An Unfortunate Coincidence

Jews, Jewishness, and English Law

Inbunden, Engelska, 2011

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This book examines how English judges discuss and depict Jews and Jewishness in the 20th and 21st centuries. It is a study of legal judgments in a range of areas, tracing continuities and discontinuities in representations of Jews and Jewishness over time. The book shows the part played by racial and religious understandings in legal decision-making, addressing the place of a minority with a long history in England and within the English cultural imagination. It considers the complex and often contradictory approaches to Jews and Jewishness within judicial discourse, challenging both assumptions about tolerance and neutrality in English law and any simple narrative of 'antisemitism'. While its focus is on the distinctive character of the English context, the book has resonance for thinking more generally about racial and religious representations in law.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2011-01-06
Mått166 x 241 x 20 mm
Vikt486 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor208
FörlagOUP OXFORD
ISBN9780199229765
UtmärkelserWinner of the SLSA-Hart Book Prize 2012

Tillhör följande kategorier

Rättshistoria inom Juridik
Sociala grupper och identitet inom Samhälle och politik
Historia inom Historia och arkeologi

Didi Herman is Professor of Law & Social Change at the University of Kent, UK. She has published widely on the subject of Jews, Jewishness and English law, and is also the author of Rights of Passage: Struggles for Lesbian and Gay Legal Equality, (University of Toronto Press, 1994), The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right, (University of Chicago Press, 1997), and, with Doris Buss, Globalizing Family Values: The Christian Right's International Activism (University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

1. Introduction ; 2. 'An Unfortunate Coincidence': Race, Nation, and Character ; 3. If Only I Knew: Race and Faith in the Law of Trusts ; 4. 'She is and Will Forever Remain a Jew': Children and the Courts ; 5. 'We Live in the Age of the Holocaust of the Jews' ; 6. 'The Wandering Jew Has No Nation': Jewishness and Race Relations Law ; 7. 'The Christian Church Will Admit Children Regardless of Who Their Parents Are': The Jewish Free School Case and Other Final Thoughts

Didi Hermans brilliant and original An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness, and English Law breaks new ground in the history of the representation as well as the social status of the Jews in the modern world. Examining the case law in English civil (rather than criminal) law, Herman spins a complex tale of how 19th century ideas of the Jews as a race come to be embedded in English common law. While not surprising in the context of the late 19th century, where the anxiety about Jewish difference was universally defined within the parameters of scientific racism, what is staggering about Hermans account is how these views continue, quite unreflected, into the 21st century and into the realm of civil rights. This is a major book, not only on British Jewry and its history, but also in the history of law.