bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Jewish Barristers in the Victorian and Edwardian Era 1890‒1914
Authors: Cooper John
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the Jewish barristers of Victorian and Edwardian England. The Jewish giants of the Victorian Bar, men such as George Jessel, Judah Benjamin, and Arthur Cohen, devoted themselves to the practice of commercial and international law. They were followed by younger barristers, who likewise specialized in various aspects of commercial law or practised in the Chancery courts. Meanwhile, many of the prominent Jewish members of the Edwardian Bar were deeply involved in communal affairs and supplied much of the leadership of Anglo-Jewry. The number of Jews who held judicial office during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras was small, but between the world wars their number shrank still further, paralleling the dearth of consultant positions in teaching hospitals held by Jews with a positive Jewish identity.
Conclusion
Authors: Cooper John
Published: February 2021

This concluding chapter summarizes the book's findings on the history of the entry of Jews into the medical and legal professions. During the late Victorian age and the Edwardian era, it was possible for a few Jews from patrician or wealthy merchant families to rise to the top of the Bar, or the front rank of the medical profession, while retaining a Jewish identity. Between the two world wars, English society was much less open than in the late Victorian and Edwardian years. This was a time of heavy unemployment and economic malaise, disfigured by sharpening antisemitism which did not abate until a decade after the Second World War. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a predominance of Jewish doctors over Jewish lawyers in England, but by the 1990s this situation had been reversed and Jewish lawyers were in a majority. Since the 1990s, there has been a decline generally in the number of applicants for medical schools in England. Among these professionals today, there is on the one hand an imperceptible drift by some out of the community, without pressure from the necessity for radical assimilation, and a switch by another group of professionals from the Orthodoxy of their fathers to Reform Judaism, which they find more compatible with the daily rhythm of their careers.
The Early Years
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter traces the early years of Arthur Szyk's life, from his birth to the early nineteenth century, before World War II began. He was born in Łódź, an industrial city in the Russian-dominated portion of Poland, in 1894. At the time Poland was not an intact, independent nation; it had been partitioned among Russia, Prussia, and Austria more than a century earlier. It was within this backdrop that the young Szyk began cultivating an interest in art. He also began to develop a passionate interest in history, both world history and the history of his people. More importantly, even at this very early age, Szyk saw the power of art within the political arena. The chapter tracks his early career in the arts during the early 1900s, and how he began to apply politics to his creative work as tensions between Poland and Russia reached their breaking point.
A Public Service Artist
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Arthur Szyk's illustrations for print advertising. As well as appearing among the news, features, and editorial comment of several American periodicals, Szyk's cartoons also figured in some of these same magazines, and in several others, in a completely different context. Many American corporations used the work of artists in their printed advertising, and Szyk created illustrations for a number of them. Since virtually every American company involved in war material was eager to tell the public about its particular role in the struggle, there were many opportunities for all types of artists. Thus the ranks of editorial cartoonists who also worked on these commercial projects were swelled by numerous other artists and designers, including Szyk.
Illustrations for a Young Peace
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter covers more of Arthur Szyk's projects during the post-war years, for both political and commercial purposes. It describes his series of single-page illuminations representing the various countries then forming the new United Nations Organization as well as a series of stamps commissioned by the Republic of Liberia, which were the first multicoloured stamps issued by the country. Many smaller projects also date from this period. There were several designs for book plates for individuals and organizations, including a number of full-colour designs for Christmas cards. Some of his commercial illustrations during the immediate post-war years include several advertisements for Nescafé, a new instant coffee, which were published in popular magazines such as Collier's. In addition to this series, he created single drawings and paintings specifically for reproduction as frontispieces on other Jewish calendars, as well as miniature paintings depicting the scholar Hillel and biblical scenes, such as Cain and Abel, and Samuel anointing Saul.
The Jewish Artist
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers who or what makes a Jewish artist. The issue is one that art historians and artists alike have debated for many years. Defining what is and is not Jewish art has continued to be a troubling issue — more so for how it relates to Arthur Szyk's work in particular. Though Szyk considered himself a Jewish artist and Jewish art and subject-matter extensively permeated his life and work, he is curiously absent from most discussions of twentieth-century Jewish artists. His work focused on Jewish subjects far more than most of the artists who have been included in that discourse. The chapter thus makes the case for Szyk's inclusion in the realm of Jewish art discourse.
Welcoming Ex-Jews into the Jewish Historiographical Fold
Authors: Endelman Todd M.
Published: February 2021

This chapter refers to the emancipation and enlightenment that failed to uproot hoary views about Jewish otherness nor erase the stigma of Jewishness in an era of unconditional social acceptance. It talks about how Jews became 'less Jewish' when antisemitism persisted and, in some contexts, worsened. It also explains how the enlightenment and scientific and industrial revolutions undermined the doctrinal foundations of Christianity, which initiated the tradition of viewing Jews as demonic outsiders and did not eliminate the stigma attached to Jewishness. The chapter explores the perception that Jews were different in kind from non-Jews that was too rooted in Western culture and sentiment to disappear when the religious doctrines that had engendered it in the first place weakened. It then describes Jews in liberal states like Britain, France, and the United States, who found being Jewish problematic to one degree or another.
Jewish Converts in Nineteenth-Century Warsaw
Authors: Endelman Todd M.
Published: February 2021

This chapter recounts 445,000 Jews who crowded into the Warsaw ghetto in which 2,000 Christians were of Jewish origin. It describes how Jewish converts enjoyed de facto a privileged social position before the mass deportations of summer 1942 that ended the 'normal' life of the ghetto. It also talks about Józef Szerynski, a colonel in the Polish police before the war whom Adam Czerniaków appointed as the first commander of the ghetto police force. The chapter recounts how Szerynski surrounded himself with other converts, baptized Jews that were also conspicuous as hospital administrators and as heads of clinics and other public health units. It refers to Jewish converts who benefited from the assistance of the Catholic charity Caritas, which operated from the two parish churches in the ghetto.
A Library of Hope and Destruction
Authors: Schwarz Jan
Published: February 2021

Just as the survivors return to life, so does the Yiddish book. To collect the disposed holy documents, to redeem the homeless letters, that is the demand of the hour.

ASHER PEN

‘Naye yidishe bikher in argentine’,

Jewish Book Annual (1946–7)

[T]he series presents us with one of the most important efforts ever undertaken anywhere in the world to perpetuate and chronicle the history, the lifestyle, the spiritual creativity, and the ultimate destruction of Polish Jewry....
Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland
Authors: Wodzinski Marcin
Published: February 2021

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.
Introduction
Authors: Wodziński Marcin
Published: February 2021

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the conflict between representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment (the Haskalah) and its rival hasidic movement, which has been seen in the historical literature as one of the most important debates to occupy Jewish society in central and eastern Europe in the modern age. Indeed, the earliest studies devoted to this question made their appearance at the dawn of modern Jewish historiography. However, a closer reading of such studies reveals that the overwhelming majority of references to the ‘age-old hostility’ of enlightened Jews to hasidism are based on stereotypes that often obscure a proper understanding of the sources. This book analyses attitudes towards hasidism among a few famous representatives of the Polish Haskalah, from the first enlightened comments concerning hasidism at the end of the eighteenth century to the demise of the Haskalah and its successors at the start of the twentieth century. It also looks at the ideas, concepts, and prejudices of a broad section of the maskilim among Polish Jews.
Some Basic Characteristics of the Jewish Experience in Poland
Authors: Hundert Gershon David
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates the basic characteristics of the Jewish experience in Poland. For much of its history, the Polish-Jewish community was the largest in the world. It is generally asserted that there was dramatic growth in Jewish numbers during the 16th century, but it is also known that the proportion of Jews in the towns of Poland–Lithuania increased dramatically during a 150-year period beginning in the late 17th century and continuing through the 18th century. In this case, there was relative security in numbers. More than security, there was a sense of rootedness and permanence about this community. Another basic characteristic of the historical experience of Polish Jewry is the Ashkenazic character of that community. Beginning with medieval Ashkenazic forms, the Jews of the Polish Commonwealth developed the most ramified and durable of the autonomous institutions of Ashkenazic Jewry.
Loyalty to the Crown or Polish Patriotism? The Metamorphoses of an Anti-Polish Story of the 1863 Insurrection
Authors: Bartal Israel
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses the 1863 Polish insurrection, which had significant echoes in the Jewish society of Eastern Europe. That community, dispersed throughout the diverse areas of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, often found itself in a situation which recurred a number of times in 19th- and 20th-century Jewish history: between the hammer of the Empire and the anvil of the autochtonic nation aspiring for independence. Resolving the matter of which side to favour was often an urgent, concrete question. On the one hand, the Jews were faithful to a long tradition of loyalty to the Crown, a tradition which grew stronger in the decades preceding the Rebellion even in haskalah circles; on the other hand, the Polish nobility and broad strata in Eastern-European Jewish society had been closely associated for many generations, an association still very strong in the mid-19th century. Jewish memoirs offer many descriptions of the Jews' situation during the Polish uprisings against the Russian regime in 1831 and 1863. Those Jews who had drawn closer to Polish culture identified with the Polish objectives. The Polish side, however, demonstrated lack of faith in the Jews and oftentimes accused them of spying for the Russians.
In Anger and In Sorrow Towards a Polish-Jewish Dialogue
Authors: Scharf Rafael F.
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Polish–Jewish dialogue. The fabric of Polish–Jewish cohabitation on Polish soil has been irreversibly destroyed. The history of Poland in the version taught and presented to the nation is full of falsehoods, as happens everywhere where an official version has a monopoly fitting the current dogma and where the researcher is hampered by censorship and lack of access to sources. Moral regeneration thus calls for an authentic dialogue with the past. The Jews appear, to Poles in quest of self-knowledge, as witnesses who must be listened to carefully and who must, of course, be questioned. If a means has been found for Poles and Jews to meet on neutral ground, it is important that they should tell each other what most concerns them, not for the sake of recrimination and rhetoric, but in order to come closer to the truth.
The Jewish Community of the Second Republic in Polish Historiography of the 1980s
Authors: Chojnowski Andrzej
Published: February 2021

This chapter addresses the Jewish community of the Second Republic in Polish historiography of the 1980s. The problem of the ethnic minorities in the Second Republic – their socio-economic situation, their role in the political and cultural life of the country, their relations with the state – is one of the most neglected fields of post-war Polish historiography. The situation improved only slightly in the 1970s, minimally as regards the Jewish question; in Poland, this still remains the domain of highly specialized publications which do not reach the general reader. To be sure, the authors of synthetic or monographic studies concerning the history of the Second Republic have been unable totally to ignore the problem of the nationalities, although their approaches often give rise to reservations. For instance, when Andrzej Ajnenkiel published in 1980 the second volume of his political history of Poland, national minorities were treated sparingly. In describing the results of the 1931 census, the author briefly discusses the size and socio-professional structure of the Jewish population and the rising influence of the Zionist movement in the second half of the 1930s. Elsewhere, the Jewish population appears almost exclusively as the object of anti-semitic propaganda and pogroms organized by nationalists of both Polish and, more rarely, Ukrainian camps.
The Western Allies and the Holocaust
Authors: Engel David
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies the response of the Western Allies to the Holocaust. The response of the United States to the successive stripping of the dignity, freedom, and the lives of six million European Jews has been revealed as one of indifference, and perhaps even of complicity, in what the Nazis termed the ‘Final Solution’ of the Jewish question. Meanwhile, a 1973 study showed the British Government's attitude toward assisting Jewish refugees from Nazi rule between 1933 and 1939 to be ‘comparatively compassionate, even generous’ when contrasted with that of the United States and other countries. Another study detailed, among other things, the manner in which both major Western Allies' thinking on the Jewish question actually served to reinforce each other's unwillingness to respond positively to European Jewry's cries for help. Whatever the case, the notion that many Jews' lives might have been saved, had the two chief Western Allies been especially interested in seeing this happen, appears firmly established by historical investigation.
Ashkenazic Jewry and Catastrophe
Authors: Zipperstein Steven J.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Ashkenazic Jewry and catastrophe. When Simon Dubnow was invited to contribute to the first volume of the Yiddish-language Historishe shriftn (1929), he submitted a piece on the 18th-century Jewish catastrophe in Uman. The article, an essay accompanying two annotated versions of Jewish folk chronicles on the massacre, was written in 1921 in the wake of the Ukrainian pogroms of the previous year that left as many as 70,000 Jews dead. Dubnow stated that the Khmelnitsky pogroms of 1648, the Uman massacre, and the recent devastations following World War I were part of a continuous, seamless saga. Reactions to catastrophe such as Dubnow's, observes David G. Roskies in Against the Apocalypse, with their tendency to concentrate on the cyclical nature of horror, are harmful and yet very persuasive. Indeed, the tendency to understand catastrophe along these lines is deeply embedded in the Jewish consciousness, he contends. Such responses may be traced back to rabbinical liturgical poetry and even earlier; they continue to shape Jewish literary reactions to catastrophe to the present day.
Jacob Goldberg, editor. Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth. Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland-Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Critical Edition of Original Latin and Polish Documents with English Introductions and Notes. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1985. Pp. xxvi, 477.
Authors: Hundert Gershon David
Published: February 2021

This chapter reviews Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth (1985), which was edited by Jacob Goldberg. Publication of this work is cause for celebration in the scholarly community because a great wealth of rich and hitherto unknown primary source material is now available to students of the history of the Jews in early modern Poland–Lithuania. The original texts of sixty-three privileges granted to Jewish communities in the 16th to 18th centuries are published here on the basis of manuscript sources, most of them for the first time. Each privilege is presented in its original language, carefully edited, and introduced with a brief summary in English of its contents. Twenty-four of the privileges concern private towns and were issued by the hereditary owners, while thirty-nine privileges concern royal cities and are signed by the monarch or by royal officials. The geographical distribution of the towns represented in the collection is also quite balanced as reflected in the excellent map included in the volume.
Chone Shmeruk. The Esterke Story in Yiddish and Polish Literature. A Case Study in the Mutual Relations of Two Cultural Traditions. Jerusalem: Studies of the Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jews, The Hebrew University. 1985. Pp. 119.
Authors: Błoński Jan
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores Chone Shmeruk's The Esterke Story in Yiddish and Polish Literature (1985). This book focuses on the Esterke story, which concerns Casimir the Great's Jewish mistress called Ester (Esterke, Esterka). The story of Esterka was a very flexible legend. It was first used by Poles to condemn the privileges granted by Casimir to the Jews; later, it became a symbol for the possibility of amicable understanding between the two people and even measured assimilation. For the Jews, Yiddish literature came to see it as the self-sacrifice made by a Jewess to improve the lot of the Jews. It was viewed in this literature as indicative of Jewish success, but also disillusionment or even betrayal.
Raphael Mahler. Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment. Translated from the Yiddish by Eugene Orenstein, translated from the Hebrew by Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz Klein. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. 1985. Pp. xiv, 331.
Authors: Rapoport-Albert Ada
Published: February 2021

This chapter reflects on Raphael Mahler's Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment (1985). This is a welcome addition to the slowly growing body of classic studies of Hasidism in English translation. The first part of the book, concerning Galicia, was first published in Yiddish in 1942. The second part, which deals with Congress Poland, appeared together with the first in an expanded Hebrew version in 1961. An avowed subscriber to ‘the method of historical materialism’, Mahler presents the clash between Hasidism and Haskalah as ‘the antithesis that reflected the conflicting interests and philosophies of two classes of the Jewish people’. The non-Hasidic Orthodoxy of Galicia is classified in this scheme as representing the same class interests as those associated with the Maskilim, an affinity which, according to Mahler, accounts for the Enlighteners' initial hope of aligning themselves with the Orthodox opponents of Hasidism in the campaign to eradicate the socially disruptive and religiously dissenting Hasidic movement.
David Berger, editor. The Legacy of Jewish Migration: 1881 and Its Impact. New York: Columbia University Press. 1983. Pp. 187.
Authors: Morawska Ewa
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines David Berger's The Legacy of Jewish Migration: 1881 and Its Impact (1983). The wave of pogroms in Russia in 1881–2 forcefully brought to the surface a complex of demographic, ideological, and cultural developments that had been working their way through the Jewish communities of the Pale since the mid-19th century and which were to affect profoundly modern Jewish history. Commemorating the centennial of those catalytic years and their aftermath, especially the mass emigration and resettlement of Russian Jews during the three decades that followed, the book under review re-examines the impact of these events on different areas of life of 20th-century Jewry. The volume consists of fourteen short essays presented originally as papers at the 9th Annual Conference on Society in Change held at Brooklyn College in March of 1981. The Legacy of Jewish Migration reads well, and the variety of topics treated in the book successfully holds the reader's attention; also, bibliographies appended to each selection are useful and up to date.
Die Juden in den biihmischen Liindern. Vortriige der Tagung des Collegium Carolinum in Bad Wiessee (27, 29 Nov. 1981), München/Wien: R. Oldenbourg Verlag. 1983 (Bad Wiesseer Tagungen des Collegium Carolinum, ed. Ferdinand Seibt). Pp. 369.
Authors: Golczewski Frank
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on a collection of papers from the Collegium Carolinum, which was edited by Ferdinand Seibt. The Collegium Carolinum is a serious scholarly society, mainly concerned with the study of the history of the lands that became Czechoslovakia in 1918. While the German population of those territories and the history of the First Czechoslovak Republic are its primary interests, this volume is a departure from both subjects. It deals with the history of the Jews in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia — the lands of the Bohemian crown. While some of the articles on early modern times deal with the same issues, the coverage lessens towards the end of the existence of an organized Jewry in Czechoslovakia.
Raul Hilberg. The Destruction of the European Jews. 2nd edn., 3 vols. New York: Holmes and Meier. 1985. Pp. xii, 1223.
Authors: Cohen Richard I.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews (1985). Hilberg's predominant concern in 1961 and again in 1985 was to fully disentangle the labyrinth of the intricate Nazi bureaucracy, which remains for him the clue to understanding how the mass murder of some 5,200,000, according to Hilberg's calculation, was possible. Thus, Hilberg has fully preserved the structure, the method of inquiry, and the interpretation embedded in the first edition and rarely sees the need to deviate from his earlier presentation. The prism of the German bureaucracy serves Hilberg to view the evolution of the destruction process and it is through its horrifying success that the tragic failure of the Jews to counter effectively the destruction process is assessed. As such, Hilberg looms as the functionalist par excellence. Save for his opening chapter, where he pits Nazi anti-semitism against previous anti-semitic regulations to show the ideological and legalistic parallels and divergencies, Hilberg shies away from some of the major questions which have attracted historical enquiry in the last quarter of a century.
Władysław Bartoszewski. Das Warschauer Ghetto - wie es wirklich war. Zeugenbericht eines Christen. Mit einer Einleitung von Stanislaw Lem. Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. 1983. Pp. 124.
Authors: Fox John P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies the works of Władysław Bartoszewski and Oswald Amstler. Almost half of Bartoszewski's present account is a useful presentation of contemporary documents and records of events both within and pertaining to the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw up to the great deportations of the summer of 1942. The rest of his story concerns his own involvement in aid to the Jews from that time on. Meanwhile, the pamphlet by Oswald Amstler is a short but interesting collection of eye-witness accounts of particular instances of murder and terror in the Nazi concentration and extermination camps, with particular reference to the situation of children, their mutual help, and their rescue or relief whenever that became possible. Both publications add to the current knowledge of the subject of the Nazi system of terror. Above all, though, their greatest contribution is to force the reader to think more seriously about key issues such as the nature of human behaviour in extreme circumstances, besides forcing a realization that ordinary mores of human morality are hardly applicable to such conditions.
Znak No. 339-340. The Jews in Poland and the World. Catholicism/Judaism. (Cracow, February-March 1983.) Pp. 407 (167-574).
Authors: Scharf Rafael
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses the group of Catholic writers and thinkers who, under the editorship of Jerzy Turowicz, publish in Cracow a weekly newspaper, Tygodnik Powszechny. They have, over a long period of time, established a solid reputation for this independent periodical which the government tolerates. The same group also publishes a monthly called Znak (The Sign) devoted to the same political and religious issues, but somewhat weightier and less ephemeral than their other publications. The entire, enlarged, double-number February–March of 1983 — to coincide with the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising — was given over to the twin topic: The Jews in Poland and in the world; Catholicism–Judaism. This was, in Polish terms, an outstanding publishing event, in the quality and variety of contributions — over 400 pages of close print and a set of compelling photographs.
Gershon David Hundert and Gershon C. Bacon, editors. The Jews in Poland and Russia: Bibliographical Essays. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1984. Pp. 276.
Authors: Seltzer Robert M.
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies The Jews in Poland and Russia (1984), which was edited by Gershon David Hundert and Gershon C. Bacon. Hundert and Bacon have with great care and assiduousness produced a volume which puts in their debt all those who labour in the field of East European Jewish studies. These bibliographic essays constitute a thoughtful and highly professional summing up of modern scholarship on Jewish life in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century, in the lands of partitioned Poland (except Prussia), in the Russian empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and in Poland and the USSR up to the present decade. As the editors point out, the volume is comprised of two books bound as one: Hundert's account of scholarship on the Jews in Poland–Lithuania from the 12th century to the first partition and Bacon's on the subsequent history of the Jews of Poland and Russia. Hundert's account is neatly divided into six parts: reference aids, surveys, studies of the autonomous Jewish institutions, local histories, ‘histories by period’, and cultural and religious history. Bacon's half discusses general and reference works, and then each of the major periods of East European Jewish history.
Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This is a book on history of ideas which traces the development of creed formation in Judaism from its inception with Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) to the beginning of the sixteenth century when systematic attention to the problem disappeared from the agenda of Jewish intellectuals. The dogmatic systems of Maimonides, Duran, Crescas, Albo, Bibago, Abravanel, and a dozen lesser-known figures are described, analysed, and compared. Relevant texts are presented in English translation. For the most part these are texts which have never been critically edited and translated before. Among the theses defended in the book are the following: that systematic attention to dogma qua dogma was a new feature in Jewish theology introduced by Maimonides (for reasons examined at length in the book); that the subject languished for the two centuries after Maimonides’ death until it was revived in fifteenth-century Spain in response to Christian attacks on Judaism; that the differing systems of dogma offered by medieval Jewish thinkers reflect not different conceptions of what Judaism is, but different conceptions of what a principle of Judaism is; and that the very project of creed formation reflects an essentially Greek as opposed to a biblical/rabbinic view of the nature of religious faith and that this accounts for much of the resistance which Maimonides’ innovation aroused.
Maimonides
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter shows that, in order to counteract perverted habits of thought and in order to perfect halakhic observance among the Jewish people of his age, Moses Maimonides, consciously adapting Muslim religious categories to Jewish uses, laid down thirteen principles of faith which he wanted his readers to understand as dogmas in the strict sense of the term. Maimonides was consistent in his approach to these principles and, despite apparent deviations in the second text in which they occur, he was actually very faithful to his original formulation. The only exception to this is his addition of belief in creation to the fourth principle. Maimonides arranged the thirteen principles in such a way that they fall into three groups. Both the groupings and the principles themselves were arranged in a logical order. These groupings are reflected in the structure of the Guide of the Perplexed.
Duran
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Rabbi Shimon ben Ẓemaḥ Duran (1361–1444). Duran was one of the leading halakhists of the fifteenth century and his responsa are an important source of information concerning the social and economic history of North African Jewry and concerning the problems of the conversos in the first half of the fifteenth century. He is less well known as a philosopher, although his contribution to Jewish dogmatics is usually mentioned in connection with studies of Joseph Albo, whom he decisively influenced. Duran did more than simply influence Albo, however; he introduced many of the ideas and motifs which were to dominate the discussion of Jewish dogma in the next two centuries. He demonstrated a tolerance unique to his age, and acted as a sort of bridge connecting two entirely different conceptions of what a principle of faith was. It has been alleged that many of his ideas concerning the dogmas of Judaism are derived from Averroës; this is not so, and while his philosophy might have been eclectic and derivative, his comments on the dogmas of Judaism are original, if not always consistent.
Isaac Abravanel
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Rabbi Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508). He was the last medieval Jewish thinker systematically and extensively to deal with the question of the principles of Judaism. Indeed, he devoted an entire book to the subject, the Rosh Amanah. This book is ostensibly devoted to defending Maimonides’ thirteen principles in the face of the criticisms levelled against them by Crescas and Albo. But, paradoxically, and despite its avowed aim, the Rosh Amanah is best known for Abravanel's claim that Judaism has no principles of faith at all. The chapter thus considers whether or not Abravanel truly rejects the claim that Judaism has principles of faith.
Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This book presents Maimonides against the religious background that informed his many innovative and influential choices. The book not only analyses the thought of the great religious thinker but contextualizes it in terms of the ‘proto-kabbalistic’ Judaism that preceded him. The book shows how the Judaism that Maimonides knew had come to conceptualize the world as an enchanted universe, governed by occult affinities. It shows why Maimonides rejected this and how he went about doing it. The book argues that Maimonides' attempted reformation failed, the clearest proof of that being the success of the kabbalistic counter-reformation which his writings provoked. It shows how Maimonides rethought Judaism in different ways. It is in highlighting this and identifying Maimonides as a religious reformer that this book makes its key contribution. Maimonides created a new Judaism, ‘disenchanted’, depersonalized, and challenging; a religion that is at the same time elitist and universalist. The book's analysis also shows the deep configuration of Judaism in a new light. If Maimonides was able to reform so many aspects of rabbinic Judaism single-handedly, to enrich it by importing such dramatically different concepts, it shows that the profound structures of this religion are flexible enough to allow the emergence and success of astonishing reforms. The fact that, great as Maimonides was, he did not overcome the traditional forms of proto-kabbalism shows that the dynamic of religion is much more complex than subscribing to authorities, however widely accepted.
The Hebrew Language
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at the one issue on which Rabbi Yom Tov ben Abraham of Seville sides with Nahmanides against Maimonides: the status of the Hebrew language. Maimonides denied that there is anything intrinsically unique about Hebrew. He maintained, in effect, that the sanctity of Hebrew has nothing to do with the facts that the Bible was written in it; that God said ‘Let there be light’ in it and in so doing created the universe; that it is the language of prophecy; that it was the ‘ur-language’ of humankind; or that it is the most exalted language, spiritually and poetically, on earth. Hebrew is called holy simply because it is a language without words for foul and disgusting matters, especially concerning sex and defecation. Thus, Maimonides claims that Hebrew is holy because of one of its characteristics, a characteristic which could, in principle, be shared by other languages. Hebrew is a language like other languages, only more refined.
Angels
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter explains that one of the prominent characteristics of the world that Maimonides consciously rejected is its angelology. There are a number of aspects of traditional beliefs about angels that Maimonides must have found hard to accept: their independence, corporeality, and vice-regency. However, while he could not have been happy with rabbinic personification of angels, with rabbinic doctrines of fallen angels, and with some talmudic texts which present the angel Metatron as a kind of vice-regent to God, none of these presents more difficulties than biblical anthropomorphism. Why is he so troubled by the existence of intermediaries between God and humans? It is the prominent place of angels in extra-rabbinic literature that was probably the focal point of Maimonides' concern, but it is also likely that the ease with which talmudic rabbis saw angels as intermediaries between humans and God troubled him as well. Examining a custom widespread throughout the Jewish world today will illustrate the point.
Some a priori Issues in Jewish Historiography
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers five a priori issues: what Jews are, the status of the Exile (galut), how Jews fit into history, which metahistory to choose, and metahistory as destiny. Anyone who sets out to write about Jewish history — no matter what period or place — confronts these basic questions about the enterprise before actually undertaking the task. One's position on these fundamental problems creates a framework within which the research will be presented and by which the narrative will be significantly affected. Before the development of postmodern consciousness, the engagement of Jewish historians with these issues was usually oblique and tacit, their positions typically presented as part of the conclusions of their research. However, it is now apparent that these positions represented prior assumptions that, in part, guided that research, and influenced its interpretation and presentation.
The Postmodern Period in Jewish History
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

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.
Hybrid with What? The Relationship between Jewish Culture and Other People’s Cultures
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines some problems posed by the Jewish pluralism paradigm. With regard to the metasolution of influence, there is a firm article of faith shared by practically all of today's Judaica scholars that, in all times and places, pre-modern or ‘traditional’ Jews lived in intimate interaction with surrounding cultures to the point where they may be considered to be embedded in them and, consequently, indebted to them in terms of culture. This contrasts with an older conception of Jewish culture which represented Jews as living in at least semi-isolation from the non-Jewish world. The chapter thus demonstrates that there are more than these two possible approaches to the history of Jewish culture, and that these two themselves should be understood in a more sophisticated way. It asserts that the first approach (universal cultural influence, in its incarnation as hybridity theory), when applied mechanically, unimaginatively, and uncritically can be as ideological, dogmatic, and inappropriate as the second (Jewish cultural autonomy) often has been. The chapter next contemplates the metahistories implied by the various approaches to Jewish cultural history and their relationship to intellectual presuppositions for engaging in Jewish studies in the academy.
Mystical and Modernizing Trends: Prague’s Rabbinic Culture Threatened
Authors: Flatto Sharon
Published: February 2021

This chapter identifies various trends and developments which threatened Prague's traditional culture during the last decades of the eighteenth century. It analyses the unique responses of Prague's rabbinate to the Haskalah, the increasing centralization of the Habsburg state, and Sabbatianism. It also points out the importance of the state in the transformation of Prague's traditional Jewish society, particularly its embrace of German culture and cites Joseph II's systematic policy of Germanization that reshaped several of the central community institutions. The chapter highlights state-imposed secular education that forced the rabbinic authorities to modify the curriculum offered to Prague's Jewish youth. It discusses the traditional rabbinic assertion of the primacy of Torah, which precluded the study of extra-talmudic subjects.
Tension
Authors: Flatto Sharon
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Ezekiel Landau's writings that convey a tension that is discernible in many kabbalistic sources. It probes the tension between the conception of Kabbalah as restricted lore that needs to be safeguarded for the educated elite and the desire to disseminate kabbalistic truth. It also considers Landau's reluctance to disseminate kabbalistic doctrines, which is heightened by his opposition to the trends of Sabbatianism, Frankism, and Hasidism. The chapter explains the kabbalistic concepts discussed in public as a response to the rearrangement of educational priorities in the eighteenth-century Prague Jewish community. It mentions how Landau and other Prague rabbis repeatedly lament Prague Jewry's replacement of the core disciplines of Talmud and halakhah with the non-essential study of Kabbalah and secular disciplines.
The Path to Devekut: Ecstatic and Cordoverian Teachings
Authors: Flatto Sharon
Published: February 2021

This chapter analyses how Ezekiel Landau appropriates Cordoverian expressions, motifs, and ideals aside from availing zoharic teachings in all his works. It explains the central mystical goal of devekut that is promoted in both ecstatic and Cordoverian writings, which claims that nothing less than the structure of the universe, the purpose of human activity, reward and punishment, and the nature of the next world can relate to this state. It also mentions how Landau frequently advocates the ideal of devekut and related mystical concepts in terms borrowed from Maimonides' philosophical and legal works. The chapter considers ideas that bear a striking similarity to elements of ecstatic and Cordoverian Kabbalah, in which Landau promotes the ideal of devekut. It discusses the presence of the goal of devekut that are regularly incorporated into Cordoverian works.
Lurianic Kabbalah: Berur, Final Sparks, and the Mission of Exile
Authors: Flatto Sharon
Published: February 2021

This chapter talks about Lurianic Kabbalah as the dominant kabbalistic school that had a prominent place in Ezekiel Landau's writings despite the tremendous influence of Cordoverian doctrines in central and eastern Europe during the eighteenth century. It explains Lurianic Kabbalah as the branch of Kabbalah that primarily deals with complex systems of theosophical and theurgical doctrines at the expense of ecstatic traditions. It also cites the ideal of devekut and the modes of worship promoted in ecstatic Kabbalah that play a subsidiary role in most Lurianic works. The chapter recounts how Landau frequently uses the precise linguistic phrases, terms, and ideas found in Lurianic writings, which reveal his deep immersion in Lurianic Kabbalah during his youth in Poland. It mentions Hayim Vital, who wrote one of the first and most comprehensive books of Lurianic theosophy, the Ets hayim or Shemonah she'arim.
French and Jewish
Authors: Malinovich Nadia
Published: February 2021

This study of Jewish cultural innovation in early twentieth-century France highlights the complexity and ambivalence of Jewish identity and self-definition in the modern world. Following the Dreyfus affair, French Jews increasingly began to question how Jewishness should be defined in a society where Jews enjoyed full political equality. Writers began to explore biblical themes, traditional Jewish folklore, and issues of identity and assimilation. A plethora of new journals focusing on Jewish religion, history, and culture came into being, as did a multitude of associations that emphasized Jewish distinctiveness. This book explores this blossoming of Jewish cultural life in France. It shows that the interface between the various groups was as important as the differences between them: it was the process of debate and dialogue that infused new energy into French Jewish identity and culture. The book analyses the Jewish press and literature to develop a typology of themes, providing a panoramic view of how Jewish identity and culture were discussed and debated among Jews and non-Jews of varying ideological, cultural, and political orientations. The analysis also provides a vantage point from which to explore the complex ways in which French national identity was re-negotiated in the early twentieth-century. During this period, French Jews in effect reshaped the category of Frenchness itself, and in so doing created new possibilities for being both French and Jewish.
The Media and the Arts
Authors: Malinovich Nadia
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the expansion of the Jewish press, the development of a lively Jewish art and music scene, and the strengthening of the interfaith movement. It discloses the creation of a wide variety of journals of differing Zionist, literary, and religious orientations that marked an important change in contemporary French Jewish life. It also investigates the journals that served as a vehicle to discuss new developments in the Jewish associational and cultural life of the day and provided a forum to discuss diverse aspects of Jewish culture and history. The chapter discusses the prominence of Jewish artists in the international Ecole de Paris as another important development in Jewish cultural life during the 1920s. It also describes French Jews that formed musical societies and choruses to perform Jewish music, from traditional religious compositions to Yiddish folk songs, in public settings.
Reshaping Franco-Judaism 1920–1932
Authors: Malinovich Nadia
Published: February 2021

This chapter provides a typology of themes in the Jewish press and discusses Zionism as the most important influence on French Jewish discourse in the 1920s. It explains how Zionism and Jewishness were often equated with values held in high esteem in French society in the Zionist-oriented press. It also explores the idea of the Jew as a 'link' between East and West, which provided a way for Jews to express their difference while simultaneously reinforcing the idea that they formed a vital and necessary element in Western culture. The chapter mentions Zionist advocates in France who remained committed to the idea of Zionism as a secular 'replacement' for a religiously based Jewish identity. It then looks at a common discourse that emphasized the spiritual and religious aspects of Zionist ideology by extending the idea that the visions of Judaism should not be posed in oppositional terms.