The origins and the main contributions to the Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah are traditionally associated with Germany and the figure of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). In Jewish Enlightenment in English Key year. Anglo-Jewry's Construction of Modern Jewish Thought , David B. Ruderman returns that claim not to contradict and give a beginning to the British but for the movement out of the shadows the contribution of Jewish intellectuals of the eighteenth century English and affirming the uniqueness of their works, independently developed and echoing their UK environment. Indeed, the goal of David B. Ruderman, professor of modern Jewish history at the University of Pennsylvania, is twofold: on one hand show that the Jewish Enlightenment were not only a German development, and the other, going against the historians who describe the Jewish intellectual life in England as a dull or non-existent.
Ruderman and built his approach by reference to the work of Jacob Katz  , who promotes the classic thesis of the German model of the Haskalah, who then distributed throughout Europe. Todd M. Endelman had already challenged this idea from the English case. Endelman had shifted the focus of intellectuals toward a broader social spectrum. He came to the conclusion that the emancipation of British Jews had not necessarily articulated in the texts but had carried into practice in their participation and integration into British society of the time. Ruderman's thesis is placed midway between the positions of Katz and Endelman: the Jewish Enlightenment are not the preserve of the Germans since there is an Anglo-Jewish intelligentsia, which contributes to the development of the reflections of the time on Jewish identity.
As the Ruderman articulates in his first two chapters, the British Jews are immediately faced with the challenge of translating the Bible into English by the Christians, since they very quickly this language their primary means of communication , leaving Portuguese, Spanish and Yiddish, with a further assimilation (and permitted) in English society. Reading and praying in English, the risk of becoming dependent on a Christian interpretation of religious scriptures arises because, for example, their use of the Bible of King Jacques. This danger is also intensified by the fact that English offers them a forum to discuss theological common with the Christians, whom they are battling their expertise on the sacred texts. 
In addition to questioning on the ground of religion, the Jews English must directly confront the impact of new theories and scientific realities, political and philosophical UK. They are then compelled to provide answers to the Jewish secular modernity that emerges in the eighteenth century, when German Jews are partly protected from these changes.
More broadly, Ruderman wonders about the term of Haskalah in the English context. Might there not to distort the perspective, to influence the reading of the situation Anglo-Jewish intellectual? Judge it paradoxical that British Jews, as they are often better educated and integrated than their coreligionists in Germany, did not constitute a structured set of ideas about empowerment. This forming of a reflection on Jewish identity and integration in society is it specific to communities of absolute monarchies? Or should we question the relevance of the expression of Enlightenment in the British context as suggested by the historian Roy Porter, who believes that they are manifested in a search for harmony unlike their avatars continental propagators of dualistic theories, again because of their political absolutists? For Ruderman, the religious and conservative British Enlightenment, had a university education still very close to the seminar with the Oxbridge monopoly, has important consequences for its subject: English Jews can not be regarded solely as reflections of their national society as they are caught in the theological debate with Protestants. They have been defending the validity of their interpretations of the Bible and ultimately be defined in relation to the "other" (p. 20). 
To support his argument, Ruderman offers individuals to rediscover the Anglo-Jewish, to rebalance balance to the social ideas in the history of the British Jewish community. He studies and literary production of a number of authors also quite heterogeneous, having in common, besides their Jewishness, have devoted part of their work to think about Jewish identity. 
Specifically, it examines on several issues such as defense of the Jewish interpretation of the Bible against the Anglican impulses through the figure of David Levi, "Jewish public intellectual" (p. 59) and main organizer of a counterattack against the new English translations of the Hebrew text by Robert Lowth following the work of Benjamin Kennicott. 
Ruderman also discusses trends deists of Abraham Tang (sometimes translator of Voltaire in Hebrew ...) or Isaac D'Israeli, father of Benjamin, who all confirm two's definition Daniel Levi of these particular Jewish beliefs: Deists course, but did not cut loose with their community identity. Jewish political radicalism is envisaged through several examples: Abraham Tang interventions in the case of Wilkes, the involvement of a large number of Jewish intellectuals in Freemasonry and the controversy between Priestley and David Levi, who make it the "primary dissenter of Jewish history day" (p. 183). 
The author reviews the impact of Newton and modern science in general about Judaism through the writings of Eliakim Hart and the place gives the scientist Emanuel Mendes da Costa to Judaism in his correspondence with his European colleagues. He examines the influence of these intellectuals in their community through the issue of translation as a means of preserving the Jewish identity and closes his book with a study on the impact of the North American movement. Finally, in appendix, finally on a premise of his study, he offers some remarks on the evolution of the receipt of Moses Mendelssohn in Britain, contempt of the late eighteenth century to the adoration of year in 1830. David B. Ruderman therefore delivers a portrait gallery and intellectual debates in a form that evokes the work of Stefan Collini ideas about life in Victorian times  . Consequently, Jewish Enlightenment in English Key year sometimes seems to be more a collection of disparate essays, certainly traveled a common theme, a monograph sharply defined. It also regrettrera the absence of a real discussion of the factor "antisemitism", often regarded - wrongly or rightly - as a miner in the development of these thoughts. Whether to salute the work of craftsmanship of the author in making connections disappeared, his erudition, mostly clear and engaging, because of Jewish Enlightenment in English Key year a book to give priority to public specialists or readers who took the trouble to read the work of his predecessors.