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Rotraud Ries, J. Friedrich Battenberg, eds., Hofjuden-Ökonomie und Interkulturalität. Die judische Wirtschaftselite im. 18. Jahrhundert. Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 2002 (Hamburger Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Juden, vol. XXV). 395 pp. Index.
For a variety of reasons, the social institution of the court Jew was a phenomenon typical of Germanic lands. Since the court Jews played a major economic role and participated in both the Jewish and the non-Jewish majority cultures in which they lived, their historical importance is considerable. This volume, which grew out of a project supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and of a conference, presents some twenty relatively short contributions (all except three in German) on many facets of the history of the court Jews, divided into six parts.
Very useful is the contribution (in fact, general introduction) by Rotraud Ries, one of the editors. She surveys prior research and recent work and offers a number of theoretical vantage points...