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Childhood and Education

Robert Liberles

in Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945

This chapter shows how knowledge of the German language among Jews increased during the course of the 18th century. By the latter part of the century, governments increasingly mandated rudimentary ... More

This chapter shows how knowledge of the German language among Jews increased during the course of the 18th century. By the latter part of the century, governments increasingly mandated rudimentary education in the German language and basic math skills, but the greater focus on commerce had already paved the way for more attention to these subjects among Jews even prior to government intervention. Wealthier Jews could hire private instructors for themselves or for their children. Some Jews who could not afford a tutor taught themselves basic German skills. Dissatisfaction with Jewish education in Germany did not originate with the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. Across the spectrum of Jewish life, by the late 18th century a strong sense had developed that an extensive reform of Jewish education was badly needed.Less

Maskilic History in Crisis

Shmuel Feiner

in Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness

This chapter recounts how, in the 1860s, the radical maskilim burst onto the stage of the Haskalah in Russia, provoking a protest from within the maskilic camp. They were young, self-educated men in ... More

This chapter recounts how, in the 1860s, the radical maskilim burst onto the stage of the Haskalah in Russia, provoking a protest from within the maskilic camp. They were young, self-educated men in their twenties and thirties, natives of Lithuania and Belarus, employed in teaching and clerical positions. This radical stream began by criticizing the literature of the Haskalah. The radicals claimed that the works of the Haskalah authors were cut off from the spirit of the time and the real problems of the people. The mission of the Haskalah, they argued, was to inject vitality into Jewish life, acting as a counterweight to the traditional leadership that was suffocating it. Moreover, the radicals believed that Jewish culture was permeated with an excess of spirituality, which they wished to replace with the natural sciences. As far as the moderate maskilim were concerned, radicalism posed a dangerous threat and was a total departure from the Haskalah.Less

Yiddish Narrative

Jean Baumgarten

Jerold C. Frakes (ed.)

in Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature

Prose narrative forms an important component of Old Yiddish literature. These narratives are primarily maasious, a term which designates a variety of narrative forms, from exempla (hagiographical ... More

Prose narrative forms an important component of Old Yiddish literature. These narratives are primarily maasious, a term which designates a variety of narrative forms, from exempla (hagiographical stories) to parables and allegories (mesholim) drawn from the aggadic materials of the Talmud or midroshim. From the appearance of printed books in the sixteenth century up to the period of the Haskalah, so many narrative texts were published that this genre constitutes a substantial part of the original literature in the vernacular. These stories were quite popular with the Jewish reading audience during the Renaissance period. Some of the basic principles of Judaism could be inculcated in a pleasant and instructive form, bringing together humour, comedy, and a casual manner. Furthermore, these vernacular stories make explicit their positioning at the cultural crossroads where the Jewish tradition and world literature meet.Less

The Manipulation of History in Nineteenth-Century Galicia

Shmuel Feiner

in Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness

This chapter examines the Galician Haskalah, which may be viewed as one segment of a Haskalah network that encompassed the maskilim of the entire Austrian empire. In their development and activity, ... More

This chapter examines the Galician Haskalah, which may be viewed as one segment of a Haskalah network that encompassed the maskilim of the entire Austrian empire. In their development and activity, the Galician maskilim were closely allied to the Austrian Haskalah. The militant nature of the Galician Haskalah was determined by the very process of enlightenment. In personal testimonies and biographies, the experience of becoming enlightened is described as a revelation and conversion that occurred at a young age and engendered great excitement in the heart of the maskil. Indeed, young people were the target population of the Haskalah propagandists. The chapter then explains that hasidism was an obsession among the Galician maskilim, and they would resort to almost any means to block the expansion of the ‘sect’, which before their very eyes was sweeping up the Jewish masses, even spreading to the central urban communities. Nahman Krochmal (1749–1840) was the unacknowledged leader of the Galician maskilim.Less

Ex-Jew, Eternal Jew: Early Representations of the Jewish Spinoza

Daniel B. Schwartz

in The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image

This chapter analyzes the “prehistory” of the Jewish rehabilitation of Spinoza, exploring how his Jewish origins figured in fashioning him into a cultural symbol among non-Jews first. It traces his ... More

This chapter analyzes the “prehistory” of the Jewish rehabilitation of Spinoza, exploring how his Jewish origins figured in fashioning him into a cultural symbol among non-Jews first. It traces his shifting image across a spectrum of modern Jewish movements and milieus, from the Berlin Haskalah to early religious Reform and Wissenschaft des Judentums (the Science of Judaism) in Germany to the East European Haskalah, Zionism, and Yiddish culture. The chapter discusses the relevance of Spinoza's Jewishness to this early mythmaking. The shapers of Spinoza's early image typically assigned his Jewishness a significant role, albeit not a positive one. Two basic plotlines relevant to this particularity developed in the late seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century: one emphasized contrast, the other continuity.Less

The Crisis of Modernity and Jewish Responses

Reuven Firestone

in Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea

Modernity represented a crisis for Jewish continuity since it effectively challenged the authority of the tradition that had served as the glue holding most of the Jewish people together for nearly ... More

Modernity represented a crisis for Jewish continuity since it effectively challenged the authority of the tradition that had served as the glue holding most of the Jewish people together for nearly two millennia. Traditional Jewish identities in the European milieu were replaced in the religious spectrum by Reform, Conservative, neo-Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Judaism, and in the secular spectrum by the Jewish “enlightenment” (haskalah), various political movements, and Jewish nationalisms including Zionism. For most Jews the old paradigms were re-evaluated and often rejected, and emerging Zionism began to challenge the rabbinic instruments that had hitherto prevented mass immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel. Thus erupted a conflict among religious Jews as to whether or not Zionism was an acceptable Jewish movement. Most religious (or Orthodox) Jews rejected Zionism, while a stalwart few were active in what was becoming a largely secular Jewish national movement to return Jews to the Land of Israel and develop it.Less

Enlightenment Values, Jewish Ethics: The Haskalah’s Transformation of the Traditional Musar Genre

Harris Bor

in New Perspectives on the Haskalah

This chapter examines Haskalah ethical literature and Jewish ethical writing (musar), and highlights how the Haskalah movement was poised between Jewish tradition and European culture. It shows that ... More

This chapter examines Haskalah ethical literature and Jewish ethical writing (musar), and highlights how the Haskalah movement was poised between Jewish tradition and European culture. It shows that moral improvement was a fundamental concern of the Haskalah. Since moral education was meant to serve as a link between the aims of the Enlightenment and Jewish tradition, ethical literature was an index to the balance between the modern and the traditional. The chapter then illustrates the importance of comparative study. By comparing the texts and motifs of the Enlightenment on issues such as the immortality of the soul and civic education with the ethical ideas of such maskilim as Isaac Satanow, Naphtali Herz Wessely, Menahem Mendel Lefin, and Judah Leib Ben Ze'ev, it reveals the extent to which the Haskalah drew upon the educational methods of German reformist educators like Johann Heinrich Campe and Johann Bernhard Basedow.Less

The Imprint of Haskalah Literature on the Historiography of Hasidism

Israel Bartal

in Hasidism Reappraised

This chapter addresses the imprint of Haskalah literature on the historiography of hasidism. Haskalah literature and the historiography of hasidism have always been interrelated. The maskilim and ... More

This chapter addresses the imprint of Haskalah literature on the historiography of hasidism. Haskalah literature and the historiography of hasidism have always been interrelated. The maskilim and their writings had an enormous effect on the evolution of modern hasidic scholarship, while the depiction of hasidism in Haskalah literature bears the imprint of certain modern historiographical sensibilities and conventions. The early historians of hasidism clearly drew most if not all of their information about the movement from maskilic texts. Thus, practically all the early attempts to explain hasidism historically had gestated in the minds of scholars who were strongly imbued with Haskalah ideas and who wrote under its direct impact. Alongside this ideological impact, both direct and indirect, of the maskilim and their writings on the early historians of hasidism, the decline of the Haskalah as a viable intellectual and social movement signalled the beginning of another relationship between modern hasidic historiography and the literary legacy of the maskilim: hasidic historians began to utilize Haskalah literature as historical source material.Less

Introduction

Marcin Wodziński

in Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland: A History of Conflict

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the conflict between representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment (the Haskalah) and its rival hasidic movement, which has been seen in the historical ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the conflict between representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment (the Haskalah) and its rival hasidic movement, which has been seen in the historical literature as one of the most important debates to occupy Jewish society in central and eastern Europe in the modern age. Indeed, the earliest studies devoted to this question made their appearance at the dawn of modern Jewish historiography. However, a closer reading of such studies reveals that the overwhelming majority of references to the ‘age-old hostility’ of enlightened Jews to hasidism are based on stereotypes that often obscure a proper understanding of the sources. This book analyses attitudes towards hasidism among a few famous representatives of the Polish Haskalah, from the first enlightened comments concerning hasidism at the end of the eighteenth century to the demise of the Haskalah and its successors at the start of the twentieth century. It also looks at the ideas, concepts, and prejudices of a broad section of the maskilim among Polish Jews.Less

Characteristics of the Haskalah in the Kingdom of Poland, 1815–1860

Marcin Wodziński

in Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland: A History of Conflict

This chapter examines the characteristics of the Haskalah in the Kingdom of Poland. In many ways, the Haskalah in the Kingdom of Poland was a movement similar to others in eastern Europe, but it also ... More

This chapter examines the characteristics of the Haskalah in the Kingdom of Poland. In many ways, the Haskalah in the Kingdom of Poland was a movement similar to others in eastern Europe, but it also retained many unique features. In terms of its similarities, the programme of the Polish maskilim was fundamentally in sympathy with the ideological foundations of the entire east European Haskalah. Educational plans and the struggle with Jewish separatism occupied a particularly important place, but so too did the maintenance of Jewish identity through the cultivation of the Hebrew language, Jewish literature, and historical awareness. Meanwhile, differences in the programme were attributable to the Kingdom's specific legal, social, cultural, and even economic context. The opportunity to participate in the government project for Jewish reform and the genuine influence which many maskilim brought to bear on these projects meant that Jewish supporters of modernization in the Kingdom were particularly interested in the socio-political aspect of Haskalah ideology and in putting it into action. As a result, they paid considerable attention to the productivity programme and to changes in the socio-occupational structure of the Jewish population in Poland, while neglecting areas of theory or religion. Another distinguishing characteristic of the Polish Haskalah was the predominance of literature in the Polish language.Less

Optimism under Oppression: Maskilic History in Russia, 1825–1855

Shmuel Feiner

in Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness

This chapter focuses on the Russian Haskalah. The historical context in which the Russian Haskalah was established and developed was marked by a constant struggle with political issues raised by the ... More

This chapter focuses on the Russian Haskalah. The historical context in which the Russian Haskalah was established and developed was marked by a constant struggle with political issues raised by the Russian rulers' policy towards the Jews. Russian maskilim of the 1820s and later based their ideology on the perception that the difficult situation of the Jews — their inferior position in the country as well as the quality of their education and characteristics — was the product of political, economic, and religious circumstances, and, in particular, the result of the oppression and intolerance of the pre-modern rulers. Better treatment, religious tolerance, and an acceptance of the precepts of the Haskalah would deliver the Jews from their troubles and the abnormal circumstances of their lives. A major change, which to some extent strengthened the position of the maskilim in Russia, began in the early 1840s, with the government's new plans for sweeping reforms in Jewish society.Less

Reaching the Masses: The Dissemination of Maskilic History

Shmuel Feiner

in Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness

This chapter explores the channels through which maskilic history was disseminated in Russia, particularly in the 1860s and 1870s. Most of the maskilim who were active in furthering this aim had been ... More

This chapter explores the channels through which maskilic history was disseminated in Russia, particularly in the 1860s and 1870s. Most of the maskilim who were active in furthering this aim had been influenced by the changes taking place in the reign of Alexander II, and regarded themselves and were regarded by their younger, more radical colleagues as belonging to the moderate stream of the Haskalah. In the 1840s, they had advocated a militant Haskalah and inveighed against traditional ways, but now they favoured a conservative Haskalah that eschewed radicalism. The chapter then details how the expansion and diversification of the Jewish reading public enabled maskilic writers to impart the major messages of maskilic history to various types of readers at different levels of popularization. However, this expansion of the reading public does not necessarily imply that the situation had changed drastically and that the numbers of maskilim in Russia had increased dramatically. The maskilic circle remained relatively small and continued to represent only an elite group of intellectuals.Less

Introduction: ‘Haskalah’ and ‘History’

Shmuel Feiner

in Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness

This chapter provides an overview of the Jewish Haskalah of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Jewish Haskalah is the first modern ideology in Jewish history, which appeared at the ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the Jewish Haskalah of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Jewish Haskalah is the first modern ideology in Jewish history, which appeared at the threshold of the modern era and was promulgated by the maskilim — the first Jews who were conscious of being modern, and who concluded that the modern age called for a comprehensive programme of change in both the cultural and the practical life of Jewish society. For years, historians of the Haskalah movement have almost completely ignored the attitude of the maskilim to history. However, the attraction felt by many maskilim to the biblical past of the Jewish people has not been overlooked by scholars. Nevertheless, new surveys of the history of Jewish historical writing and thought continue to minimize the contribution of the maskilim to this field, and repeat the claim that the Haskalah had but a vague sense of the importance of historical knowledge. This book explores a range of sources from the 100-year period of the Haskalah (1782–1881), which show not only that the maskilim displayed a great interest in history, but also that their attitude to the past was significant both for the Haskalah's ideology and for the development of Jewish historical consciousness.Less

Towards a Historical Definition of the Haskalah

Shmuel Feiner

in New Perspectives on the Haskalah

This chapter studies the long historiographic tradition in search of a definition of the Haskalah. It suggests reducing the historical parameters of the Jewish Enlightenment so that it can be ... More

This chapter studies the long historiographic tradition in search of a definition of the Haskalah. It suggests reducing the historical parameters of the Jewish Enlightenment so that it can be recognized as a trend in which modernizing intellectuals aspired to transform Jewish society. Despite the obvious diversity and dispersion of the Haskalah, and the difficulty in defining it precisely, the chapter enumerates a number of essential criteria, elaborating on the self-consciousness of the maskilim and paying special attention to their militant rhetoric and awareness of belonging to an avant-garde, redemptive, and revolutionary movement. It also sketches a portrait of the typical maskil, surveys the history of the movement and its various centres, and elucidates the dualistic nature of its ideology, explaining its links to the processes of Jewish modernization and secularization. Ultimately, the Haskalah was the intellectual option for modernization that triggered the Jewish Kulturkampf which, still alive today — especially in Israel — separates modernists and anti-modernists, Orthodox and secular Jews.Less