David N. Myers

The Faith of Fallen Jews - Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History - Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry David N. Myers

Commendation Quotes: "A challenging, moving, provocative collection of essays, lectures, and reviews (as well as an unexpected short story) by the author of Zakhor. A multifaceted, fragmented, half-involuntary self-portrait of a major twentieth-century historian."Commendation Quotes: "A deeply charismatic and cultivated man, Yerushalmi was the greatest humanist that Jewish studies produced. The essays in this essential volume attest abundantly to the variety and the profundity of his work. They confirm that Yerushalmi was not only one of the giants of Jewish historiography; he was also its conscience."Review Quotes: "A challenging, moving, provocative collection of essays, lectures, and reviews (as well as an unexpected short story) by the author of Zakhor. A multifaceted, fragmented, half-involuntary self-portrait of a major twentieth-century historian."--Carlo Ginzburg, UCLAReview Quotes: "A deeply charismatic and cultivated man, Yerushalmi was the greatest humanist that Jewish studies produced. The essays in this essential volume attest abundantly to the variety and the profundity of his work. They confirm that Yerushalmi was not only one of the giants of Jewish historiography; he was also its conscience."--Leon WieseltierReview Quotes: "This volume evokes and discloses the affinity between manner and subject, between existential involvement and historical estrangement, culminating in Yerushalmi's inquisitiveness--the history of Marranism, of crypto-Jews, the history of Jewish modernity avant la lettre."--Dan Diner, University of LeipzigBiographical Note: DAVID N. MYERS is professor of Jewish history and chair of the History Department at UCLA. He is the author or editor of nine books. ALEXANDER KAYE received his Ph. D. in Jewish history at Columbia University and is currently a Tikvah Post-Doctoral Fellow in Jewish Thought at Princeton University. Commendation Quotes: "This volume evokes and discloses the affinity between manner and subject, between existential involvement and historical estrangement, culminating in Yerushalmi's inquisitiveness--the history of Marranism, of crypto-Jews, the history of Jewish modernity avant la lettre."Commendation Quotes: "Yerushalmi's remarkable intellectual range--from conversos to Freud, from Spanish 'purity of the blood' to racial anti-Semitism, and from traditional memory to modern historiography--yielded profound meditations on the relationship between the Middle Ages and modernity."Review Quotes: "The publication of most of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi's lesser-known essays and smaller writings, competently edited and informatively introduced by David N. Myers and Alexander Kaye, provides an occasion to reflect more generally upon the man and his work."--Jewish Review of BooksTable of Contents: Introduction: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi "in the Midst of History"PART I: SELF-REFLECTION"To the Russian Reader""Words Delivered on the Occasion of Receiving an Honorary Doctorate from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes"PART II: EARLY PATTERNS"Baer's History, Translated and Revisited""A Jewish Historian in the 'Age of Aquarius'""The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Time of Bernard Gui""In Praise of Ladino"PART III: IBERIA AND BEYONDSephardic Jewry between Cross and Crescent""The Re-education of Marranos in the Seventeenth Century""Assimilation and Racial Anti-Semitism: The Iberian and the German Models"PART IV: JEWS AND POLITICS"Spinoza on the Survival of the Jews""'Servants of Kings and Not Servants of Servants' Some Aspects of the Political History of the Jews""Israel, the Unexpected State: Messianism, Sectarianism, and the Zionist Revolution"PART V: THE YOKE OF MEMORY"Toward a History of Jewish Hope""Series Z: An Archival Fantasy""The Purloined Kiddush Cups: Reopening the Case on Freud's Jewish Identity""Gilgul"IndexMarc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Publisher Marketing: From his first book, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto, to his well-known volume on Jewish memory, Zakhor, to his treatment of Sigmund Freud in Freud's Moses, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1932-2009) earned recognition as perhaps the greatest Jewish historian of his day, whose scholarship blended vast erudition, unfettered creativity, and lyrical beauty. This volume charts his intellectual trajectory by bringing together a mix of classic and lesser-known essays from the whole of his career. The essays in this collection, representative of the range of his writing, acquaint the reader with his research on early modern Spanish Jewry and the experience of crypto-Jews, varied reflections on Jewish history and memory, and Yerushalmi's enduring interest in the political history of the Jews. Also included are a number of little-known autobiographical recollections, as well as his only published work of fiction.

Contributor Bio:  Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi is the Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society at Columbia University. The author of numerous books, Yerushalmi received his B. A. from Yeshiva University and his Ph. D. from Columbia University. Contributor Bio:  Myers, David N David N. Myers is Professor of Jewish History and Vice-Chair of the History Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of" Re-Inventing the Jewish Past."