Daniel B. Schwartz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691142913
- eISBN:
- 9781400842261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691142913.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This introductory chapter considers why the hallmark of modern Jewish identity is its resistance to—and, at the same time, obsession with—definition. Like battles over national identity in the modern ...
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This introductory chapter considers why the hallmark of modern Jewish identity is its resistance to—and, at the same time, obsession with—definition. Like battles over national identity in the modern state, clashes over the nature and limits of Jewishness have frequently taken the shape of controversies over the status—and stature—of marginal Jews past and present. The Jewish rehabilitation of historical heretics and apostates with a vexed relationship to Judaism has become so much a part of contemporary discourse that it is difficult to imagine secular Jewish culture without it. Yet this tendency has a beginning as well as a template in modern Jewish history, which the chapter introduces in the figure of Baruch (or Benedictus) Spinoza (1632–1677)—“the first great culture-hero of modern secular Jews,” and still the most oft-mentioned candidate for the title of first modern secular Jew.Less
This introductory chapter considers why the hallmark of modern Jewish identity is its resistance to—and, at the same time, obsession with—definition. Like battles over national identity in the modern state, clashes over the nature and limits of Jewishness have frequently taken the shape of controversies over the status—and stature—of marginal Jews past and present. The Jewish rehabilitation of historical heretics and apostates with a vexed relationship to Judaism has become so much a part of contemporary discourse that it is difficult to imagine secular Jewish culture without it. Yet this tendency has a beginning as well as a template in modern Jewish history, which the chapter introduces in the figure of Baruch (or Benedictus) Spinoza (1632–1677)—“the first great culture-hero of modern secular Jews,” and still the most oft-mentioned candidate for the title of first modern secular Jew.
Yaacob Dweck
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691145082
- eISBN:
- 9781400840007
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691145082.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the ...
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This is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition. From its medieval beginnings as an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah spread throughout the early modern world and became a central feature of Jewish life. Scholars have long studied the revolutionary impact of Kabbalah, but, as this book argues, they have misunderstood the character and timing of opposition to it. Drawing on a range of previously unexamined sources, this book tells the story of the first criticism of Kabbalah, Ari Nohem, written by Leon Modena in Venice in 1639. In this scathing indictment of Venetian Jews who had embraced Kabbalah as an authentic form of ancient esotericism, Modena proved the recent origins of Kabbalah and sought to convince his readers to return to the spiritualized rationalism of Maimonides. This book examines the hallmarks of Jewish modernity displayed by Modena's attack—a critical analysis of sacred texts, skepticism about religious truths, and self-consciousness about the past—and shows how these qualities and the later history of his polemic challenge conventional understandings of the relationship between Kabbalah and modernity. The book argues that Kabbalah was the subject of critical inquiry in the very period it came to dominate Jewish life rather than centuries later as most scholars have thought.Less
This is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition. From its medieval beginnings as an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah spread throughout the early modern world and became a central feature of Jewish life. Scholars have long studied the revolutionary impact of Kabbalah, but, as this book argues, they have misunderstood the character and timing of opposition to it. Drawing on a range of previously unexamined sources, this book tells the story of the first criticism of Kabbalah, Ari Nohem, written by Leon Modena in Venice in 1639. In this scathing indictment of Venetian Jews who had embraced Kabbalah as an authentic form of ancient esotericism, Modena proved the recent origins of Kabbalah and sought to convince his readers to return to the spiritualized rationalism of Maimonides. This book examines the hallmarks of Jewish modernity displayed by Modena's attack—a critical analysis of sacred texts, skepticism about religious truths, and self-consciousness about the past—and shows how these qualities and the later history of his polemic challenge conventional understandings of the relationship between Kabbalah and modernity. The book argues that Kabbalah was the subject of critical inquiry in the very period it came to dominate Jewish life rather than centuries later as most scholars have thought.
Daniel B. Schwartz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691142913
- eISBN:
- 9781400842261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691142913.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter skips ahead fifty years from the previous chapter to find the roots of the heroic and prototypical image of Spinoza in the historical fiction of the young Berthold Auerbach (1812–1882), ...
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This chapter skips ahead fifty years from the previous chapter to find the roots of the heroic and prototypical image of Spinoza in the historical fiction of the young Berthold Auerbach (1812–1882), using his engagement with the Amsterdam heretic in the 1830s as a lens for exploring tensions in early Reform Judaism between organic and revolutionary visions of religious change. It contends that his 1837 historical novel, Spinoza, ein historischer Roman (Spinoza, a Historical Novel), when studied against the backdrop of his previous Jewish writings, evinces a very personal—but also very contemporary—tug-of-war between two different visions of Jewish modernity: one more reformist and accommodating of a religious framework for change, the other more uncompromisingly radical.Less
This chapter skips ahead fifty years from the previous chapter to find the roots of the heroic and prototypical image of Spinoza in the historical fiction of the young Berthold Auerbach (1812–1882), using his engagement with the Amsterdam heretic in the 1830s as a lens for exploring tensions in early Reform Judaism between organic and revolutionary visions of religious change. It contends that his 1837 historical novel, Spinoza, ein historischer Roman (Spinoza, a Historical Novel), when studied against the backdrop of his previous Jewish writings, evinces a very personal—but also very contemporary—tug-of-war between two different visions of Jewish modernity: one more reformist and accommodating of a religious framework for change, the other more uncompromisingly radical.
Moshe Rosman
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781904113348
- eISBN:
- 9781800340817
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781904113348.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter uses the term ‘postmodern’ to code a new set of circumstances and processes interacting to mark the period in which they became operative as substantially different from the preceding ...
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This chapter uses the term ‘postmodern’ to code a new set of circumstances and processes interacting to mark the period in which they became operative as substantially different from the preceding time. It argues that, at least in terms of Jewish history, the ‘postmodernity’ — in the literal sense of succeeding modernity — of the current era is demonstrable. By proposing this periodization, the chapter reveals its own metahistory. Nevertheless, it offers this construction in the hope that it will be part of a process of reconsideration of how we configure, organize, and present the Jewish past, as well as how we understand the Jewish present. After all, if Jews are no longer modern, then it begs the question of what that might mean for modernity, if not of the Jews themselves.Less
This chapter uses the term ‘postmodern’ to code a new set of circumstances and processes interacting to mark the period in which they became operative as substantially different from the preceding time. It argues that, at least in terms of Jewish history, the ‘postmodernity’ — in the literal sense of succeeding modernity — of the current era is demonstrable. By proposing this periodization, the chapter reveals its own metahistory. Nevertheless, it offers this construction in the hope that it will be part of a process of reconsideration of how we configure, organize, and present the Jewish past, as well as how we understand the Jewish present. After all, if Jews are no longer modern, then it begs the question of what that might mean for modernity, if not of the Jews themselves.
Daniel B. Schwartz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691142913
- eISBN:
- 9781400842261
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691142913.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in ...
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Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his “horrible heresies” and “monstrous deeds.” Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. This book provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. The book shows that in fashioning Spinoza into “the first modern Jew,” generations of Jewish intellectuals—German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists—have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish culture and a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.Less
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his “horrible heresies” and “monstrous deeds.” Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. This book provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. The book shows that in fashioning Spinoza into “the first modern Jew,” generations of Jewish intellectuals—German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists—have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish culture and a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226282077
- eISBN:
- 9780226282060
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226282060.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
In the Middle Ages, Kabbalah perforce retained a strong connection to Neo-Aristotelean or Neo-Platonic philosophy and indeed was in many ways inseparable from these discourses. It is problematic to ...
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In the Middle Ages, Kabbalah perforce retained a strong connection to Neo-Aristotelean or Neo-Platonic philosophy and indeed was in many ways inseparable from these discourses. It is problematic to view modern Kabbalah in a proximist manner as an elaboration of medieval Jewish mysticism. The evidence for the persistence of intense and somatic experiences of somatic transformation was drawn from a broad array of texts. While the underscoring of the shamanic elements in Jewish mystical culture certainly brings the study of modern Kabbalah closer to the general scholastic enterprise of religious studies, it should not be seen as a move that removes the body of texts studied here from its anchoring in the broader Jewish tradition. In future works, the exhibition of the continued relevance of the revitalizing forces of Jewish modernity to the broader question of the meaning of traditional Jewish practice in modern global culture is aimed at.Less
In the Middle Ages, Kabbalah perforce retained a strong connection to Neo-Aristotelean or Neo-Platonic philosophy and indeed was in many ways inseparable from these discourses. It is problematic to view modern Kabbalah in a proximist manner as an elaboration of medieval Jewish mysticism. The evidence for the persistence of intense and somatic experiences of somatic transformation was drawn from a broad array of texts. While the underscoring of the shamanic elements in Jewish mystical culture certainly brings the study of modern Kabbalah closer to the general scholastic enterprise of religious studies, it should not be seen as a move that removes the body of texts studied here from its anchoring in the broader Jewish tradition. In future works, the exhibition of the continued relevance of the revitalizing forces of Jewish modernity to the broader question of the meaning of traditional Jewish practice in modern global culture is aimed at.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter discusses the different eras in Russian Jewish history in which Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is set. Wengeroff's two volumes share an overarching theme: Jewish tradition ...
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This chapter discusses the different eras in Russian Jewish history in which Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is set. Wengeroff's two volumes share an overarching theme: Jewish tradition and its loss in modernity. Volume I reflects the years of her childhood and adolescence during the reign of Nicholas I. The Russian Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) took off as a movement and became a potent cultural force and challenge to traditional Jewish society in these years because of policies of Tsar Nicholas I. Volume II spans the years from mid-century to the death of Wengeroff's husband, Chonon, in 1892. It is about the overlapping destinies of her family and Russian Jewry in these decades, when Jewish modernity was no longer emerging but fully unfolding. This was the era of Alexander II, whose policies, liberal and reactionary, profoundly shaped the experience of modern Russian Jewry, and of Alexander III. The chapter then looks at the tsarist Jewry policies and Jewish society under Alexander II and III, considering the 'selective integration' policy and the emergence of the new Russian Jewish elite.Less
This chapter discusses the different eras in Russian Jewish history in which Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is set. Wengeroff's two volumes share an overarching theme: Jewish tradition and its loss in modernity. Volume I reflects the years of her childhood and adolescence during the reign of Nicholas I. The Russian Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) took off as a movement and became a potent cultural force and challenge to traditional Jewish society in these years because of policies of Tsar Nicholas I. Volume II spans the years from mid-century to the death of Wengeroff's husband, Chonon, in 1892. It is about the overlapping destinies of her family and Russian Jewry in these decades, when Jewish modernity was no longer emerging but fully unfolding. This was the era of Alexander II, whose policies, liberal and reactionary, profoundly shaped the experience of modern Russian Jewry, and of Alexander III. The chapter then looks at the tsarist Jewry policies and Jewish society under Alexander II and III, considering the 'selective integration' policy and the emergence of the new Russian Jewish elite.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter explains that the central point of the second volume of Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is the consequences of the loss of tradition in Russian Jewish families, exemplified ...
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This chapter explains that the central point of the second volume of Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is the consequences of the loss of tradition in Russian Jewish families, exemplified by what transpired in her marital home. Her main narrative line is dramatic, accessible, and seductive. In it, she and her fellow Jewish women are victims — of Chonon/Jewish husbands, and of the overwhelming forces of modernity. Well before all this, however, Wengeroff was a prime agent of subverting tradition. She thus felt culpable and guilty not only for the sins of her youth but for those of her married adulthood that resulted in the failure to transmit tradition to her children. The chapter then considers the complexity of Wengeroff's and Chonon's Jewishness and of their relationship. It also looks at how Wengeroff found outlets for her Judaism as well as her need for meaningful activity outside the home as a bourgeoise before she wrote Memoirs. Both Chonon and Wengeroff participated in the trend of Russian Jewish philanthropy by supporting trade schools for poor children.Less
This chapter explains that the central point of the second volume of Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is the consequences of the loss of tradition in Russian Jewish families, exemplified by what transpired in her marital home. Her main narrative line is dramatic, accessible, and seductive. In it, she and her fellow Jewish women are victims — of Chonon/Jewish husbands, and of the overwhelming forces of modernity. Well before all this, however, Wengeroff was a prime agent of subverting tradition. She thus felt culpable and guilty not only for the sins of her youth but for those of her married adulthood that resulted in the failure to transmit tradition to her children. The chapter then considers the complexity of Wengeroff's and Chonon's Jewishness and of their relationship. It also looks at how Wengeroff found outlets for her Judaism as well as her need for meaningful activity outside the home as a bourgeoise before she wrote Memoirs. Both Chonon and Wengeroff participated in the trend of Russian Jewish philanthropy by supporting trade schools for poor children.
Shulamit Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Pauline Wengeroff was born in 1833 into a pious Jewish family in Bobruisk. Her life, as recounted in this biography, based in part on the author's critical edition of Wengeroff's Memoirs of a ...
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Pauline Wengeroff was born in 1833 into a pious Jewish family in Bobruisk. Her life, as recounted in this biography, based in part on the author's critical edition of Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother, was one of upheaval and transformation during Russian Jewry's passage from tradition to modernity. Wengeroff's narrative refracts communal experience and larger cultural, economic, and political developments through her own family life. In this, her memoirs are the basis for much new thinking about gender and modernity. This book probes Wengeroff's consciousness and social positioning as a woman of her era and argues that, though Wengeroff was well aware of the women's movement in Russia, she wrote not from a feminist perspective but as a by-product of her socialization in traditional Jewish society. This book gives readers entrée to Wengeroff's life, aspirations, and her disappointments, and raises the question of Wengeroff's actual intended audience for Memoirs of a Grandmother. Finally, the book probes the reception of Memoirs, to reveal a surprising story of the same work being read both as an apologia for tradition and for assimilation and even conversion. When Wengeroff died in 1916, the world was very different from the one in which she had grown up. Her story makes a significant contribution to Jewish women's history; to east European Jewish history; to the history of gender, acculturation, and assimilation in Jewish modernity; and to the history of Jewish writing and Jewish women's writing.Less
Pauline Wengeroff was born in 1833 into a pious Jewish family in Bobruisk. Her life, as recounted in this biography, based in part on the author's critical edition of Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother, was one of upheaval and transformation during Russian Jewry's passage from tradition to modernity. Wengeroff's narrative refracts communal experience and larger cultural, economic, and political developments through her own family life. In this, her memoirs are the basis for much new thinking about gender and modernity. This book probes Wengeroff's consciousness and social positioning as a woman of her era and argues that, though Wengeroff was well aware of the women's movement in Russia, she wrote not from a feminist perspective but as a by-product of her socialization in traditional Jewish society. This book gives readers entrée to Wengeroff's life, aspirations, and her disappointments, and raises the question of Wengeroff's actual intended audience for Memoirs of a Grandmother. Finally, the book probes the reception of Memoirs, to reveal a surprising story of the same work being read both as an apologia for tradition and for assimilation and even conversion. When Wengeroff died in 1916, the world was very different from the one in which she had grown up. Her story makes a significant contribution to Jewish women's history; to east European Jewish history; to the history of gender, acculturation, and assimilation in Jewish modernity; and to the history of Jewish writing and Jewish women's writing.
Andrea Most
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814708194
- eISBN:
- 9780814707982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814708194.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Throughout the twentieth century, American Jews were instrumental in the development of the major industries and entertainment forms that provided mass culture to a majority of Americans: Broadway, ...
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Throughout the twentieth century, American Jews were instrumental in the development of the major industries and entertainment forms that provided mass culture to a majority of Americans: Broadway, Hollywood, the television and radio industries, stand-up comedy, and the popular music industry have all been deeply influenced by the activity of Jews. However, this close connection between Jews and entertainment represented a radical departure from traditional Jewish attitudes toward the theater. This chapter explores why, for centuries, Jews were one of the few European cultures without any official public theatrical tradition. It looks at how the particular historical conditions of Jewish modernity in Europe eventually led Jews to become intimately involved with the theater. Finally, it examines the history of interpretation of the biblical story of Jacob and Esau in order to understand the ways in which Jewish thinkers across the ages have responded to the morally ambiguous aspects of theatricality itself, a mode which encompasses both acting on the stage and performance in everyday life.Less
Throughout the twentieth century, American Jews were instrumental in the development of the major industries and entertainment forms that provided mass culture to a majority of Americans: Broadway, Hollywood, the television and radio industries, stand-up comedy, and the popular music industry have all been deeply influenced by the activity of Jews. However, this close connection between Jews and entertainment represented a radical departure from traditional Jewish attitudes toward the theater. This chapter explores why, for centuries, Jews were one of the few European cultures without any official public theatrical tradition. It looks at how the particular historical conditions of Jewish modernity in Europe eventually led Jews to become intimately involved with the theater. Finally, it examines the history of interpretation of the biblical story of Jacob and Esau in order to understand the ways in which Jewish thinkers across the ages have responded to the morally ambiguous aspects of theatricality itself, a mode which encompasses both acting on the stage and performance in everyday life.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter addresses Pauline Wengeroff's strange tale about her brother Ephraim, who had converted to Christianity while in the United States and then reverted to Judaism during a family conclave ...
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This chapter addresses Pauline Wengeroff's strange tale about her brother Ephraim, who had converted to Christianity while in the United States and then reverted to Judaism during a family conclave in Germany under the agonized plea of their aged mother. After the death of their mother, who had made Ephraim swear not to return to the United States as long as she lived, he returned there. In fact, Ephraim returned to Christianity, too, and more, to proselytizing Jews. Ephraim played a large role in the near-publication of Memoirs of Grandmother in America: first, in translating both volumes into English from the predominant German in which they had appeared; in helping to identify potential publishers and in shopping the volumes around; and then in sinking Wengeroff's promising prospects of having them published by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) when its publication board learned the truth about him. Wengeroff, who was terrified of pogroms, wished very much to come to America; she also tried mightily to have her memoirs published there. She succeeded in neither goal. Yet in a real sense she did come to America because her attempt to get published there set off a remarkable exchange among American Jewry's most prominent leaders about Jewish boundary lines and the ‘right’ story of Jewish modernity for American Jewry.Less
This chapter addresses Pauline Wengeroff's strange tale about her brother Ephraim, who had converted to Christianity while in the United States and then reverted to Judaism during a family conclave in Germany under the agonized plea of their aged mother. After the death of their mother, who had made Ephraim swear not to return to the United States as long as she lived, he returned there. In fact, Ephraim returned to Christianity, too, and more, to proselytizing Jews. Ephraim played a large role in the near-publication of Memoirs of Grandmother in America: first, in translating both volumes into English from the predominant German in which they had appeared; in helping to identify potential publishers and in shopping the volumes around; and then in sinking Wengeroff's promising prospects of having them published by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) when its publication board learned the truth about him. Wengeroff, who was terrified of pogroms, wished very much to come to America; she also tried mightily to have her memoirs published there. She succeeded in neither goal. Yet in a real sense she did come to America because her attempt to get published there set off a remarkable exchange among American Jewry's most prominent leaders about Jewish boundary lines and the ‘right’ story of Jewish modernity for American Jewry.
Hermann Levin Goldschmidt
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228263
- eISBN:
- 9780823237142
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228263.003.0015
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter discusses the historical background of the German Jewry's quest to define the essence of Judaism. This quest is one of the most important debates in world Jewish history and this ...
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This chapter discusses the historical background of the German Jewry's quest to define the essence of Judaism. This quest is one of the most important debates in world Jewish history and this controversy ultimately produced one of the most crucial intellectual breakthroughs and victories of Jewish modernity. The issue started innocently with theologian Adolf Harnack's interdisciplinary lectures in the winter of 1899–1900 where he contrasted Christianity with Judaism to the benefit of the former.Less
This chapter discusses the historical background of the German Jewry's quest to define the essence of Judaism. This quest is one of the most important debates in world Jewish history and this controversy ultimately produced one of the most crucial intellectual breakthroughs and victories of Jewish modernity. The issue started innocently with theologian Adolf Harnack's interdisciplinary lectures in the winter of 1899–1900 where he contrasted Christianity with Judaism to the benefit of the former.
Hermann Levin Goldschmidt
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228263
- eISBN:
- 9780823237142
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228263.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter discusses the role of the German Jewry in the increase in the diversity of Jewish modernity in the late Middle Ages. The German Jews had played a leading role during the first ...
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This chapter discusses the role of the German Jewry in the increase in the diversity of Jewish modernity in the late Middle Ages. The German Jews had played a leading role during the first half-century of Jewish modernity partly because of the decisive role Germany itself played during the years when the middle of Europe became the hinge on which world events turned. Another reason was the accomplishments of the German Jews themselves in fighting for complete self-determination.Less
This chapter discusses the role of the German Jewry in the increase in the diversity of Jewish modernity in the late Middle Ages. The German Jews had played a leading role during the first half-century of Jewish modernity partly because of the decisive role Germany itself played during the years when the middle of Europe became the hinge on which world events turned. Another reason was the accomplishments of the German Jews themselves in fighting for complete self-determination.
Shmuel Feiner
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781874774433
- eISBN:
- 9781800340138
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781874774433.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book recreates the historical consciousness that fired the Haskalah — the Jewish Enlightenment movement. The proponents of this movement advocated that Jews should capture the spirit of the ...
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This book recreates the historical consciousness that fired the Haskalah — the Jewish Enlightenment movement. The proponents of this movement advocated that Jews should capture the spirit of the future and take their place in wider society, but as Jews — without denying their collective identity and without denying their past. Claiming historical legitimacy for their ideology and their vision of the future, they formulated an ethos of modernity that they projected on to the universal and the Jewish past alike. What was the image of the past that the maskilim shaped? What tactics underpinned their use of history? How did their historical awareness change and develop — from the inception of the Haskalah in Germany at the time of Mendelssohn and Wessely, through the centres of Haskalah in Austria, Galicia, and Russia, to the emergence of modern nationalism in the maskilic circles in eastern Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century? These are some of the questions raised in this fascinating exploration of an ideological approach to history which throws a searching new light on the Jewish Enlightenment movement and the emergence of Jewish historical consciousness more generally.Less
This book recreates the historical consciousness that fired the Haskalah — the Jewish Enlightenment movement. The proponents of this movement advocated that Jews should capture the spirit of the future and take their place in wider society, but as Jews — without denying their collective identity and without denying their past. Claiming historical legitimacy for their ideology and their vision of the future, they formulated an ethos of modernity that they projected on to the universal and the Jewish past alike. What was the image of the past that the maskilim shaped? What tactics underpinned their use of history? How did their historical awareness change and develop — from the inception of the Haskalah in Germany at the time of Mendelssohn and Wessely, through the centres of Haskalah in Austria, Galicia, and Russia, to the emergence of modern nationalism in the maskilic circles in eastern Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century? These are some of the questions raised in this fascinating exploration of an ideological approach to history which throws a searching new light on the Jewish Enlightenment movement and the emergence of Jewish historical consciousness more generally.
Caspar Battegay
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764869
- eISBN:
- 9781800343375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764869.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter discusses the emergence of pop music as a distinctive musical genre intended for very wide audiences and often controlled by the giants of the music business. It describes how pop is ...
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This chapter discusses the emergence of pop music as a distinctive musical genre intended for very wide audiences and often controlled by the giants of the music business. It describes how pop is characterized by the specific conditions of religious and cultural minorities that are closely linked to African American history, such as jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll, reggae, disco music, soul, and hip hop. It also mentions the British scholar of cultural studies named Paul Gilroy, who defined the production conditions of hip hop as transnational structures of circulation and intercultural exchange. The chapter examines the relationship between the hip hop world and the real world that changed since Gilroy's observations in the 1990s. It talks about the insistence on the diasporic context of the 'Black Atlantic' and its kinship with Jewish modernity that remains pivotal to any pursuit of the diaspora in popular culture.Less
This chapter discusses the emergence of pop music as a distinctive musical genre intended for very wide audiences and often controlled by the giants of the music business. It describes how pop is characterized by the specific conditions of religious and cultural minorities that are closely linked to African American history, such as jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll, reggae, disco music, soul, and hip hop. It also mentions the British scholar of cultural studies named Paul Gilroy, who defined the production conditions of hip hop as transnational structures of circulation and intercultural exchange. The chapter examines the relationship between the hip hop world and the real world that changed since Gilroy's observations in the 1990s. It talks about the insistence on the diasporic context of the 'Black Atlantic' and its kinship with Jewish modernity that remains pivotal to any pursuit of the diaspora in popular culture.
Maurice Samuels
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804763844
- eISBN:
- 9780804773423
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804763844.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This book brings to light little-known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens. These writers, it asserts, used fiction as a laboratory ...
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This book brings to light little-known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens. These writers, it asserts, used fiction as a laboratory to experiment with new forms of Jewish identity relevant to the modern world, and, in their stories and novels, responded to the stereotypical depictions of Jews in French culture while creatively adapting the forms and genres of the French literary tradition. They also offered innovative solutions to the central dilemmas of Jewish modernity in the French context—including how to reconcile their identities as Jews with the universalizing demands of the French revolutionary tradition. While theit solutions ranged from complete assimilation to a modern brand of orthodoxy, these writers collectively illustrate the creativity of a community in the face of unprecedented upheaval.Less
This book brings to light little-known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens. These writers, it asserts, used fiction as a laboratory to experiment with new forms of Jewish identity relevant to the modern world, and, in their stories and novels, responded to the stereotypical depictions of Jews in French culture while creatively adapting the forms and genres of the French literary tradition. They also offered innovative solutions to the central dilemmas of Jewish modernity in the French context—including how to reconcile their identities as Jews with the universalizing demands of the French revolutionary tradition. While theit solutions ranged from complete assimilation to a modern brand of orthodoxy, these writers collectively illustrate the creativity of a community in the face of unprecedented upheaval.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter investigates how Pauline Wengeroff, seeming bard of Jewish traditionalism, can also be read as an apologist for assimilation and conversion. From the dramatic myth of Memoirs of a ...
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This chapter investigates how Pauline Wengeroff, seeming bard of Jewish traditionalism, can also be read as an apologist for assimilation and conversion. From the dramatic myth of Memoirs of a Grandmother, Wengeroff appears as a nostalgic apologist for tradition and a victim, along with Jewish women generally, of modernizing men and modernity. For those who concluded that she was an assimilationist did so based on her account of the conversion of her sons Simon and Volodya, which she calls a tragedy but which she contextualizes in several ways. The conversion of her sons was ‘the most grievous blow’ of Wengeroff's life. Given their and their cohort's lack of meaningful Jewish learning or lived experience, and the threat of thwarted lives because of anti-Jewish discrimination, she portrays it as inevitable, self-evident. There was, indeed, a wave of Jewish conversion in this period, for the reasons Wengeroff cites, and others. The chapter then looks at Wengeroff's family. There is no understanding Wengeroff and the construct that is Memoirs without knowing who her family members by blood and marriage were, and about her other associations.Less
This chapter investigates how Pauline Wengeroff, seeming bard of Jewish traditionalism, can also be read as an apologist for assimilation and conversion. From the dramatic myth of Memoirs of a Grandmother, Wengeroff appears as a nostalgic apologist for tradition and a victim, along with Jewish women generally, of modernizing men and modernity. For those who concluded that she was an assimilationist did so based on her account of the conversion of her sons Simon and Volodya, which she calls a tragedy but which she contextualizes in several ways. The conversion of her sons was ‘the most grievous blow’ of Wengeroff's life. Given their and their cohort's lack of meaningful Jewish learning or lived experience, and the threat of thwarted lives because of anti-Jewish discrimination, she portrays it as inevitable, self-evident. There was, indeed, a wave of Jewish conversion in this period, for the reasons Wengeroff cites, and others. The chapter then looks at Wengeroff's family. There is no understanding Wengeroff and the construct that is Memoirs without knowing who her family members by blood and marriage were, and about her other associations.
Marcin Wodzinski
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781904113089
- eISBN:
- 9781800341029
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781904113089.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The conflict between Haskalah and hasidism was one of the most important forces in shaping the world of Polish Jewry for almost two centuries, but our understanding of it has long been dominated by ...
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The conflict between Haskalah and hasidism was one of the most important forces in shaping the world of Polish Jewry for almost two centuries, but our understanding of it has long been dominated by theories based on stereotypes rather than detailed analysis. This book challenges the long-established theories about the conflict by contextualizing it, principally in the Kingdom of Poland but also with regard to other parts of eastern Europe. It follows the development of this conflict in its central arena and reconstructs the way the conflict expressed itself. The book shows that it was primarily informed by non-ideological clashes at the level of local communities. Attention is devoted to the general characteristics of hasidism and the Haskalah, as well as to the post-Haskalah movements. Here too the book challenges the ideologically charged assumptions of a generation of historians who refused to see the advocates of Jewish modernity in nineteenth-century Poland as an integral part of the Haskalah movement. Consideration is given to the professional, social, institutional, and ideological characteristics of the Polish Haskalah as well as to its geographic extent, and to the changes the movement underwent in the course of the nineteenth century. Similar attention is given to the influence of the specific characteristics of Polish hasidism on the shape of the conflict. The book presents a synthesis that offers both breadth and depth, contextualizing its subject matter within the broader domains of the European Enlightenment and Polish culture, hasidism and rabbinic culture, tsarist policy and Polish history, not to mention the ins and outs of the Haskalah itself across Europe.Less
The conflict between Haskalah and hasidism was one of the most important forces in shaping the world of Polish Jewry for almost two centuries, but our understanding of it has long been dominated by theories based on stereotypes rather than detailed analysis. This book challenges the long-established theories about the conflict by contextualizing it, principally in the Kingdom of Poland but also with regard to other parts of eastern Europe. It follows the development of this conflict in its central arena and reconstructs the way the conflict expressed itself. The book shows that it was primarily informed by non-ideological clashes at the level of local communities. Attention is devoted to the general characteristics of hasidism and the Haskalah, as well as to the post-Haskalah movements. Here too the book challenges the ideologically charged assumptions of a generation of historians who refused to see the advocates of Jewish modernity in nineteenth-century Poland as an integral part of the Haskalah movement. Consideration is given to the professional, social, institutional, and ideological characteristics of the Polish Haskalah as well as to its geographic extent, and to the changes the movement underwent in the course of the nineteenth century. Similar attention is given to the influence of the specific characteristics of Polish hasidism on the shape of the conflict. The book presents a synthesis that offers both breadth and depth, contextualizing its subject matter within the broader domains of the European Enlightenment and Polish culture, hasidism and rabbinic culture, tsarist policy and Polish history, not to mention the ins and outs of the Haskalah itself across Europe.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Pauline Wengeroff and her Memoirs of a Grandmother: Scenes from the Cultural History of the Jews of Russia in the Nineteenth Century. Wengeroff's two ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of Pauline Wengeroff and her Memoirs of a Grandmother: Scenes from the Cultural History of the Jews of Russia in the Nineteenth Century. Wengeroff's two volumes are extraordinary on many grounds. As their full title proclaims, she writes the history of an era in Jewish experience, coupling her story and that of her family with that of Russian Jewry in the time of its transition from tradition to modernity. In Memoirs, Wengeroff gives a rich depiction of traditional Jewish society in Russia with a particular focus on the religious practices and piety of women. She tells a dramatic tale of the dissolution of traditionalism in this society from the perspective of women, marriage, and families. Indeed, she argues for the cultural power of women, though not as a feminist. Focusing on Wengeroff's adolescent and adult life, this book traces how Memoirs of a Grandmother came to be in the form in which it is found.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Pauline Wengeroff and her Memoirs of a Grandmother: Scenes from the Cultural History of the Jews of Russia in the Nineteenth Century. Wengeroff's two volumes are extraordinary on many grounds. As their full title proclaims, she writes the history of an era in Jewish experience, coupling her story and that of her family with that of Russian Jewry in the time of its transition from tradition to modernity. In Memoirs, Wengeroff gives a rich depiction of traditional Jewish society in Russia with a particular focus on the religious practices and piety of women. She tells a dramatic tale of the dissolution of traditionalism in this society from the perspective of women, marriage, and families. Indeed, she argues for the cultural power of women, though not as a feminist. Focusing on Wengeroff's adolescent and adult life, this book traces how Memoirs of a Grandmother came to be in the form in which it is found.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This epilogue recounts how, terrified of anti-Jewish violence, Pauline Wengeroff died, ‘lonely and miserable’, in Minsk in 1916, at the age of 83, in the midst of the First World War and a ...
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This epilogue recounts how, terrified of anti-Jewish violence, Pauline Wengeroff died, ‘lonely and miserable’, in Minsk in 1916, at the age of 83, in the midst of the First World War and a disintegrating tsarist empire, having encouraged one grandson to practise the piano so that he might get to America. The grandson, Nicolas Slonimsky, eventually succeeded in reaching the United States, as did three of Wengeroff's children, after Wengeroff's death. Ultimately, through her resonance with a generation hungry for what she had to offer, Wengeroff tried to help right some of the losses of Jewish modernity, to which she knew she had contributed. With her memoirs she hoped to inscribe herself, and some chosen others, on the tablet of Jewish memory but, above all, to perpetuate and give life, a future, to Jewish memory. In that goal she was not alone but part of a vigorous stream. Whether Memoirs of a Grandmother or the conviction that it had reached its target audience and purpose gave her any comfort in her last days no one knows; but one can hope.Less
This epilogue recounts how, terrified of anti-Jewish violence, Pauline Wengeroff died, ‘lonely and miserable’, in Minsk in 1916, at the age of 83, in the midst of the First World War and a disintegrating tsarist empire, having encouraged one grandson to practise the piano so that he might get to America. The grandson, Nicolas Slonimsky, eventually succeeded in reaching the United States, as did three of Wengeroff's children, after Wengeroff's death. Ultimately, through her resonance with a generation hungry for what she had to offer, Wengeroff tried to help right some of the losses of Jewish modernity, to which she knew she had contributed. With her memoirs she hoped to inscribe herself, and some chosen others, on the tablet of Jewish memory but, above all, to perpetuate and give life, a future, to Jewish memory. In that goal she was not alone but part of a vigorous stream. Whether Memoirs of a Grandmother or the conviction that it had reached its target audience and purpose gave her any comfort in her last days no one knows; but one can hope.
