Offers an account of the emergence of Anglo-Jewish thought in the 18th and 19th centuries. This work impels a reconsideration of the formative beginnings of modern European Jewish culture. It aims to uncover a vibrant Jewish intellectual life in England during the Enlightenment era. It is intended for students of Jewish and English history.

Independent of the better-known German experience, the encounter between Jewish and English thought was incubated amid the unprecedented freedom enjoyed by Jews in England. This resulted in a less inhibited defense of Jews and Judaism. In addition to the original and prolific thinkers David Levi and Abraham Tang, Ruderman introduces Abraham and Joshua Van Oven, Mordechai Shnaber Levison, Samuel Falk, Isaac Delgado, Solomon Bennett, Hyman Hurwitz, Emanuel Mendes da Costa, Ralph Shomberg, and others. Of obvious appeal and import to students of Jewish and English history, this study depicts the challenge of defining a religious identity in the modern age.

List of Illustrations viii Preface and Acknowledgments xi Introduction 3
Chapter One: "The Scripture Correcting Maniae": Benjamin Kennicott and His Hutchinsonian and Anglo-Jewish Detractors 23
Chapter Two: The New and "Metrical" English Bible: Robert Lowth and His Jewish Critic, David Levi 57
Chapter Three: Deism and Its Reverberations in English Jewish Thought: Abraham hen Naphtali Tang and Some of His Contemporaries 89
Chapter Four: Between Rational and Irrational Dissent: Political Radicalism in Anglo-Jewish Thought 135
Chapter Five: Science and Newtonianism in the Culture of Anglo-Jewry 184
Chapter Six: Translation and Transformation: The Englishing of Jewish Culture 215
Afterword 269
Appendix: Moses Mendelssohn through Anglo-Jewish Eyes 275
Index 287