, religious practice, and identity.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: German Jews, Gender, and History \ Paul Lerner, Benjamin Maria Baader, and Sharon Gillerman
1. Respectability Tested: Male Ideals, Sexuality, and Honor in Early Modern Ashkenazi Jewry \ Andreas Gotzmann
2. Jewish Difference and the Feminine Spirit of Judaism in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Germany \ Benjamin Maria Baader
3. Moral, Clean Men of the Jewish Faith: Jewish Rituals and Their Male Practitioners, 1843–1914 \ Robin Judd
4. A Soft Hero: Male Jewish Identity in Imperial Germany through the Autobiography of Aron Liebeck \ Stefanie Schüler-Springorum
5. Performing Masculinity: Jewish Students and the Honor Code at German Universities \ Lisa Fetheringill Zwicker
6. Whose Body Is It Anyway? Hermaphrodites, Gays, and Jews in N. O. Body's Germany \ Sander L. Gilman
7. Toward a Theory of the Modern Hebrew Handshake: The Conduct of Muscle Judaism \ Etan Bloom
8. Friedrich Gundolf and Jewish Conservative Bohemianism in the Weimar Republic \ Ann Goldberg
9. A Kinder Gentler Strongman? Siegmund Breitbart in Eastern Europe \ Sharon Gillerman
10. Family Matters: German Jewish Masculinities among Nazi Era Refugees \ Judith Gerson
List of Contributors
Index