Rites and Passages

Tradition and transformation in eighteenth-century Europe: Jewish integration in comparative perspective

“…16 In the past ten years, the field has grown increasingly complex, as nuanced studies have highlighted the differences between Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities living in Western and Eastern Europe. 17 Among many important recent contributions, the work of Gershon Hundert should be especially noted for its radical emphasis on regional diversity. Hundert argues that eighteenth-century Poland-Lithuania, which comprised eighty percent of the world Jewish population, cannot be compared with the small Jewish minorities living in Central and Western Europe, because it exhibited none of the traits that historians traditionally see as markers of Jewish modernization, such as gradual integration into the larger society and the adoption of a more universal and less particularistic worldview.…”