Jewish Materialism

“A model for the delineation of new cultural imaginaries and applies to other traditional identities as well.”—Choice

“Stern’s Jewish Materialism is a brilliant and deeply learned book. . . . In Jewish Materialism, Stern . . . makes major contributions to theories of Jewish modernization that, in turn, shed light on parallel developments around the globe.”—Nathaniel Deutsch, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Winner of the Pelikan Award, sponsored by Yale University

“With deep erudition and stunningly original analysis, Eliyahu Stern’s Jewish Materialism recovers a lost intellectual revolution to provocatively challenge the master narrative of modern Jewish politics."—James Loeffler, University of Virginia
 

"Earnest and erudite, Stern connects Jewish thought to Jewish experience. This fresh and innovative account of the materialism of the 1870s reveals common origins of later Jewish commitments to Zionism, socialism, and liberalism. Above all, it historicizes Jewish commitments to social justice."—Timothy Snyder, Yale University

“This is an outstanding and groundbreaking work which will alter our perception of nineteenth-century eastern European Jewry, the rise of Jewish nationalism and modern Judaism. This should be compulsory reading for anyone studying this period.”—Jonatan Meir, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
 

"Stern specializes in eye opening! For all those assuming Judaism and materialism were on radically diverging paths in the world of 19th century Russian Jewry, this brilliant book will come as a salutary shock. It chronicles the countless ways in which writers and thinkers struggled to make religion and a realistic understanding of Jewish life come together. The dilemma elegantly set out by Stern has never really gone away, making the book timely in every possible sense."—Simon Schama 

“Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, Eliyahu Stern rescues a largely forgotten generation of Russian Jewish intellectuals who came of age in the 1870s. Reversing the age-old stigmatization of Jews as base materialists besotted by worldly riches, Stern’s fascinating history reveals the foundations for a robust secular Jewish identity in thetwenty-first century.”—Martin Jay, author of Reason after Its Eclipse: On Late Critical Theory