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Expressing Emotion within pre-Emancipation German Jewry:The Family Correspondence of Rabbi Mayer Bretzfeld, 1785–1820

Wilke, Carsten L.
Title / Series / Name
Jewish Culture and History
Publication Volume
26
Publication Issue
3
Pages
Editors
Keywords
Bavaria
Western Yiddish
correspondence
emotions
rural Jews
Cultural Studies
History
Sociology and Political Science
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/27894
Abstract
Mayer Bretzfeld, who died in 1823 in Schnaittach near Nuremberg, was the last incumbent of the oldest provincial rabbinate in Bavaria. The recent edition of a trove of family letters from his estate, discovered in the local archives, makes it possible to recover the experiences and writing habits of non-elite Jews from a rural environment in which premodern patterns of education, economy, gender relations, and Western Yiddish language had largely remained intact. This article focuses on the registers of emotional self-expression that men and women mobilized to convince the rabbi of their respect, indignation, love, or distress.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2025-08-13
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1080/1462169X.2025.2537512
Publisher link
Unit