Anne Oravetz Albert
Ph.D. Candidate (ABD)
aoravetz@sas.upenn.edu
Education
B.A., Reed College, History of Religion (1998)
Fields (primary field of specialization listed first)
Early Modern Jewish History, Modern Jewish History, Jewish-Christian Relations, Early Modern Christian Culture
Dissertation
"'A Republic Apart': Political Thought among Seventeenth-Century Sephardi Jews in Amsterdam"
Dissertation Committee
Personal Statement
My dissertation examines the political thought of Spanish and Portuguese Jews of seventeenth-century Amsterdam, showing how these former conversos and their descendants incorporated contemporary European political ideas into their own political self-image. Rooted in Iberian love of political glory, nurtured by Dutch republican tolerance, and inspired by medieval Jewish political thought, they give the lie to the widespread impression that pre-modern Jews were apolitical or politically isolated in their statelessness. or They presented their own politics in terms of contemporary political themes, including absolutism and the divine right of kings, (anti-) Machiavellianism, republicanism, and the competition between lay and religious authority, in addition to adapting concepts such as the herem, or ban, from Jewish legal and religious sources. The period from the mid-1660s through the 1680s was an especially intense time of political self-reflection and adjustment, marked by disruptive new conceptions of religion and authority, as well as assertive defenses of the community’s independence and self-government. The dissertation exposes communal tensions in that period over such issues as the source and scope of secular authority, the status of Jewish law and rabbinic power, the political aspects of messianism, and the proper governance of the community.
