Le judaïsme libéral en Europe et aux États-Unis : Une mise au point historiographique

Résumé 0

This article outlines the basic contours of the development of Reform Judaism in Western Europe and the United States, and looks at historians’ debates as to the reasons for the successes and failures of Reform in particular national contexts. For much of the twentieth century, Reform Judaism received little attention from scholars of Jewish history, who understood the movement first and foremost as part of the assimilatory bent of Jews in the Western World. More recent scholarship, by contrast, has looked to a complex array of ideological, cultural, and political motivations that led nineteenth century Jews down the path of religious reform. It has also highlighted the many factors, including a country’s particular religious and political culture, Jewish legal status, and the extent of governmental authority over religious institutions, which must be taken into consideration to account for why the Reform movement was more successful in some countries than in others.