Moshe Rosman's revolutionary approach has become a cornerstone of Polish Jewish historiography. Challenging conventions, he asserts that the "marriage of convenience" between the Jews and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dynamic relationship that, though punctuated by crisis and persecution, developed into a saga of overall achievement and stability. With that fundamental message this book forges a thematic survey of Jewish history in early modern Poland. These essays, written by Rosman over the course of a distinguished career, have all been updated and enhanced with new detail and nuanced arguments, taking account not only of new archival material and research but also of the ongoing evolution of the author’s own knowledge and perspectives. Some appear here in English for the first time. The volume's structure highlights key topics for understanding the Polish Jewish past: relations between Jews and other Poles; Jewish communal life; Polish Jewish women; and Hasidism. One section analyses how this past has been presented in both scholarly and popular modes. The essays are crafted to place them in dialogue with each other. Analytical introductions weigh their significance in the light of modern and postmodern Jewish and Polish historiography. An extensive general introduction sets the context of the history portrayed here, while a thoughtful conclusion elucidates the larger motifs that emerge.

Winner of the 1996 National Jewish Book Award for Jewish History and the 2000 Zalman Shazar Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Historical Research The Ba'al Shem Tov is an elusive subject for historians because documentary evidence about his life is scanty and equivocal. Until now, much of what was known about him was based on stories compiled more than a generation after his death, many of which serve more to mythologize him than to describe him. The portrait Moshe Rosman provides is drawn from life instead of from myth. Based on innovative critical analysis of both familiar and previously unexplored archival sources, and concentrating on accounts that can be attributed to the Besht or to contemporary eyewitnesses, this book goes further than any previous work in uncovering the historical Ba'al Shem Tov. Additionally, documents in Polish and Hebrew discovered by Professor Rosman during his research for the book enable him to give the first detailed description of the cultural, social, economic, and political context of the Besht's life. Founder of Hasidism supplies the history behind the legend. It presents the best, most convincing description that can be drawn from the existing documentary evidence, changing our understanding of the Besht and with it the master-narrative of hasidism. A substantial new introduction considers what has changed in the study of Hasidism since the influential first edition was published, these changes being in part due to the effect of the book. New approaches, new sources, and new interpretations have been introduced, and these are reviewed and critically assessed. Criticisms of the original edition are answered and key issues reconsidered, including the authenticity of the various versions of the Holy Epistle; the ways in which Jacob Joseph of Polonne's books can be utilized as historical sources; and the relationship to history of the stories about the Ba'al Shem Tov in the hagiographical collection Shivhei Ha-Besht.

Europe has changed greatly in the last century—culturally, ideologically, and socially, as well as politically. These changes have generated widespread reassessment of European history in terms of its presuppositions, its methodologies, its directions, its emphases, and its scope. The political boundaries between nations and states have been redefined, and even the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘boundary’ have changed significantly. The self-consciousness of ethnic minorities has likewise developed in new directions. All these developments have affected how the Jews of Europe perceive themselves, and likewise shape the prism through which historians of the Jewish world view the past. This volume looks at the Jewish past in the spirit of this reassessment. Part 1 reconsiders basic parameters of the subject as well as some of its fundamental concepts, suggesting new assumptions and perspectives from which to conduct future study of European Jewish history. Topics covered here include periodization and the definition of geographic borders, antisemitism, gender and the history of Jewish women, and notions of assimilation. Part 2 is devoted to articulating the meaning of ‘modernity’ in the history of European Jewry and demarcating key stages in its crystallization. Papers reflect on the defining characteristics of a distinct early modern period in European Jewish history, the Reformation and the Jews, and the essence of the Jewish experience in modern times. Framing the chronological period of concern in the collection, Parts 3 and 4 facilitate two scholarly conversations as case studies for the application of critical and programmatic categories considered thus far: the complex web of relationships between Jews, Christians, and Jewish converts to Christianity (conversos, New Christians, ‘Marranos’) in fifteenth-century Spain; and the impact of American Jewry on Jewish life in Europe in different periods of the twentieth century, even as the dominant trend has been one of migration from Europe to the Americas. This timely volume suggests a new framework for the study of Jewish history and helps to contextualize it within the mainstream of historical scholarship.. Contributors: Ram Ben-Shalom, Miriam Bodian, Jeremy Cohen, Judah M. Cohen, David Engel, Gershon David Hundert, Paula Hyman, Maud Mandel, David Nirenberg, Moshe Rosman, David B. Ruderman, Daniel Soyer Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards, 2009

With great vigour and from the vantage point of long experience of writing and teaching Jewish history, Moshe Rosman treats the key questions that postmodernism raises for the writing of Jewish history. What is the relationship between Jewish culture and history and those of the non-Jews among whom Jews live? Can we-in the light of postmodernist thought-speak of a continuous, coherent Jewish People, with a distinct culture and history? What in fact is Jewish cultural history, and how can it be written? How does gender transform the Jewish historical narrative? How does Jewish history fit into the multicultural paradigm? Has Jewish history entered a postmodern phase? How can Jewish history utilize the methodologies of other disciplines to accomplish its task? All these are questions that Jewish historians need to think about if their work is to be taken seriously by mainstream historians and intellectuals, or indeed by educated Jews interested in understanding their own cultural and historical past. While engaging with the questions raised by postmodernists, the author adopts a critical stance towards their work. His basic claim is that it is possible to incorporate, judiciously, postmodern innovations into historical scholarship that is still based on documentary research and critical analysis. The resulting endeavor might be termed 'a reformed positivism'. Rosman presents a concentrated, coherent, cogent argument as to what considerations must be brought to bear on the writing of Jewish history today. By highlighting in one book the issues raised by postmodernism, How Jewish is Jewish History? provides those in the field with a foundation from which to discuss how it should be practiced in light of this generation's challenges. It is a valuable resource for students of Jewish history and historiography and a handy tool for scholars who must confront the issues aired here in their own more narrowly focused scholarly works.