Christhard Hoffmann Book order

The Norwegian Constitution of May 1814 was regarded as the most liberal constitution of its time, yet it was also radically exclusive against Jews, Jesuits and monastic orders. None of these groups were allowed to enter the kingdom, and those who did, even accidentally, were subject to imprisonment and deportation. Why did the Norwegian Constituent Assembly introduce Europe’s most antisemitic clause to Europe’s most liberal constitution? The essays collected in this volume present new historical research on the exclusion of Jews in the Norwegian Constitution to an international public. They examine the intellectual origins of the anti-Jewish clause, explore the enforcement of the constitutional ban in vivid detail and place the Norwegian case into a broader transnational European context.

Founded in May 1955 in Jerusalem by German-Jewish intellectuals who had survived the Holocaust - among them Martin Buber, Ernst Simon, Gershom Scholem, and Robert Weltsch - the Leo Baeck Institute of Jews from Germany (LBI) has been engaged in preserving the legacy of German Jewry by collecting material, doing research, and presenting historical narratives. Published on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of its founding, the present volume is the first to reconstruct the LBI's fascinating history, from its beginnings as a memorial community of surviving German Jews to its present status as an internationally renowned research institute. The authors are social and cultural historians from various countries, the majority of whom are not directly affiliated with the LBI.