Content area
From the eighth to the fifteenth century, the Iberian peninsula was a locus of encounter without parallel in the history of the world. Only in Spain did Moors, Jews, and Christians live together relatively peaceably for almost a thousand years. Their cultural achievements were without peer in the rest of Europe and had a major and lasting influence on the Renaissance. After the Jews were driven out of Spain in 1492, they made a crucial cultural and economic contribution to their new homes (Amsterdam, Hamburg, Saloniki, etc.). In Spain itself, the history of the Jewish presence there was forgotten. Only in the nineteenth century was there a gradual rediscovery of these covert cultural traditions, which now are officially recognized as part of the national heritage. The articles assembled here provide an in-depth review of the past and present history of the relations between Spain and the Sephardim. (German)
In his "Apologia for the Oppressed Jewish Population in Germany" submitted anonymously to the Rastatt Congress in 1798 as food for thought, [Andreas Riem] (1749-1814) -- unlike the majority of German Jacobins -- represents a consistently rationalist/natural-law position. Equality for the Jews is seen as the acid test for the realization of democracy. This new edition supplements the text with an extract on the Batavian Republic taken from Riem's "Journey through Holland in the Years 1796 and 1979" and the translation of an address by Georg Hahn on "complete equality for Jews with other citizens." An introduction by Jacobin specialist [Walter Grab] (Tel-Aviv) provides information on the life and work of the committed democrat Andreas Riem. (German)