ABSTRACT
All the political transformations of the social order were preceded by and to a large extent inspired by the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century known as the Enlightenment. The emergence of Enlightenment thought and the liberal political and economic structures that followed in its wake throughout the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also saw the development of critiques of these rapid changes to traditional modes of existence. The period bears witness to the development of new forms of Judaism, the birth of various Jewish political ideologies, genocide, displacement, the establishment of the State of Israel, and greater social, economic, and cultural integration than ever before in Jewish history. While the majority of Jews remained within the fold, in the era of emancipation, social pressures and seductions led a small but nonetheless influential cohort of upper-class Jews in Germany to abandon Judaism.
