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Dissertation Information for Sharon Ilise Gillerman

NAME:
- Sharon Ilise Gillerman

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1996)

ADVISORS:
- Saul P. Friedlander
- Steven J. Zipperstein

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Ruth Bloch
- David Warren Sabean
- Ruth Milkman

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Between public and private: Family, community and Jewish identity in Weimar Berlin

Abstract: The notion that the institution of the family was being undermined by the destructive spirit of modernity was part of a larger perception of decline accompanying the radical social transformations of the turn of the century. Social theorists described urban and pre-urban forms of social organization as binary opposites with family, community and intimacy an the one side, and individualism, atomization and anomie on the other. For observers of Weimar social life, individualism was the defining characteristic of modern life, and the cause of numerous social ills thought to have been brought about by the loosening of traditional institutions of authority.

This study focuses on perceptions of German-Jewish social and communal decline during the Weimar Republic, and attempts by Jews to revitalize the bases of both Jewish and German social life. It takes as its subject the perceived crisis of the family within the Jewish community of Berlin and the solutions proposed by social workers, educators, and community leaders to effect familial and communal renewal. The efforts of German-Jewish communal leaders and professionals occurred within the larger context of the political disorder and social dislocation of the Weimar Republic, in which the family occupied a unique and central position. It was viewed as the social institution most undermined by urban life, and the one with the greatest potential from which to effect the full-scale renewal of German society.

Modern German and German-Jewish social work was conceived as an antidote to the harmful effects wrought upon families by urban life. In its capacity as mediator between private and public spheres, social work is a gateway to the family; I use it as such for research purposes as well. The examination of social workers and the institutions they create provides a way to both observe fragments of social realities, alongside gender and class-specific norms and expectations.

Virtually all prognostications of decline were accompanied by ambitious prescriptions for renewal. Among other institutions, I look at the pedagogic experiments of Siegfried Bernfeld, Siegfried Lehmann, and the Zentralwohlfahrtstelle der deutschen Juden. These programs all sought to counter the major social ills facing Jewish society and to form the core of a rejuvenated Jewish community based on the organic bonds of Gemeinschaft.

MPACT Scores for Sharon Ilise Gillerman

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A+C = 0
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TA = 0
calculated 2009-01-22 09:21:11

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Students under Sharon Ilise Gillerman

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None