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Fighting for Rights: Conscription and Jewish Emancipation

Derek J. Penslar

in Jews and the Military: A History

This chapter illustrates the context in which western and central European armies took form and how Jews were included in them. The issue of military service played a major role in eighteenth- and ... More

This chapter illustrates the context in which western and central European armies took form and how Jews were included in them. The issue of military service played a major role in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century debates about the emancipation of Jews. In the early 1700s, Protestant Hebraists and Enlightenment thinkers reconceived the position of Jews in European society by presenting Jews as capable of martial valor and so deserving of civil rights. In the late eighteenth century, new conceptions of the meliorability of humanity led to the introduction of conscription for all men, including Jews. Proponents of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) paid considerable attention to the issue of military service, especially after the introduction of mass conscription in France during the revolutionary wars. In the German lands, early nineteenth-century advocates of Jewish emancipation urged Jewish youth to volunteer to fight against Napoleonic France.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

Jewish Anticlericalism and the Making of Modern Citizenship in the Late Enlightenment

Ari Joskowicz

in The Modernity of Others: Jewish Anti-Catholicism in Germany and France

In the late Enlightenment, Jews in Germany and France first started to engage publicly with politics in German and French. This chapter shows that from this early moment, anticlericalism and ... More

In the late Enlightenment, Jews in Germany and France first started to engage publicly with politics in German and French. This chapter shows that from this early moment, anticlericalism and anti-Catholicism emerged as important themes for Jewish enlighteners, who found that anticlerical polemics offered them the chance to become part of Enlightenment intellectual circles. After the French Revolution, anticlericalism also allowed French Jews to demonstrate their patriotism to a newly anticlerical state. Examples drawn from the works of eight Jewish enlighteners—including Moses Mendelssohn and Abraham Furtado—highlight the similar anticlerical strategies of Jewish authors from Bordeaux to Metz and Berlin to Breslau. Unlike late nineteenth-century antisemites, who denounced Jews for dividing the nation with their anti-Catholicism, in the late eighteenth century, Enlightenment thinkers accepted the anticlericalism of Jewish enlighteners because they considered it proof of Jews’ ability to transcend parochial Jewish concerns.Less

ZIONISM AND THE EVOLVING NEW CULTURE

Menachem Mautner

in Law and the Culture of Israel

This chapter discusses the rise of the Jewish Enlightenment movement in the course of the last two decades of the 18th century. It also discusses four main approaches in Zionist thought as to the ... More

This chapter discusses the rise of the Jewish Enlightenment movement in the course of the last two decades of the 18th century. It also discusses four main approaches in Zionist thought as to the culture of the new Jewish society that took shape in Eretz Israel (Palestine) in the first half of the 20th century: the cultural revival approach, identified with Ahad Ha-Am; the halakhic approach; the European culture approach whose two most prominent representatives were Theodor Herzl and Zeev Jabotinsky; and the negation of exile approach. The chapter also considers the key constitutive principles of the new Jewish culture that actually evolved in Eretz Israel in the period from the 1880s until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The basic principle at the foundation of the new culture was ‘Hebrewness’, meaning that it should be the antithesis of the Jewish religious culture of Eastern Europe. Ever since the 1950s, however, ‘Hebrewness’ and ‘negation of the exile’ have been losing stature. Increasingly, room has been given to a self-identity in terms of Jewishness. Also, as a young culture, the new Jewish culture suffered from ‘thinness’. The chapter ends by arguing that during the second half of the 20th century the new Jewish culture underwent three significant metamorphoses: from a self-perception of Hebrewness to a self-perception of Jewishness; from a collectivist worldview to an individualistic worldview; from faith in socialism to neo-liberalism. These processes put the secular Jewish group on shallow, shaky and incoherent ground when it engaged in its kulturkampf with the religious Jewish group in the waning decades of the 20th century.Less

Eros and Enlightenment: Love Against Marriage in the East European Jewish Enlightenment

David Biale

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 1: Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue

This chapter details how the nascent Eastern European Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah turned its sights on the Jewish family as part and parcel of its attack on the medieval practices of the Jews. ... More

This chapter details how the nascent Eastern European Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah turned its sights on the Jewish family as part and parcel of its attack on the medieval practices of the Jews. In the period from the early part of the 19th century to about 1870, the Haskalah was a tiny movement, persecuted by the Jewish communal authorities. Yet it was during these years, perhaps even as a result of persecution, that the maskilim or disciples of the Haskalah evolved the fundamental arguments of their movement. While the maskilim shamelessly borrowed their ideas often word for word from the European Enlightenment, they integrated them into a peculiarly Jewish framework, that is, into their own reality. The chapter focuses on the conjunction between ideology and identity in the early Haskalah, for what is most interesting in the thought of this movement is not so much the ideas themselves but how they resonated against the problems of Jewish adolescence: early marriage and the teen years spent in the house of one's in-laws.Less

Jewish Marriage in Eighteenth-Century Poland

Jacob Goldberg

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 10: Jews in Early Modern Poland

This chapter discusses Jewish marriage in eighteenth-century Poland. Jews, as well as many non-Jews, acknowledged that Jewish marriages embodied a good, stable model and praised them as examples to ... More

This chapter discusses Jewish marriage in eighteenth-century Poland. Jews, as well as many non-Jews, acknowledged that Jewish marriages embodied a good, stable model and praised them as examples to be emulated in an era when immorality and marital breakdown seemed to threaten the institution. Even in much earlier times, Jewish marriages, particularly those of Polish Jews, were recognized as embodying all desirable matrimonial attributes. In the course of the eighteenth century, Jewish marital practices attracted the attention of all levels of Polish society, as well as of leading maskilim in other countries. It was during the period of the Polish Enlightenment that the model of Jewish marriage was promoted on a wider scale because it conformed to popular ideas based on contemporary mercantilist and cameralist principles. The chapter then considers the convergence of opinion between Jewish and Christian Enlightenment representatives on some aspects of marriage in Jewish society, and looks at the incidence of early marriage in the Jewish population and the vicissitudes in the practice of young couples living in the home of their parents.Less

Maimon's Medieval Desire: The Hesheq Shelomo

in The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Heresy, and Philosophy

Drawing on his unpublished Hebrew manuscript, Hesheq Shelomo, this chapter examines Solomon Maimon's philosophy in the context of his concept of philosophical and theological perfectionism. It also ... More

Drawing on his unpublished Hebrew manuscript, Hesheq Shelomo, this chapter examines Solomon Maimon's philosophy in the context of his concept of philosophical and theological perfectionism. It also considers the significance of this perfectionism in understanding the thought of the early Haskala and its dialogue, or debate, with Hasidism and the Mitnaged party of rabbinic traditionalism. Maimon shared a particular set of intellectual contexts and traditions with other Maskilim such as Moses Mendelssohn, Isaac Satanov, and Isaac Euchel. This chapter explores how the medieval philosophy of Moses Maimonides and his successors occupied a central place in Jewish Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. It also analyzes Maimon's idiosyncratic but influential post-Kantian idealism.Less

The Jewish Blogosphere and the Heretical Counterpublic

Ayala Fader

in Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age

This chapter ethnographically traces the contemporary crisis of authority to the Jewish blogosphere or “Jblogosphere” in the mid-2000s, which created an alternative, anonymous heretical public both ... More

This chapter ethnographically traces the contemporary crisis of authority to the Jewish blogosphere or “Jblogosphere” in the mid-2000s, which created an alternative, anonymous heretical public both online and in person. It analyzes the public that referenced an earlier crisis of authority, the Jewish Enlightenment from mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries in Europe. The chapter describes the generation of Jewish men that were exposed to the European Enlightenment and used innovations in print culture to take on traditional Judaism and its leadership. It looks into the connection between secret life-changing doubt and the internet that began roughly in 2002 or 2003 when disillusioned Modern Orthodox and ultra–Orthodox Jews began to blog. It also discusses the Jblogosphere that gave anonymous public voice to a range of private interior life-changing doubt.Less

Ideological Foundations

Matthias B. Lehmann

in Emissaries from the Holy Land: The Sephardic Diaspora and the Practice of Pan-Judaism in the Eighteenth Century

This chapter discusses the ideological foundations for their philanthropic operation developed by the emissaries and their supporters in printed pamphlets, sermons, and other texts. The main ... More

This chapter discusses the ideological foundations for their philanthropic operation developed by the emissaries and their supporters in printed pamphlets, sermons, and other texts. The main challenges that they addressed were competing claims to the munificence of Jewish donors, for example local charitable causes in the diaspora, and the question of the enduring centrality of the Holy Land. The chapter looks at instances of resistance to the emissaries, which were tied to a broader early modern phenomenon of defying rabbinic authority, especially among Western Sephardic Jews. It explores the responses formulated by emissaries and their allies, which contributed to the rise of rabbinic orthodoxy in the early modern period.Less

Introduction

Shmuel Feiner and David Sorkin

in New Perspectives on the Haskalah

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. The Haskalah provides an interesting example of one of the Enlightenments of eighteenth- to nineteenth-century ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. The Haskalah provides an interesting example of one of the Enlightenments of eighteenth- to nineteenth-century Europe which also constituted a unique chapter in the social history of European Jewry. It encompasses over 120 years (from around the 1770s to the 1890s), and a large number of Jewish communities, from London in the west, to Copenhagen in the north, to Vilna and St Petersburg in the east. Much scholarship in the past concentrated on the Haskalah's intimate relationship to Jewish modernization: scholars examined the role of the Haskalah in the processes of political emancipation and the integration of Jews into the larger society. A different approach became possible once the modernization of European Jewry came to be viewed as a series of processes that awaited adequate analysis and explanation, the Haskalah being one of the foremost among them.Less

Rabbinic Enlightenment: Mordecai Benet and the Moravian Haskalah, 1789–1829

in Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation

Mordecai Benet (1753–1829) was a chief rabbi who greatly influenced Jewish matters in Moravia at the end of the eighteenth century. This chapter highlights the role played by Benet in the flourishing ... More

Mordecai Benet (1753–1829) was a chief rabbi who greatly influenced Jewish matters in Moravia at the end of the eighteenth century. This chapter highlights the role played by Benet in the flourishing of Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), a movement that brought fundamental change to Central European Jewish society. It also discusses Benet's endorsement of Bne Zion, a religious-moral textbook that was part of the state's efforts to break down barriers between Christians and Jews by emphasizing the universal human ethics that were common to both religious traditions.Less

Conclusion

in The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Heresy, and Philosophy

Solomon Maimon had two extraordinary accomplishments, one of which is philosophical and the second literary, within the German and Jewish Enlightenments during the late eighteenth century. From a ... More

Solomon Maimon had two extraordinary accomplishments, one of which is philosophical and the second literary, within the German and Jewish Enlightenments during the late eighteenth century. From a philosophical perspective, he was among the very first critics to truly tackle the main issues in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and to outline a post-Kantian German idealism in response. Through his autobiography, he was the first writer to show how an Eastern European Jew rejected traditional rabbinic culture in favor of the Western European Enlightenment. Each of Maimon's works is written under the philosophical sign of noetic, or intellectual, perfection. Another critical moment in Maimon's career was his move from being an exponent of what he termed the “Jewish peripatetic philosophy” of the Middle Ages to being a leading proponent of German idealism. Maimon's philosophical development complicates the standard picture of the history of Jewish philosophy.Less

The Teacher

Alexander Altmann

in Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study

This chapter concerns the decade transpiring between the summer of 1779 until the autumn of 1780 in Moses Mendelssohn's life. Much of this chronicle is based on his lengthy correspondence with August ... More

This chapter concerns the decade transpiring between the summer of 1779 until the autumn of 1780 in Moses Mendelssohn's life. Much of this chronicle is based on his lengthy correspondence with August Hennings and on the letters written to Hennings by his sister-in-law, Elise Reimarus. During this period, Mendelssohn took on a greater role within the West European Jewish Enlightenment movement. He was now the acknowledged head of a group, and he was well aware of it. Moreover, the influx of men of great talent enabled him to embark upon a bold project of cultural reform. The chapter thus looks into his German Pentateuch translation and the new Hebrew commentary, both of which became a feasible proposition because his circle provided him with the necessary scholarly and administrative manpower. His decision to devote his energy to the advancement of his people thus came at the right moment.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

The Literary Character of the Haskalah

Anat Helman

in Jews and Their Foodways

This chapter discusses the nature of Haskalah literature. Haskalah or the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews that advocated the adoption of enlightenment values by pressing for ... More

This chapter discusses the nature of Haskalah literature. Haskalah or the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews that advocated the adoption of enlightenment values by pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history. Thus, Haskalah literature promoted the movement as a system of thought and practice aimed at modernizing Jewish culture and Jewish life. The crux of literary Haskalah is not its philosophical or political stance but rather its implicit or explicit views regarding what culture can or cannot do in the world, making it similar to literature written during the Romantic period.Less

Raphael Mahler. Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment. Translated from the Yiddish by Eugene Orenstein, translated from the Hebrew by Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz Klein. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. 1985. Pp. xiv, 331.

Ada Rapoport-Albert

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 1: Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue

This chapter reflects on Raphael Mahler's Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment (1985). This is a welcome addition to the slowly growing body of classic studies of Hasidism in English translation. ... More

This chapter reflects on Raphael Mahler's Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment (1985). This is a welcome addition to the slowly growing body of classic studies of Hasidism in English translation. The first part of the book, concerning Galicia, was first published in Yiddish in 1942. The second part, which deals with Congress Poland, appeared together with the first in an expanded Hebrew version in 1961. An avowed subscriber to ‘the method of historical materialism’, Mahler presents the clash between Hasidism and Haskalah as ‘the antithesis that reflected the conflicting interests and philosophies of two classes of the Jewish people’. The non-Hasidic Orthodoxy of Galicia is classified in this scheme as representing the same class interests as those associated with the Maskilim, an affinity which, according to Mahler, accounts for the Enlighteners' initial hope of aligning themselves with the Orthodox opponents of Hasidism in the campaign to eradicate the socially disruptive and religiously dissenting Hasidic movement.Less

From Heroism to Heterodoxy: The Crisis of a Movement and the Danger to a Faith

David Berger

in Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference: With a New Introduction

This chapter traces the history of hasidism, which was born in eighteenth-century Poland with the teachings of Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov. The movement spread through eastern Europe and became the ... More

This chapter traces the history of hasidism, which was born in eighteenth-century Poland with the teachings of Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov. The movement spread through eastern Europe and became the dominant form of Judaism in much of the heartland of nineteenth-century Jewry. Opponents (mitnagedim or ‘misnagdim’) did not entirely abandon the cause, but opposition waned in the face of new social and religious realities. First, it became very difficult to delegitimate a movement that commanded the allegiance of so many observant Jews. Second, the radicalism of early hasidism diminished as it was transformed from a movement of rebellion against the Jewish communal establishment into an established order of its own. Finally, the spread of the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah, to eastern Europe posed so serious a threat that hasidim and misnagdim, for all their profound differences, came to see themselves as allies in a struggle to preserve their common culture, educational systems, and fundamental beliefs against the onslaught of scepticism, secularism, and acculturation working to undermine the very foundations of traditional Jewish society. The Chabad movement, now also known as Lubavitch from the town where the group's leaders resided from 1813 to 1915, played a significant role in that resistance.Less