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Jews & Gentiles: a Historical
Sociology of Their Relations Werner J. Cahnman Edited by Judith T. Marcus, Zoltan
Tarr |
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Studies of the Jewish
experience among peoples with whom they live share some similarities with the
usual histories of anti-Semitism, but also some differences. When the focus
is on anti-Semitism, Jewish history appears as a record of unmitigated
hostility against the Jewish people and of passivity of their part. However,
as Werner J. Cahnman demonstrates in this
posthumous volume, Jewish-Gentile relations are far more complex. There is a
long history of mutual contacts, positive as well as antagonistic, even if
conflict continues to require particular attention. Cahnman's approach, while
following a historical sequence, is sociological in conception. From Roman
antiquity through the Middle Ages, into the era of emancipation and the
Holocaust, and finally to the present American and Israeli scene, there are
basic similarities and various dissimilarities, all of which are described
and analyzed. Cahnman tests the theses of classical
sociology implicitly, |
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yet unobtrusively. He
traces the socio-economic basis of human relations, which Marx and others
have emphasized, and considers Jews a "marginal trading people" in
the Park-Becker sense. Simmel and Toennies, he shows, understood Jews as
"strangers" and "intermediaries". While Cahnman shows that Jews were not "pariahs", as
Max Weber thought, he finds a remarkable affinity to Weber's
Protestantism-Capitalism argument in the tension of Jewish-Christian
relations emerging from the bitter theological argument over usury. The primacy of
Jewish-Gentile relations in all their complexity and variability is essential for the
understanding of Jewish social and political history. This volume is a valuable
contribution to that understanding. About the author and
editors Werner J. Cahnman (1902-1980) taught at many American
universities, including Judith T. Marcus is professor of
sociology at SUNY at Zoltan Tarr
has
taught sociology and history at City College of CUNY, the |