A newly published themed issue of the scientific journal Jewish Culture and History focuses on the intersection between the two research fields of business history and Jewish studies. The editors are Benito Peix Geldart, Maja Hultman, and Anders Houltz.
As they emphasize in the introduction, the themed issue's five articles discuss diverse expressions of Jewish entrepreneurship and economic activities in the emergence of modern Europe. The authors examine the connections between Jewish business and local, national, and European development, posing questions about how Europe's relationship with Jews throughout history has influenced daily operations within companies and how entrepreneurship itself has in various contexts become a platform for cultural interaction between Jews and non-Jews.
As the articles show in different ways, entrepreneurship has not only been a means to earn a living and build wealth but has also played a role in social and cultural contexts—within the framework of economic transactions, integration and cooperation as well as oppression and exclusion have at different times taken concrete forms.
The themed issue is based on papers presented at a two-day digital workshop on November 24–25, 2021, organized in collaboration between the Centre for Business History's Research Secretariat and the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg.
The themed issue includes the following articles:
- “Introduction: Jews, Europe, and the Business of Culture” by Maja Hultman at the Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg, as well as Benito Peix Geldart and Anders Houltz, both from the Centre for Business History, Stockholm.
- “The Great Jewish Transformation: The Marketplace and the Jewish Experience from Pre-Emancipation to the Post-Holocaust Period” by Gideon Reuveni, Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Sussex.
- “Letters of Loss and Urgency: Jewish Refugee Industrialists, Business Networks and Pathways of Rescue” by Trisha Oakley Kessler, Woolf Institute, University of Cambridge.
- “The Amsterdam Diamond ‘Marketplace’ and the Jewish Experience” by Karin Hofmeester, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam and University of Antwerp.
- “Jewish Migration and the Development of the Swedish and Finnish Garment Industry” by Laura Ekholm, Political history, University of Helsinki.
- “Berlin Jews, Business, and Bourgeois Feminism 1890-1914: Commerce and the Making of a Cultural Moment?” by Angelina Palmén, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.
