This comparative history of Jewish welfare in Hamburg and Manchester highlights Jewish integration and identity formation in nineteenth-century Europe. Despite their fundamentally different historical experiences, the Jews of both cities displayed very similar patterns of welfare organization. This is illustrated by an analysis of community-wide Jewish welfare bodies and institutions, provisions for Eastern European Jewish immigrants and transmigrants, the importance of women in Jewish welfare, and the function of specialized Jewish voluntary welfare associations.

The realm of welfare was vital for the preservation of secular Jewish identities and the maintenance of internal social balances. Dr Liedtke demonstrates how these virtually self-sufficient Jewish welfare systems became important components of distinctive Jewish subcultures. He shows that, though it was intended to promote Jewish integration, the separate organization of welfare in practice served to segregate Jews from non-Jews in this very important sphere of everyday life.