Imperial Embraces and Local Challenges:
The Politics of Jewish Identity in the Bohemian Lands, 1867-1914

Lecture by Hillel J. Kieval, Professor of History and Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought, Washington University in St. Louis

Admission Free     RSVP to info@shcsj.org

 When Jan Neruda’s For Fear of the Jews appeared in book form in 1870, his publisher Eduard Grégr—in language that would be picked up over and again—referred ominously to the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia as “our fiercest enemies”. Were Jews the enemies of Czech nationalism? Taking up themes first addressed in The Making of Czech Jewry, Hillel Kieval revisits the position of Jews in the Czech and German national conflict, their identification with Austria and the Habsburg dynasty, and their changing attitudes toward the question of national belonging.