bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Back to History: The Secularization of the Ancient Jewish Past
Authors: Shavit Yaacov
Published: February 2021

This chapter addresses issues in the new Jewish historical consciousness. ‘History’ in this context meant not only the knowledge of the national chronology, but the collective experience of the people, its past and future, its aspirations, hopes, and destiny. The call for a return to the Jewish past meant both changing the nature of Jewish activities and attitudes and reconstructing the people’s self-awareness; namely, the creation of a new historical consciousness. The chronicles of the Jewish people, its collective experience, faith, and destiny in history, its perceptions and myths, became the core of its self-definition and identity. Jews in modern times not only ‘returned to history’, they also related to their history as the principal manifestation of their identity. But if historical consciousness is so vital and if modern historical understanding constitutes a radical departure from the Judaeo-Christian tradition and a turning back to Greek (that is, pagan) historical conceptions, the chapter questions if the new Jewish historical consciousness be could founded on the basis of a view of history that knew nothing of Scripture and a philosophy that was trying to free itself from Scripture.
The Children of Japheth (Aryans) and the Children of Shem (Semites): Race and Innate Nationalism
Authors: Shavit Yaacov
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers what the Jewish people are and how they have come to their own identity and history following the new historical consciousness. In the nineteenth century, race became vitally important, and an ethnocentric dogma based on a naturally determined biology became widespread in Europe. As a result, any ethnic elements that could be uncovered in the Jewish literary tradition were intensified. From a Western point of view, the antinomy between Jews and Europeans was also based on a racial division. This racial division became, in the course of the nineteenth century, a standard fixture of the intelligent and educated Jew. In this manner, nation was associated with race in the Jewish conceptual world. Race was perceived as being parallel to nation, or as endowing the nation with greater immanent historical depth.
The People and its Land: Country, Landscape, and Culture
Authors: Shavit Yaacov
Published: February 2021

This chapter argues that modern Jewish nationalism was not only a return to history, or a rediscovery of the people and the nation, but also a return to geography, or rather to the natural native geography. According to the historical perception of the Zionist idea, the Jewish people had been uprooted from its natural geographical environment and had lived ever since in different surroundings. In the Diaspora, the Jewish people adapted itself to the changing patterns of the ‘host civilizations’ and to the different natural environments, but nowhere did it develop a ‘natural’ attachment to the land and to its landscape. This Jewish alienation from Nature became a major theme in the Haskalah literature. In contrast, one of the main motifs in the literature of the national revival movement was the return to the soil and to the land, and, as an almost inevitable conclusion, the return to the natural homeland of the Jewish people: Palestine (Eretz Yisrael).
Cantor-Poets on Greece’s Periphery: Macedonia, Bulgaria, Corfu, Kaffa (Crimea) and Crete
Authors: Weinberger Leon J.
Published: February 2021

This chapter highlights the cantor-poets in Macedonia and Bulgaria. A distinctive feature in the Macedonian liturgy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is the rise of messianic hopes. Mordecai b. Šabbetai seeks to ascertain the ’end-time’, and Menaḥem b. Elia is persuaded that Israel’s redeemer-king riding on a donkey is fast approaching. Indeed, the suffering that Jewish communities endured at the hands of the Crusader mobs in 1096 was interpreted as the ’birth-pangs’ of the Messiah, and led Jewish notables to calculate that the ’end-time’ was near. Other principal Macedonian and Bulgarian rabbi-poets include Tobias b. Eliezer, Eliezer b. Judah, and Šabbetai Ḥaviv. The chapter then describes hymnography in Corfu, Kaffa (Crimea), and Crete. It looks at the Corfiote, Kaffan, and Cretan poets.
The Ban on Polygamy in Polish Rabbinic Thought
Authors: Westreich Elimelech
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates Polish rabbinical treatments of the medieval Ashkenazi ban on polygamy. The Ban of Rabbenu Gershom forbade both polygamy and divorcing a woman against her will. Its promulgation brought about a revolutionary change in Ashkenazi Jewish family life and in the body of law that regulated it. This Ban has been seen by historians as a key determinant of the singularity of Ashkenazi Jewish culture. Hence, analysis of its fate in Poland is a most appropriate means of examining how far Polish rabbis adhered to the Ashkenazi legal tradition. In sixteenth-century Poland, there were two approaches among halakhic scholars. One adheres strictly to the Ashkenazi tradition, while the other is more open to the influence of other Jewish cultural spheres.
The Ashkenazi Élite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript versus Printed Book
Authors: Reiner Elchanan
Published: February 2021

This chapter evaluates the effect of printing on the Ashkenazi cultural élite. The shift from script to print in the sixteenth century heralded a reshaping of Ashkenazi literary models. The chapter traces some reactions amongst Ashkenazi intellectuals to this shift, which are indicative of their general attitude to the structural changes in patterns of the transmission of knowledge during the period. It focuses on certain developments within intellectual circles, primarily in connection with changes in the way halakhic literature — the core of the Ashkenazi literary canon — was written and transmitted. While the impact of the making of books and printing has long been a central issue in the history of European culture in general, it is genuinely surprising that Jewish culture, which is so profoundly literary, has not been examined in this light up to now.
The Accusation of Ritual Murder in Poland, 1500‒1800
Authors: Guldon Zenon , Wijaczka Jacek
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes the occurrences of accusations of ritual murder against Jews between 1500 and 1800 in the territories of Poland. In that period, these lands constituted the ‘main centre and reserve of world Jewry’. The marked increase in ritual murder trials in the mid-eighteenth century forced the Jewish Council of Four Lands to send a representative to the Apostolic See in 1758. Both Benedict XI and Clement XIII took the side of the Jews, defending them against the unjust accusations. In 1776, the Sejm prohibited the use of torture; this resolution was of great significance for future ritual murder trials. There are relatively few primary sources for ritual murder trials from this period. The sources are, first of all, trial records and court sentences concerning accusations of ritual murder. Much more information about such accusations against Jews and the ritual murder trials can be found in antisemitic literature. Numerous works of this kind contributed to the widespread belief that Jews do, indeed, use Christian blood for ritual purposes.
Jewish Art and Architecture in the East European Context: The Gwozdziec-Chodorów Group of Wooden Synagogues
Authors: Hubka Thomas C.
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on a specific group of eighteenth-century wooden synagogues — labelled the Gwoździec–Chodorów group — within their east European context. It identifies the architectural ideas and building traditions which generated these synagogues, and particularly to emphasize the role of ideas from Jewish sources and from the Jewish community in this process. This entails investigating all phases of building development, including sponsorship, inspiration, liturgy, design, construction, and painting, and then differentiating between non-Jewish east European sources and sources from the local and the broader Jewish community. The role of Jewish ideas requires careful differentiation because their influence on the architecture of the synagogues has been so loosely assumed and insufficiently documented in current scholarship. The chapter then suggests that the explosion of interest in kabbalah in Jewish society during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may have informed the architecture of the synagogues.
In Praise of the Ba’al Shem Tov: A User’s Guide to the Editions of Shivḥei haBesht
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the most studied document related to early hasidism known as Shivḥei haBesht (In Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov): the collection of legends and stories about the putative founder of the movement, Israel Ba'al Shem Tov. While it is an eminently accessible text, it is also a complex one, particularly when used for historiographical purposes, and over the last 150 years or so scholars have been engaged in a seemingly endless spiral of deconstruction, interpretation, and application of it. The question which has been central to historical studies of Shivḥei haBesht has been its reliability as a historical source. Virtually no one accepts the stories at face value. Their obvious mythical content, and the book's very title, proclaim its hagiographic nature, and have induced scepticism among scholars and hasidim alike. The chapter then reviews the historiographical usefulness of the most significant available editions of Shivḥei haBesht.
Walls and Frontiers: Polish Cinema’s Portrayal of Polish–Jewish Relations
Authors: Coates Paul
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes the portrayal of Polish–Jewish relations in Polish cinema. There are several obvious points at which one might begin to consider the treatment of Polish–Jewish relations in the films of People's Poland and in the Polish Republic, still in its infancy. One might ‘begin at the beginning’ with The Last Stop (1948), Wanda Jakubowska's sobering portrait of concentration camp life; with the first film to touch on the subject by Poland's leading post-war director, Andrzej Wajda, Samson (1961); or with Wojciech Has's neglected The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (1972), a reverie on the work of Bruno Schulz. Another potential starting-point might be Wajda's The Wedding (1972). The chapter focuses on Wajda's The Promised Land (1974). The interest in Polish–Jewish relations displayed by this film marks the first stirring of a theme to be amplified in subsequent years by the Flying University and then Solidarity: the need to claw back from the state the image of a more inclusive pre-war society. Among the things included in that society, of course, had been a large and enormously significant Jewish community.
Mayufes: A Window on Polish–Jewish Relations
Authors: Shmeruk Chone
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies mayufes, a custom the author terms ‘a window on Polish–Jewish relations’. For centuries, mayufes was part of the Polish–Jewish experience. In Polish dictionaries and other sources, mayufes is usually defined as ‘a song sung by Jews at the Sabbath midday meal’, or ‘a song sung by Jews at certain religious ceremonies’; a ‘dance’; or even a ‘ritual Jewish dance’. According to Polish dictionaries, mayufes derives from the opening words of the well-known Hebrew Sabbath zemer (song sung at the Sabbath table) Mah yofis (‘How fair you are’). None of these definitions takes note of a crucial feature of the concept of mayufes in Polish–Jewish culture, however. When a mayufes was sung or danced by a Jew, or someone imitating a Jew, it was not at the family Sabbath table. Rather, it was performed before a Polish audience, without any relation to the context or significance of the original Jewish zemer.
Introduction
Authors: Israel Jonathan
Published: February 2021

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the early modern period in Jewish history. Following the virtual elimination of the oppressed and battered Jewish people from western and central Europe in the fifteenth and first two-thirds of the sixteenth century, an altogether different trend, toward reintegration, set in from around 1570 in much of the continent west of Poland. During the next few decades, the standing and functions of the Jews in western civilization were totally transformed. Amid a flurry of new charters, privileges, and concessions, Jews were all at once released from many of the old, stifling restrictions on their economic and cultural activity and lifestyle. As a consequence, they now exerted, especially in the period 1650–1713, the most profound and pervasive impact on the West which they were ever to exert whilst still retaining a large measure of social and cultural cohesion, that is to say, whilst still displaying a recognizably national character. The key factor behind the reversal of pre-1570 trends, and thus the transformation of Jewish life in the West, was the political and spiritual upheaval which engulfed European culture as a whole at the end of the sixteenth century. The chapter then explores ‘mercantilism’, which triggered what might be termed Europe's first great emancipation.
The Thirty Years War
Authors: Israel Jonathan
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the Thirty Years War (1618–48), which marked a new phase in the interaction between Jews and European society in several respects. Especially in central Europe, the long and terrible conflict accelerated the reintegration of Jewry in progress since the 1570s, preparing the way for the ‘Court Jews’ of the later seventeenth century. While significant changes had already taken place in the period from 1570 down to the commencement of the Thirty Years War, care must be taken not to exaggerate the extent of central European Jewry's gains by 1618. The expansion of Jewish activity and communities was then still at a comparatively early stage. The first point to take into account in explaining the proliferation of Jewish communities in Germany, the Czech lands, and Alsace during the Thirty Years War is the special relationship between German Jewry and the Emperor. It had long been a fact that the chief protector of the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire was the Emperor. The chapter then looks at the role of Jacob Bassevi, the financier who was at the centre of the efforts to raise Jewish subsidies for the Emperor, during the Thirty Years War.
The High Point (II): Jewish Society (1650–1713)
Authors: Israel Jonathan
Published: February 2021

This chapter addresses how the climax of the European debate over Jewish readmission came during the third quarter of the seventeenth century. For a quarter of a century, conferences, commissions, and petitions published and unpublished over whether or not to tolerate Jews, and if so on what terms, abounded from Poland to Portugal and from Hungary to Ireland. Why did the political and intellectual process of readmission culminate at this particular time? Several factors converged to intensify previous trends but what was the most crucial was the widespread backlash in Germany, following the evacuation of the Swedish, French, and other foreign garrisons at the end of the Thirty Years War. The substantial gains made by the Jews of central Europe during the conflict, of Austria and the Czech lands as well as Germany, had aroused intense opposition and controversy, so that the coming of peace was almost bound to be accompanied by a formidable reaction. The chapter then considers the Jewish population and Jewish economy during this period.
Decline and Renewal (1713–1750)
Authors: Israel Jonathan
Published: February 2021

This chapter explains that the period 1713–50 was one of sharp deterioration in European Jewry's demographic position. It is true that a steady increase persisted in many parts, but, from the second decade of the eighteenth century onwards, the population of Europe as a whole began to burgeon once more so that, other than in the eastern territories of Poland, Jewish population growth now lagged well behind that of the rest. Moreover, and a more immediately relevant factor in the economic and cultural decline of European Jewry during the eighteenth century, practically all the leading Jewish urban centres displayed a marked incapacity for growth. Previously, from 1570 down to 1713, the economic policies of the European states, concentrating on the promotion of long-distance commerce, had encouraged the increasing integration of the Jewish trade network into the European economy as a whole, and this had laid the basis for the revival of Jewish life in progress in central and western Europe since the late sixteenth century. After 1713, however, a less favourable trend set in. Whilst the European states were still ruled by mercantilist notions, they now adopted more comprehensively protectionist policies, concentrating on the promotion of manufacturing activity rather than long-distance trade.
Conclusion
Authors: Feiner Shmuel
Published: February 2021

This concluding chapter looks at Zionism and its relationship with Haskalah. Maskilic concepts, principles, and outlooks continued to influence the nationalist and Zionist stream in eastern Europe, and the maskilic sense of the past resonated in the Zionist historical awareness. This was particularly true in regard to the Zionists' critical attitude towards Jewish life in the Diaspora. There was also a similarity between the Haskalah and Zionism in their models of the role played by the past: both movements made selective use of the past in order to build their identity, find legitimization, and educate Jewish society. However, while Zionism attempted to construct a new national Judaism, the Haskalah hoped to use the past to build a new, regenerated, and transformed Jewish society and culture, free of all its old flaws and fit for normal life in the modern age. In this sense, maskilic history — the fruit of the maskilim's collective sense of the past over a century — did indeed serve the transformative ideology of the Haskalah of bringing the Jewish people out of the old world into the new.
Metternich’s Europe
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores the childhood of Isaac Mayer Wise (1819–1900) and the political climate in which he had grown up. He was born in Steingrub, Bohemia in 1890. Of the first twenty-seven years of the man who said that he became a naturalized American amid these surroundings, very little is known, save that he was born into a fettered society; and its chains were heavier because they had been reimposed after a period of near freedom. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars had spread throughout Europe the aspiration for popular sovereignty and the rights of nationalities: the Congress of Vienna gave scant recognition to the new forces and set about restoring the ancien régime. The genius of those who set themselves to thwart the allied forces of liberalism and nationalism was Clemens von Metternich, Austrian Foreign Minister from 1809 till 1848. It was in the Austrian Empire where Wise lived that, despite Metternich’s awareness of the need for reform, his system operated to the worst effect.
Early Years
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter details Isaac Mayer Wise’s early years. When he was six he went to live at Durmaul with his grandfather. At Durmaul there was a Jewish ‘trivial school’ which he attended, and in the evening he received personal instruction from his grandfather. Wise was twelve when his grandfather died, and from that time onwards he made his way alone. Here, the chapter attempts to establish a chronology from 1831 to 1843, with difficulty. When Wise resolved to leave Bohemia, the fall of the Metternich regime was only two years ahead, but while Metternich was in the saddle the darkness must have seemed impenetrable and interminable. Wise held office at Radnitz in a period when religious reform shared with civil emancipation the attention of European Jewry.
Early Writings
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter details Isaac Mayer Wise’s early writings. After the failure of the union effort, Wise seems to have remained in the background for a while. But he was not idle. Amid troubles Wise seems to have kept steadily at work. His regular duties as rabbi and teacher were substantial; he wanted to turn his back on the rabbinate and continue his study of the law. Wise also set to work on his first book, on the Jewish religion. However, before 1849 drew to a close, there had opened up a new opportunity for Wise to make himself known beyond the confines of Albany. In October, Robert Lyon, of New York, began the publication of his weekly, Asmonean.
Sortie in Charleston: Backlash in Albany
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Isaac Mayer Wise’s 1850 journey to Charleston. This was in a period which has been described as the golden age of Charleston Jewry. In his Reminiscences, Wise attributes his journey south to the state of his health following the death of his daughter in the previous summer. The Charleston congregation later elected Wise for a probationary term of two years as their minister. Wise’s dealings with Charleston, though far from being the origin or the sole cause of the dissensions surrounding his position in Albany, added to the poison in the atmosphere. In Charleston he unfurled his colours as a reformer without any equivocation, which was grist to the mill of enemies who professed concern for Orthodoxy. By accepting election to the Charleston rabbinate he broke his contract with Albany. By accepting re-election at Albany he broke faith with Charleston, which made its feelings known in Albany.
Formulating His Beliefs
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter shows how Isaac Mayer Wise made his first attempt at anything like a systematic exposition of the basic ideas of Judaism. In the first place, he expounds a Maimonidean viewpoint as regards the Bible. Wise also expounds the basic doctrines of Judaism. ‘Judaism’, he declares, ‘is based upon four leading ideas and has, therefore, four principles’. The chapter explores these four principles. Doctrines and observances which did not correspond to these ideas had to be rejected as ‘anti-Jewish and foreign to our system’. Furthermore, Wise’s concern with the resurrection of the dead must also be ascribed to controversies in which he had been engaged immediately before.
A Bible History
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter chronicles Isaac Mayer Wise’s attempts to write a history of the Jews. By the end of 1852 he had resolved to do so. And, being unable to find a publisher, he assumed that responsibility as well. The intention was to complete the work in four volumes; in fact, only the first, carrying the story from Abraham to the destruction of the First Temple, saw the light of day. Wise expounded his views as to the distinction between history and religion in his book. Through this work the chapter shows a man who was unorthodox in regard to miracles, and who nevertheless believed firmly in revelation and believed revelation to be enshrined in the Bible; but he equated revelation with reason. Hence, in his view no miracles were necessary to support the religious and moral truths of the Bible.
Zion College
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores another venture that was close to Isaac Mayer Wise’s heart. In 1854, the Israelite contained an announcement calling the Jews of Cincinnati to a general meeting with a view to establishing ‘a college on the pattern of German universities, connected with a theological seminary, and a seminary for teachers, in order to promulgate science and the interests of Judaism among our fellow-citizens’. An institution of the dimensions contemplated needed more than local support, and Wise immediately took the lead in organizing such support outside Cincinnati through speaking tours. These tours give fresh evidence of Wise’s wide-ranging interests and self-confident versatility. He had written on theological matters; he had written history; he had written novels. Now he turned his hand to descriptive writing.
Cleveland Platform: Quick Victory—Lengthy War
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Isaac Mayer Wise’s advocacy in Cleveland. The mood of elation which had borne him to Cleveland remained after his longed-for conference opened. Both as regards locality and viewpoint, diverse congregations were represented. Shortly after opening, the conference proceeded to elect officers, and Wise was chosen president; Elkan Cohn, his successor at Albany, vice-president; and Max Lilienthal, his associate in Cincinnati, secretary. If any permanent structure was to ensue, Wise would be in an advantageous position to take first place; more immediately, the election placed control in the hands of the Reform element and increased the suspicion felt by the Orthodox.
The Essence of Judaism
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Isaac Mayer Wise’s grand aim of building up a visible edifice of American Judaism. The edifice would need appropriate theological foundations, and Wise wrote explicitly in that field. These writings responded to practical needs also: his two weekly newspapers had appetites which had to be satisfied. Constant reading gave him access to a vast corpus of literature, and he had an energetic mind which could draw on it immediately in reaction to events as they arose. Under such conditions consistency is not to be expected, and it is difficult to isolate a well-rounded statement of beliefs. One consistent thread, his stress on Sinaitic revelation and his belief that Mosaic teaching was being consummated in the American system, has already been mentioned. Here was no isolated off-the-cuff observation but a glimpse of a thread that was expressed throughout his life.
Fighting for Jewish Rights
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers Isaac Mayer Wise’s polemics within the Jewish community and his ‘unbridled belligerency’ against its enemies outside. Despite his many interests and exertions, his capacity for action was never exhausted. Missionaries, denigrators of Judaism, those who swerved by however so little from the American principle of separation of Church and State, as well as obvious antisemites, drew instant retaliation from his pen. The occasions on which Wise felt called upon to act thus are too numerous, and the torrent of words too copious, to permit a representative selection of these writings. The instances cited in this chapter came early in his career in Cincinnati, when Wise had not been three years in the city and the Israelite was scarcely established.
Political Diversions
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores Isaac Mayer Wise’s interest in politics. This interest raises the question whether at any time he considered making politics his career. As the chapter shows, Wise has been involved in politics and with politicians since his entry into the United States, during the Civil War years, and the years following. At a time of Republican domination (he wrote his Reminiscences in 1874–1875), Wise may have been harking back to a ‘might have been’. His 1858 foray into politics, like his candidature for a state senatorship in 1863, was directed against the Republicans. It is evident, moreover, that Wise’s action in 1858 reached out to something larger than local Cincinnati politics.
The Civil War
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Isaac Mayer Wise during the secession crisis and the Civil War. When the possible dissolution of the Union first entered men’s minds, Wise was once again hoping to realize his plan of establishing a college, but the issues which led to secession must have forced themselves on his attention. Cincinnati stood on the border between free and slave states; its environs were the first stage on the ‘Underground Railroad’ by which slaves were taken to Canada for liberation; it was near the scene of attempts, sometimes the cause of riots, to arrest and return slaves under the Fugitive Slave Law. Yet the belief that the fires would cool was widespread, and Wise was by no means alone when he remarked that ‘the two extreme factions will be cooled down before the year ends’. The crisis did not abate, however.
Among the Gentiles (1867–1878)
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores Isaac Mayer Wise’s connections with the Free Religious Association. This was an organization founded in 1867. The leaders were a distinguished intellectual group from the National Conference of Unitarian Churches who could no longer accept the more traditional position of the national body. The Free Religious Association was avowedly of a non-Christian character — a standpoint that had become a matter of contention within the official Unitarian camp. The objects of the association were ‘to promote the interests of pure religion, to encourage the scientific study of theology, and to increase fellowship in the spirit’. In practice the association reflected the humanistic theism espoused by Octavius Brooks Frothingham.
Flirting with the Orthodox
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Isaac Mayer Wise’s connections with the Orthodox. His agitation for a convention had not made him forget his special concern for the training of rabbis in America, but here too he now harnessed it with his concern for an all-embracing union of American Jews. He wrote in the Israelite contesting the view that the question of Reform or Orthodoxy must be decided before a seminary was founded, because then the institution would have to be either exclusively Orthodox or exclusively Reform. He argued that the Jewish preacher needed, together with a good collegiate education, a ‘correct and comprehensive knowledge of the Jewish sources’. Therefore they needed ‘but one seminary for all parties’ but ‘no school of training of the conscience’; and if the congregations united in a convention, they could easily provide a seminary whatever forms one or the other might prefer. This was received with joy in an unexpected quarter. The New York Jewish Messenger, an organ of Orthodox viewpoint closely connected with the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, commended Wise for his views, thus beginning a series of friendly communications between Wise and the Orthodoxy.
Reformers in Conflict: East versus West (1869)
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter recalls a conference that Isaac Mayer Wise held in Cincinnati. Wise had criticized it, but he had not broken with it. He had indicated that he considered himself free to call a conference of congregations, and without stating that he had forgone that right he associated with the Board of Delegates on the footing that it was theologically neutral; but just as little did he cease to count himself as the friend of progress, numbered among the Reform rabbis of America and ready to take a hand in shaping their programme. What they thought of his blowing hot and cold over Philadelphia and his new love for the Board of Delegates is not difficult to guess. In view of the temperament of the parties, and in view of the absence of any general inhibitions against forthright public attacks on each other, it looks as if each side was waiting for the other to offer the casus belli.
Sustaining the College (1875–1883)
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Isaac Mayer Wise’s attempts to keep his college in operation. In a sense, the Hebrew Union College, like Minhag America, was a vestige of a more comprehensive scheme. The all-embracing synod, which would legislate for American Judaism and authorize an official prayer-book as well as an official seminary for training rabbis, had been laid on one side. From time to time Wise still tried to raise the wind in its favour, but he found no support. The union, as established in 1873, was a deliberately circumscribed body, both as to the scope of its powers and as to the area of its membership. Wise’s presence was felt, but in the wings rather than the centre of the stage. The college itself, limited to the preparatory department of a rabbinical school, was only a first instalment of the comprehensive institution Wise had planned. If, as his critics charged, Wise was bent on becoming a ‘western pope’, being given the presidency of Hebrew Union College was hardly a coronation.
Seventieth Birthday: Central Conference of American Rabbis
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter details the occasion of Isaac Mayer Wise’s seventieth birthday. By this time the quarrels within the camp of what he called American Judaism simmered down, and time, the ever-active healer, transformed the ‘great Cincinnati agitator’ into the grand old man of American Judaism. He was still equal to the labours he had undertaken, but was now entering the time of harvest. Year by year the Hebrew Union College brought Wise to the centre of the stage at a grand ceremony. Six years after the first such ceremony, the Plum Street temple resounded with one with which he was yet more intimately connected, and which marks his entry into a golden age — the celebration of his 70th birthday, on 5 April 1889.
Sunset
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the closing years of Isaac Mayer Wise’s life, which were spent in a mood of satisfaction. The structure for American Jewry which he had laboured to build had not been completed to his specifications, but the triad with which he was intimately connected — the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Hebrew Union College, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis — had come near enough to achieving his object. As a national figure on the American Jewish scene he stood alone. (The rival seminary in New York was teetering on the brink of dissolution.) He had the satisfaction of seeing synagogues throughout the country led by his disciples, but if anything clouded the sunset, it was the future of the college. He had carried it on his own shoulders for well-nigh twenty-five years. It was short of funds, and he failed to see among the leaders of the Union the will to ensure that Hebrew Union College was adequately supported.
Introduction
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This introductory chapter contains reflections on Jewish legitimacy in response to a growing crisis looming within the Jewry and Judaism. This crisis refers to the growing number of mutually exclusive and mutually intolerant Judaisms, primarily expressed through the conflict between Orthodox and non-Orthodox movements. The chapter also discusses Maimonides at length. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), known in English as Maimonides and in Hebrew by the acronym Rambam, is a major topic of discussion in the following chapters. It considers Maimonides' thoughts on inclusion and provides a brief exposition of Maimonides' understanding of the nature of human perfection and the criteria which must be satisfied for inclusion in the world to come.
Afterword
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This concluding chapter addresses some of the points raised in reviews of this book as well as some final thoughts on the main thesis of the work — that is, the fundamental meaning of ‘belief’ in Judaism. It also includes some discussion which had not been included in the book's overall research. In particular, the chapter makes a point to discuss the history of the Jews and of Judaism over the last two hundred years. The challenges facing Judaism since the emancipation, it shows, are unlike any faced before; that being the case, the theological toolbox of Judaism must be expanded to include tools for which there was no need before. From there, the chapter addresses some critiques and, in doing so, refers once more to Maimonides.
Response to the New Nazi Government (1933–1934)
Authors: Shapiro Marc B.
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a step back to consider the state of the German Jewry at length after the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in 1933. Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, for his part, held a rather hopeful view of the situation that year, going so far as to repeatedly express that the Jews had nothing to fear from the Nazis, and the controversies his optimistic views caused within the German Jewish intellectual community. In the meantime, Hitler was beginning to implement more antisemitic reforms. His banning of the sheḥitah — the Jewish practice of ritually slaughtering meat — in particular shocked the Jewish community. At the same time that discussions about the sheḥitah issue were going on, Weinberg was confronted by plans to transfer the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary to Palestine. Though a minor episode in Weinberg's life, through it the chapter provides further insight into the relationship between east European talmudists and the modern rabbinical seminary.
Lmitatio Dei and the Idea of Holiness
Authors: Roth Leon
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers the notion of imitation Dei as the basis of all ethical theory and how it relates to Judaism in particular. In the philosophy of religion, the question of the relationship of God and man is central. It may be approached from two angles: either by asking how, and why, God created man, or by asking what difference it makes, for man, that he was created by God. If one adopts the second approach and seeks an explanation, one finds the answer in the fact, or axiom, that it is from God that all man's ethical values flow — that is to say, their instinctive awareness of things that they should do, and of the way in which they should proceed. If this is followed up by enquiry into the nature of such awareness, one frequently encounters the notion that it is God who is the model for that ethical behaviour which it is incumbent upon us to adopt and to ‘cleave’ to — that is, in essence, the ethical obligation means ‘to emulate God in all ways possible to us’.
Some Reflections on the Interpretation of Scripture
Authors: Roth Leon
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers the problem of choosing between scriptural opinion and scriptural quotation. An opinion is an opinion and a quotation is a quotation. The chapter ponders if there are any grounds for choosing between them. Yet it is true that we do choose between them. We follow the one and reject the other. But when it comes to justifying our choice we are almost always at a loss. But the difficulty remains, and it is not a theoretical one only. The chapter shows that ‘the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose’; but when we meet such a one — ‘an evil soul producing holy witness’ — refuting or dissuading such a figure might be difficult.
The First Part
Authors: Sahula Isaac Ibn
Published: February 2021

1lit. ‘one who raises difficulties’. As used throughout by Ibn Sahula as the title of the challenger, it indicates the cynical questioning of accepted values and traditional teaching.

2 The phrase ‘commonplace’ (i.e. Greek , ‘individual’ > ‘normal, common, unofficial, proverb’), is used to introduce a most cynical adage in ...
The Second Part
Authors: Sahula Isaac Ibn
Published: February 2021

1(‘I shall jump on’), although it is the reading of almost all manuscripts (see critical note), must be a corruption of (‘I shall wax wroth’), as in the biblical source (Isa. 57: 17).

2 For what follows, cf. Aristotle on contraries () and opposites (...
Liberal Supernaturalism
Authors: Jacobs Louis
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes “liberal supernaturalism,” which affirms both belief in God and a rejection of fundamentalism. It focuses on Nahman Krochmal, a pioneer of the Wissen schaft des Judentums movement, in which Judaism was studied in terms of its historical development. Krochmal wrote his Moreh nevukhei hazeman (“Guide for the Perplexed of the Time”), which was published in Lemberg in 1851, fifteen years after his death, by the great Jewish historian Leopold Zunz, the leading figure in the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement. Krochmal's title is directed to contemporaries and intelligent Jews in the first half of the nineteenth century. The chapter highlights how Krochmal offered guidance to Jews with the particular problem of their time, of the modern age.
Introduction: The Jews of Galicia under the Habsburgs
Authors: Bartal Israel , Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

This introductory chapter charts the history of the Galician Jews. It starts from the beginnings of Jewish settlement in Galicia during the eighteenth century and culminates in the outbreak of the Second World War. For centuries the area had a large Jewish population dispersed throughout hundreds of large and small towns, villages, and estates, and the history of this community is inseparable from the history of Polish Jewry. In Galicia, as elsewhere in Poland, the Jews combined the Ashkenazi tradition of study of Mishnah and halakhic literature with mysticism, which played a central role in the Sabbatean movement and the emergence of hasidism. On the other hand, however, several generations of Austrian rule and exposure to the German language and culture left their mark and drew the Jews of the region towards central European culture.
The Jewish Question in Galicia: The Reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II, 1772‒1790
Authors: Grodziski Stanisław
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the reforms imposed by the Austrian authorities, who did not recognize the institutions and legal norms that had been inherited from Polish times in the annexed territory of Galicia. Specifically, it examines those reforms that pertained to the legal status of the Jewish population and can be separated quite easily from the wider Theresian–Josephine reforms. Here, the status of the Jews was by no means a secondary issue. The consequences of these reforms may be appraised on several levels. The chapter takes into consideration, first, the economic, social, and legal situation of the Jewish population in Galicia; second, that population's degree of loyalty to the new authorities; third, Jewish coexistence with the Polish population (and, to the degree that the Ukrainian nationalist movement developed, also with the Ukrainian population); and fourth, the situation of Galician Jewry in comparison with the position of Jews under the Polish republic before partition and with the situation of those Jews who found themselves under Russian rule after 1795.
Ludwig Gumplowicz’s Programme for the Improvement of the Jewish Situation
Authors: Kozińska-witt Hanna
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the works of sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz. It shows that it was in his Kraków period that Gumplowicz developed the basis for his scholarly world-view and for his thoughts about Jewish identity and its relation to the Christian world. That both his first and last works from this Galician period deal with Jewish identity shows how important it was for him. Like most of his contemporaries, Gumplowicz was extremely critical of the current ‘Jewish situation’ — that is, Jews' living conditions, their place in society, and their morals. Poverty, mismanagement, and disorder were bad enough, but even worse was the cultural and moral corruption of Polish Jews. They lived under the total control of the Jewish traditional élite and suffered from isolation, caused by many factors.
Enlightenment, Assimilation, and Modern Identity: The Jewish Élite in Galicia
Authors: Holzer Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter subverts the traditional image of Galician Jewry around the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Far from being ignorant and uneducated, this chapter reveals a significant number of secularly educated Galician Jewish academics and doctors. It shows that, in spite of the resistance to secular education among Galician Jews, there were many within the community who wished to allow their children to profit from the new opportunities open to them. The chapter goes on to explore how the Hebrew, German, and Polish cultural influences all managed to persist throughout the final decades of the nineteenth century, although Yiddish remained identified with the uneducated. Nevertheless, it is revealed that, over time, the balance between these three factors began to shift.
Johann Anton Krieger, Printer of Jewish Books in Nowy Dwór
Authors: Ringelblum Emanuel
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Johann Anton Krieger. Krieger played a central role in the history of Jewish printing in Poland in the eighteenth century. This remarkably enterprising and versatile man owned a printing press in Nowy Dwór, in the province of Mazovia, and, for a time, another in the town of Korzec, in the province of Volynia. He also established a Jewish printing business close to Warsaw and engaged in extensive publishing activities. What is more, he influenced the policies of the Polish financial authorities, compelling them to take account of the needs of the Jewish printing industry inside Poland and to protect it from foreign competition while it was still weak.
Book Reviews
Authors: Stone Daniel
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents a brief analysis of Larry Wolff's Inventing Eastern Europe. The book aims to deconstruct the term ‘eastern Europe’, arguing that the modern view of this region as exotic and backward took form in the eighteenth century — a point that provides much food for thought. Wolff argues his central point, that west Europeans had an exotic image of eastern Europe in the eighteenth century, convincingly, although his evidence suggests that the image took only preliminary form then. He observes in passing, however, that this image only became a full-blown ‘phantasmagoria’ in the nineteenth century. Despite the truly impressive amount of western European literature that Wolff has uncovered to support his thesis, some of his points seem forced. The chapter thus undertakes an analysis of the book's weaker points.
Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia
Authors: Haberer Erich
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Erich Haberer's Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia. This book seeks to challenge the notion that traditional historiography has marginalized the contributions of Jews to narodnichestvo (revolutionary populism) in Russia in the 1870s and 1880s. The chapter takes a look at how Haberer's book offers an original, long-overdue account of the Jewish role in populism, with special attention devoted to the important but neglected role of individual Jewish populists. It shows that although Haberer does not conclusively prove his thesis of a distinctive Jewish role, he does demonstrate the need to revise a Russo-centric historiography that minimized the role of minorities in general and particularly of Jews in Russia's seemingly ‘nativist’ populist movement. This book poses important questions, challenges conventional assumptions, and invites more research on the non-Russian dynamics of Russia's history.
Die Polnischen Jesuiten, der ‘Przegląd Powszechny’ und der Politische Katholizismus in der Zweiten Republik. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Katholischen Presse Polens Zwischen den Weltkriegen, 1918–1939
Authors: Caumanns Ute
Published: February 2021

This chapter covers a dissertation on a particular Catholic journal published before 1939 in Poland. Przegląd Powszechny is a monthly published by the Jesuits and is exceptional among Polish journals in that it has managed to survive from its founding in 1884 to this day, although not without difficulties and breaks. The chapter takes a look at the observations the dissertation's author, Ute Caumanns, makes regarding the Jesuits and how they comprised a kind of ideological avant-garde for the Vatican in Poland. The evolution and views of Przegląd accordingly form part of the history of the Polish Catholic Church and the history of political ideologies in Poland. The chapter shows how Caumanns's book provides a thorough study of the most important problems presented in the journal.