The Pace of Modernisation of German Jewry in the Mneieenth Century BY STEVEN M . LOWENSTEIN In the course of the nineteenth century , the Jews of Europe , and especially those of Western and Central Europe , underwent tremendous intellectual , economic and social changes . The Jews of Germany , who had previously lived a relatively isolated life within a traditional society , were progressively intcgrated into a general society undergoing industrialisation and modernisation . This process of integration and modernisation , which repeated itself in many other countries , is one of the most important transitions in Jewish history . It not only created the type of the " modern Jew" but it also created , or at least greatly intensified , the cleavage between West European and East European Jewry . Though all writers on Jewish history recognise the crucial importance of these great changes , they usually describe the course of the changes mainly in terms of their effects on the leadership o...
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