Miron demonstrates that pre-Holocaust Germany, France, and Hungary make interesting case studies because of the divergence of the starting points for emancipation in each country, their unique and complex political cultures both during the golden age of emancipation and after its decline, and the distinct relationship each held between church and state. In three sections, Miron considers the three countries in turn, with two chapters devoted to how each community came to terms with the crisis in relation to its internal diversity and political divisions. To analyze the evolving Jewish public discourse in each country, Miron consults numerous primary sources, including articles and essays that appeared in Jewish journals and periodicals as well as literature, mostly popular, published by Jewish publishing houses. Along the way, Miron addresses wider questions of Jewish identity and self-consciousness and the cultural memory of Jewish emancipation during the rise of Fascism.
Miron's examination of the range of Jewish responses to the waning of emancipation will contribute to the discourse on politics of representation of the past in each of the three countries and also draw attention to the internal diversity and political divisions within each. Scholars of Jewish and European history will benefit from the careful research in this volume.
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