bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Teachings of R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk
Authors: Hallamish Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines the teachings of R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk. The great importance that R. Menahem Mendel attached to faith can be seen in the astounding example—admittedly linked to the interpretation of scriptural verses—which he adduced in order to explain in concrete terms the difference between a person who fulfils the Torah and the commandments spontaneously and one who fulfils them after faith is implanted in him. Torah not preceded by fear and faith is valueless. In other words, faith has a kind of settling and stabilizing power. Devekut appears on various levels in R. Menahem Mendel's writings; he frequently couples faith with devekut. According to him, devekut is faith without the application of reason.
The Source Value of the Basic Recensions of Shivḥei ha Besht
Authors: Grözinger Karl Erich
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses Shivḥei haBesht, a collection of individual tales, told by a considerable number of distinct individuals. In spite of its admittedly legendary character, Shivḥei haBesht has served the scholars of early hasidism as an important, if not the main, basis for their reconstructions of the beginnings of the movement in the eighteenth century. Modern hasidic scholarship should therefore address itself to the question of the source value of the text of this important and early collection of narrative hasidic lore. The text is available in two versions: the Hebrew version published in Kopys in 1814, the understanding of which has been much enhanced by the publication of the important Mondshine edition; and the Yiddish version published in Korets in 1815. This has given rise to a number of questions. Is the Yiddish Korets edition a paraphrastic translation of the Hebrew Kopys edition, or does it represent an earlier, independent tradition? Did the editor of the Hebrew edition deliberately understate the notion of the founder of hasidism as a ba'al shem engaged in magical practices? All these questions would have a bearing on any attempt to gauge the source value of the tales as they have come down to us.
Haskalah and History
Authors: Feiner Shmuel
Published: February 2021

This book recreates the historical consciousness that fired the Haskalah — the Jewish Enlightenment movement. The proponents of this movement advocated that Jews should capture the spirit of the future and take their place in wider society, but as Jews — without denying their collective identity and without denying their past. Claiming historical legitimacy for their ideology and their vision of the future, they formulated an ethos of modernity that they projected on to the universal and the Jewish past alike. What was the image of the past that the maskilim shaped? What tactics underpinned their use of history? How did their historical awareness change and develop — from the inception of the Haskalah in Germany at the time of Mendelssohn and Wessely, through the centres of Haskalah in Austria, Galicia, and Russia, to the emergence of modern nationalism in the maskilic circles in eastern Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century? These are some of the questions raised in this fascinating exploration of an ideological approach to history which throws a searching new light on the Jewish Enlightenment movement and the emergence of Jewish historical consciousness more generally.
Reaching the Masses: The Dissemination of Maskilic History
Authors: Feiner Shmuel
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores the channels through which maskilic history was disseminated in Russia, particularly in the 1860s and 1870s. Most of the maskilim who were active in furthering this aim had been influenced by the changes taking place in the reign of Alexander II, and regarded themselves and were regarded by their younger, more radical colleagues as belonging to the moderate stream of the Haskalah. In the 1840s, they had advocated a militant Haskalah and inveighed against traditional ways, but now they favoured a conservative Haskalah that eschewed radicalism. The chapter then details how the expansion and diversification of the Jewish reading public enabled maskilic writers to impart the major messages of maskilic history to various types of readers at different levels of popularization. However, this expansion of the reading public does not necessarily imply that the situation had changed drastically and that the numbers of maskilim in Russia had increased dramatically. The maskilic circle remained relatively small and continued to represent only an elite group of intellectuals.
Introduction
Authors: Feiner Shmuel
Published: February 2021

This chapter provides an overview of the Jewish Haskalah of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Jewish Haskalah is the first modern ideology in Jewish history, which appeared at the threshold of the modern era and was promulgated by the maskilim — the first Jews who were conscious of being modern, and who concluded that the modern age called for a comprehensive programme of change in both the cultural and the practical life of Jewish society. For years, historians of the Haskalah movement have almost completely ignored the attitude of the maskilim to history. However, the attraction felt by many maskilim to the biblical past of the Jewish people has not been overlooked by scholars. Nevertheless, new surveys of the history of Jewish historical writing and thought continue to minimize the contribution of the maskilim to this field, and repeat the claim that the Haskalah had but a vague sense of the importance of historical knowledge. This book explores a range of sources from the 100-year period of the Haskalah (1782–1881), which show not only that the maskilim displayed a great interest in history, but also that their attitude to the past was significant both for the Haskalah's ideology and for the development of Jewish historical consciousness.
Creating American Reform Judaism
Authors: Temkin Sefton D.
Published: February 2021

Isaac Mayer Wise (1819–1900), founder of the major institutions of Reform Judaism in America, was a man of his time — a pioneer in a pioneer’s world. When he came to America from his childhood Bohemia in 1846, he found fewer than 50,000 Jews and only two ordained rabbis. With his sense of mission and tireless energy, he set himself to tailoring the vehicle of Reform Judaism to meet the needs of the growing Jewish community. Wise strove for unity among American Jews, and for a college to train rabbis to serve them. The establishment of Hebrew Union College (1875) was the crowning achievement of his life. His quest for unity also led him to draw up an American Jewish prayer-book, Minhag America, to found the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and to edit two weeklies; their editorials, breathing fire and energy, were no less important in his quest for leadership. Here as elsewhere, it was his persistence that won him the war where his impetuosity lost him many battles. This book captures the vigour of Wise’s personality and the politics and concerns of contemporary Jewish life and leadership in America. The biography is a lively portrait of a rabbi whose singular efforts in many fields made him a pivotal figure in the naturalization of the Jew and Judaism in the New World.
Why Judaism Acquired a Systematic Theology
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter argues that only an interpreter approaching the mishnah beginning ‘All Israelites have a share in the world to come…’ with the prior assumption that Judaism has a systematic theology like Islam or Christianity would read it as either a statement of dogma or a test of theological orthodoxy. It asserts that there is nothing inherent in monotheistic faith which demands that it find expression in systematic theology. The chapter contends that only if one assumes that such theology must underlie any monotheistic faith will one see the mishnah as an expression of systematic theology. But that very assumption is one which must come from outside Judaism. In other words, this chapter is based upon the presupposition that all monotheistic religions have systematic theologies. But the fact that both Islam and Christianity express themselves in that fashion does not mean that all monotheistic faiths do so, or ought to do so — as classical Judaism certainly did not.
Giessen and Beyond (1920–1932)
Authors: Shapiro Marc B.
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's life during the Weimar Republic. It begins with a brief overview of German Orthodoxy and the various political and religious disputes which persisted even after the First World War. From there, the chapter turns to Weinberg's academic life in the University of Giessen, where he received his first intensive exposure to modern scholarship. While Weinberg was in Giessen, significant events were occurring in Berlin, which eventually led to his appointment as a lecturer in Talmud and Codes. This effectively made him the resident halakhist of his seminary. The new position also established him as the supreme halakhic authority for the numerous communal rabbis who were seminary graduates, as well as for many others who had no formal connection to the institution. He was thus ensured a central role in German Orthodox life. Finally, the chapter explores some of Weinberg's writings during the Weimar years.
The Significance of Biblical Prophecy for Our Time
Authors: Roth Leon
Published: February 2021

This chapter asserts that the importance of the prophets, both for their generation and ours, is not that they speak ‘comfortable words’ (though they do that too at times), but that they dared to say things which are very uncomfortable indeed but which happen to be true. Their interest was not in morale (so-called) but in something very different: morals. The common conception of a biblical prophet is that of a dancing dervish with a loud voice and an execrable temper; or, alternatively, of a smug preacher ready to call down fire from heaven on anybody who disagrees with him. In sum: a vengeful and self-righteous megalomaniac with an intolerable gift of the gab. The chapter submits that this picture is false. The typical biblical prophet is the lawgiver, Moses himself, who shows his people the ‘paths of life’; and the one quality specifically attributed to Moses by Scripture is the quality of humility. He is the ‘man of God’, that is, he recognizes God as man's ‘dwelling-place’. Pre-eminently he is the teacher, but what he teaches he has himself been taught from on high.
Authority, Religion, and Law
Authors: Roth Leon
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents the conflict between the will of the ruler on the one side, and right and God's law on the other. Here, law is seen as harnessed to particularity. General exhortations to do good are of little use. One needs to know what good to do; and one needs to recognize that one must do it, and have to do it whether one likes it or not. Law and its authority are not an abstraction. It is for here and now, for the particular situation in which we ourselves stand and act. The chapter thus talks about ‘the moral law’. It considers if there is a moral law, if there are, in fact, moral laws. And moral laws have their meaning only with reference to individuals and concrete and specific acts.
Maimonides
Authors: Roth Leon
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Maimonides. His works, all composed under the stress of travel or business, included commentaries on some tractates of the Talmud; a complete Commentary, still widely used, on the early (second- and third-century) rabbinic code, the Mishnah; an original Code of his own, the Mishneh torah (Repetition of the Law), preceded by a Book of Precepts in which the attempt is made to systematize the approach to the content of Judaism as a religious and moral discipline expressed in the commandments of the Pentateuch; some short medical treatises; some polemical writing; and many ‘encyclical’ letters to Jewish communities, far and near, on points of law and on public issues of importance. These were his basic preoccupations and interests, and his philosophy was only incidental. The only technically philosophical work is his first, the very slight Logical Terminology, a brief account of the elements of Aristotelian logic which concludes with a summary conspectus of the main divisions of the Aristotelian system as a whole. There is also The Guide for the Perplexed, which is not a set philosophical treatise but, professedly, an unsystematic essay on some problems of philosophical theology.
The Third Part
Authors: Sahula Isaac Ibn
Published: February 2021

1 For the translation, cf. Ibn Ezra’s comment on Prov. 16: 26.

2 (‘circling’, or ‘celebrating a ḥag’ (‘pilgrim-festival’, cf. Arabic ḥaj)), is curious as applied to = ‘understanding’. I assume an allusion to Ps. 107: 27.

3 For Togarmah, see Appendix 2.

4...
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Authors: Jacobs Louis
Published: February 2021

More than forty years have passed since the author first put forward the argument that traditionally observant Jews have no reason to take issue with the results obtained by the historical critics in their investigation into the Bible and the other classical sources of Judaism. The author has argued that the traditional doctrine which claims that ‘the Torah is from Heaven’ can and should be maintained — provided that the word ‘from’ is understood in a non-fundamentalist way to denote that there is a human as well as a divine element in the Torah: God revealing His will not only to but through the Jewish people in their historical experiences as they reached out to Him. As a result of these views, which were first published in the still-controversial text We Have Reason to Believe, the Anglo-Jewish Orthodox hierarchy banned the author from serving as an Orthodox rabbi. This was the cause of the notorious ‘Jacobs affair’, which culminated in the creation of the New London Synagogue and, eventually, in the establishment of the Masorti movement in the UK with strong affinities with Conservative Judaism in the United States. This book examines afresh all the issues involved. It does so objectively, meeting the objections put forward by critics from the various trends within the Jewish world, both Orthodox and Reform, and inviting readers to follow the argument and make up their own minds.
Introduction the ‘Jacobs Affair’
Authors: Jacobs Louis
Published: February 2021

This chapter introduces traditional Judaism that can be compatible with the findings of modern research on how the Jewish religion has come to be. Many religious Jews still hold fast to belief in the Torah as the word of God but have come to realize that the whole idea of divine revelation must be understood to mean that, while there is a divine element in the Torah, there is also a human element. It emphasizes the acceptance of the dogma “The Torah is from Heaven,” pointing out that one should understand the meaning of “from” in a more sophisticated manner than is commonly done. The chapter also provides a speedy glance at the religious history of British Jewry. By the start of the twentieth century, Jews were divided on religious lines into Orthodoxy and Reform.
Secular Judaism
Authors: Jacobs Louis
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes the notion of a secular Judaism, in which some of the religious practices such as bar mitzvah and circumcision were still maintained, and even occasional visits to the synagogue, but seen in terms of only emotional satisfaction. It analyzes the possibility of religion without belief in God. In ancient times Theravadic Buddhism taught that the God idea was irrelevant to its aim of overcoming human suffering. The chapter mentions Auguste Comte in the early nineteenth century who founded the religion of Positivism, the religion of humanity and the full harmony of life, with its Bible and sacraments and a religious calendar, but with mankind in the place of God. It also talks about Julian Huxley that propagated a “religion without revelation” in which man can express his sense of awe and wonder without invoking a personal God.
Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 13
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

The assessment of the Nazi genocide in Poland, an issue which has deeply divided Poles and Jews, lies at the core of this volume. Poland was one of the principal areas where the Nazis attempted to carry out their planned genocide of European Jewry. It was there that the major death camps were established and that Jews were brought from all over Nazi-occupied Europe to be gassed, above all in Auschwitz, where at least 1 million lost their lives in this way. The book states that there is no more controversial topic in the history of the Jews in Poland than the question of the degree of responsibility borne by Polish society for the fact that such a small proportion of Polish Jewry escaped the Nazi mass murderers. The primary responsibility clearly lies with the Nazis. However, the recognition of the primary role of the Germans in the genocide has not prevented bitter arguments over Polish behaviour during the Second World War. Also included are discussions of Polish attitudes to the nearly 300,000 Jews who tried to resettle in post-war Poland; the little-known testimony of Belzec survivor Rudolf Reder; a discussion of Holocaust victims as martyrs; and a presentation of how the Auschwitz Museum sees its future.
Correspondence Exchange between Rafał Żebrowski and Hanna Kozińska-Witt
Authors: TuszyńSka Agata
Published: February 2021

The Editors

Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry

Dear Sir,

In volume 11 of Polin there appeared a review written by Hanna Kozińska-Witt of my book Mojżesz Schorr i jego listy do Ludwika Gumplowicza. A few years ago Dr Kozińska-Witt published an article about the Gumplowicz family entitled ‘Asymilacja “po krakowsku”: przypadek Ludwika Gumplowicza’ (...
Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 14
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569, covered a wide spectrum of faiths and languages. The nobility, who were the main focus of Polishness, were predominantly Catholic; the peasantry included Catholics, Protestants, and members of the Orthodox faith, while nearly half the urban population, and some 10 per cent of the total population, was Jewish. The partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequent struggle to regain Polish independence raised the question of what the boundaries of a future state should be, and who qualified as a Pole. The partitioning powers were determined to hold on to the areas they had annexed: Prussia tried to strengthen the German element in Poland; the Habsburgs encouraged the development of a Ukrainian consciousness in Austrian Galicia to act as a counterweight to the dominant Polish nobility; and Russia, while allowing the Kingdom of Poland to enjoy substantial autonomy, treated the remaining areas it had annexed as part of the tsarist monarchy. When Poland became independent after the First World War, more than a third of its population were thus Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans, Jews, and Lithuanians, many of whom had been influenced by nationalist movements. The core chapters in the book focus especially on the triangular relationship between Poles, Jews, and Germans in western Poland, and between the different national groups in what are today Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. In addition, the New Views section investigates aspects of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Jewish Rights of Residence in Cieszyn Silesia, 1742–1848
Authors: Janusz Spyra
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores Jewish rights of residence in Cieszyn Silesia. Cieszyn Silesia, which encompasses the southern part of Silesia, is a historical area based on the Duchy of Cieszyn. In 1920, Cieszyn Silesia was divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia along the River Olza. Before Jewish emancipation in the second half of the nineteenth century, a limited number of Jews were tolerated in the province in exchange for certain services. From 1742 to 1848 the number of Jews and their rights were determined by complicated legislation called the Jewish incolate. The Silesian estates, unlike those of Moravia and Bohemia, ignored the ban; still, before the mid-seventeenth century Jews resided in the area of Cieszyn Silesia only sporadically. This changed during the Thirty Years War, when the impoverished rulers were constantly in need of money. Emperor Ferdinand II relaxed the legislation concerning Jews, and leasing tolls, customs tariffs, taxes, and the right to produce and sell alcohol, above all spirits, to Jews became a vital source of cash for the feudal lords.
The Rabbinical Schools as Institutions of Socialization in Tsarist Russia, 1847–1873
Authors: Dohrn Verena
Published: February 2021

This chapter shows that between 1847 and 1873, the rabbinical schools of Vilna and Zhitomir were not merely educational institutions; their general role in promoting reform and their specific status as boarding schools made them vehicles of socialization as well. School regulations and the conduct and self-awareness of pupils and teachers — as well as the public's fear of contact and its suspicion of these institutions — marked off the schools from the traditional Jewish world around them. The schools developed their own atmosphere, which left a lasting impression on the pupils. The chapter attempts to show how the special character of these institutions evolved during the period in which they emerged and developed. Their character was expressed by the rabbinical schools' living quarters, with well-furnished and well-equipped rooms, by the appearance of pupils and teachers, by school regulations (especially the system of supervision), and by the conduct of the headmasters, teachers, supervisors, and pupils.
Three Documents on Anti-Jewish Violence in the Eastern Kresy during the Polish–Soviet Conflict
Authors: Liekis Sarunas , Miliakova Lidia , Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents three documents describing the anti-Jewish violence in Lida and in Vilna in April 1919. The documents on Lida come from the collection of the supreme command of the Polish army in the holdings of the Tsentr khraneniia istoriko-dokumentalnykh kollektsii (Moscow Centre for the Preservation of Historical and Document Collections). Lida was a small town about 60 miles south of Vilna, with which it was linked by rail. In 1919, its population was about 5,500, of whom the majority were Jews (67.7 per cent according to the census of 1897). Disputes arose almost immediately after the town was recaptured by Polish forces in April 1919, on the scale and reasons for the anti-Jewish violence which followed the establishment of Polish control. On 18 April 1919, the report of the Polish central headquarters covering the military developments in Lida claimed that ‘the Jewish population assisted the Bolsheviks by shooting Polish troops’.
Jan Kazimierz University 1936–1939: A Memoir
Authors: Witz-Margulies Bronisława
Published: February 2021

This chapter is a short memoir detailing the history of the Jan Kazimierz University (now L'viv University) prior to the start of World War II. The university community, a microcosm of society at large, was split by ethnic, social, and political conflict. Student unions, for example, were divided along the lines of nationality. The authorities were reluctant to create unified, multi-ethnic organizations, so in each department there were separate Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish clubs and student professional unions. As for politics, it seemed that just about every party and political current in Poland had its supporters and representatives among the students. Both the right wing and the left wing were there. The fiercest battle was over the nationality question, although each nationality had its own set of right- and left-wing students.
A Review of Some Recent Issues of the Biuletyn Żydowskiego InstytutuHistorycznego
Authors: Brumberg Abraham
Published: February 2021

This chapter provides selective reviews of some articles that appeared in Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (BŻIH), the quarterly journal of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. It looks at the articles published between 1993 and 1997 in particular. The chapter first examines the persistence of antisemitic and other ethnic stereotypes in Europe and particularly in Poland. It then turns to the history of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ in Poland and of how Polish communism gradually assimilated the ‘teachings’ of this slander. From there, the chapter explores other topics, including Polish Radio, the National Democratic Party (the Endecja), illegal emigration, journalism, pogroms, German responsibility for the Holocaust, Jewish foreign relations, and Jewish agriculture. The chapter's conclusion is devoted to an examination of how Jewish topics, from communal and religious life in medieval Poland to the Holocaust, are presented in elementary and secondary school textbooks.
Chava Weissler
Authors: Joseph Norma Baumel
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Chava Weissler's book on the personal devotional prayers of early modern Jewish women, Voices of the Matriarchs. Blending previously published articles, new material, and important methodological insights, this book brings to the reader a fully developed picture of the context, concerns, and religious lives of a previously invisible group. It also raises serious questions regarding our ability to know about and understand the past. The chapter shows how the author is candid about her own purposes, reservations, loyalties, and aspirations. Throughout the book, the author presents distinct texts, often several concerning the same function, in order to portray the variety of religious personalities exposed in these Yiddish prayers.
Helena Bodek
Authors: Clarke Joanna Rostropowicz
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Helena Bodek's Like Hounded Animals. This book describes a community in the small town of Żychlin, in the Płock region, and its fewer than 5,000 Jews. As the book shows, this community seems to have had relatively agreeable relations with their non-Jewish, Polish (with a scattering of German) neighbours. The train of events which Bodek relates, the patterns of behaviour of the Jewish victims and of the surrounding population, the atrocities committed by some of the Jewish policemen, the unkindness of some of her wealthier relatives (none of whom survived), and the kindness (rare, but not altogether exceptional) of strangers, including a few Germans — all are dreadfully familiar, generic to every Holocaust memoir. But the chapter asserts that the fact that we basically know, almost as well as the narrator, what is going to happen next does not in the least diminish our heart-wrenching interest in what is happening to this young woman and to her loved ones. When death reigns, the author compels us to acknowledge, life is dearer than ever.
Irena F. Karafilly, Ashes and Miracles: A Polish Journey
Authors: Więcławska Katarzyna
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Ashes and Miracles: A Polish Journey, by Irena F. Karafilly. This book details the author's unexpected and deeply personal response to her visit to Poland. Her decision to write this particular book was not the result of previous planning; it was more like an impulse. The chapter shows how Karafilly's journey seems to have two ultimate goals. One is to capture the essence of Poland and its people, and the other is to uncover the nature of her own relationship with that country. While pursuing those aims, she experiences excitement and even delight, but also anxiety, unexpected sadness, and disappointment.
Printing the Talmud in Poland in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Authors: Pilarczyk Krzysztof
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores Jewish religious print culture in Poland during the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. During this period, Jewish printers in Poland established their printing houses in Kraków and Lublin. Jews in the Polish diaspora in the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century saw the development of Jewish typography as essential to the normal functioning of Jewish communities everywhere. The members of the communities needed books to study the Torah, and in particular they needed the Talmud — the fundamental work on which rabbinic Judaism is based. The printers in Kraków and Lublin in this period satisfied the needs of the Jewish book market in Poland to a considerable degree while also competing with foreign printers. Jewish typography in Poland, managed by a few families over two or three generations, could not equal that of Venetian printers or later of Dutch printers, who had a much greater influence on culture and economy and served many European communities. Nevertheless, printers in Poland played a significant role in printing the Talmud.
Polish Attitudes towards Jewish Spirituality in the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Kalik Judith
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes Polish attitudes towards Jewish spirituality during the eighteenth century. The chief characteristic of the Polish conception of the Jewish religion, at least as it was captured in writing, was that it was not a specifically Polish construct but was imported from western Europe or had migrated to Poland with the Jews themselves. The official Christian doctrine was formulated in literary works written by clerics, polemic and homiletic literature, pastoral epistles, and synodal legislation. The popular Christian conception of Judaism, which differed substantially from official Church doctrine, was also practically identical in all its components to the popular, stereotypical view of Judaism widespread in the West. This conception was formulated mainly in works written by burghers, who used popular religious stereotypes in their attacks on their economic competitors, the Jews.
The Struggle over Images in the Propaganda of the Frankist Movement
Authors: Lenowitz Harris
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes a single aspect of an interrelated history — images of the messiah — as it relates to the interests of those involved in three messiah events. A Jewish ‘messiah event’ involves both the Jewish community — messiah, followers, and opponents — and the wider community within which they are located, which is, generally speaking, antagonistic, although occasionally it may include sympathizers and even supporters. Jewish supporters of a messiah and opponents from both communities alike make free use of one another’s traditions and documents relating to the messiah and millennial matters. A single religious context and a continuous history in Poland connect the messiah Shabbetai Tsevi with the messiah Jakub Frank and his daughter the messiah Eva Frank. Each group shares images throughout this history, including images of what is proper and sanctified and what is improper, despicable, and unholy, in a single stream fed by strange tributaries.
Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz’s Attitude towards the Frankists
Authors: Leiman Sid Z.
Published: February 2021

This chapter recalls the encounter between Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Frankist movement. This began when the Emden–Eibeschuetz controversy erupted in 1751. At the time, Rabbi Jacob Emden announced in his synagogue in Altona that an amulet ascribed to the Chief Rabbi, Eibeschuetz, could only have been written by a secret believer in Shabbetai Tsevi. The controversy between these two rabbinic titans continued unabated until Eibeschuetz’s death in 1764. At the height of the controversy, between 1755 and 1760, Jakub Frank revealed himself in Podolia. He assumed leadership of the Shabbatean movement in Ukraine, Galicia, Wielkopolska, and Hungary and presided over the Shabbatean teachings enunciated at the public disputations between the Frankists and the talmudists in Kamenets-Podolsk in 1757 and in Lviv in 1759.
Holy Men in their Infancy: The Childhood of Tsadikim in Hasidic Legends
Authors: Galley Susanne
Published: February 2021

This chapter deals with two different types of hasidic tale which, even if they do not impart hasidic Torah, fulfil their respective religious roles within the hasidic theological system. The focus of the chapter is on the hagiographic type of hasidic tale. For the purposes of this chapter ‘hagiography’ — or, to introduce the Hebrew term, ‘shevaḥ (lit. ‘praise’) literature’ — refers to those legends that are aimed at praising a holy person. Thus the initial problem is to determine the place of hasidic legend within Jewish hagiography. The chapter asks if there are innovations in hasidic hagiography compared to its predecessors and which of the models provided by Jewish religious literature could, on the other hand, be used by the east European shevaḥ literature. In addition, the chapter considers the question of what it is that the hagiographic stories impart if not theology.
Primordial Chaos and Creation in Gur Hasidism: The Sabbath that Preceded Creation
Authors: Jacobson Yoram
Published: February 2021

This chapter deals with one of the central themes of the work Sefat emet, the collection of homilies by Rabbi Judah Arie Loeb Alter, the second teacher of the Gur dynasty, which is considered by Gur hasidism to be the canonical text of the school to this day. A wide variety of subjects is discussed in the thousands of teachings (torot) contained in this vast collection. Some of these are more concerned with historiosophical issues, while others present the mystical existentialism of the individual who seeks their spiritual redemption. Nevertheless, all of them, without exception, reflect different aspects of a unified system of thought that revolves around a fixed and steady axis. It is almost impossible to imagine a more monolithic approach — certainly within the framework of the homiletic writings of Beshtian hasidism — be it in terms of the interconnections and coordination among its theoretical aspects or in terms of the conceptual unity of its teachings and the homiletic motifs that serve as their expression, as these teachings were articulated by the rebbe of Gur for the thirty-five years of his leadership of this major hasidic movement.
Educational Options for Jewish Girls in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Authors: Adler Eliyana R.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores various aspects of the question of Jewish women’s education in Europe. It contrasts traditional Jewish historiography with regard to male and female education. Notably, girls remained outside the school, their instruction not being considered obligatory according to the Jewish law. At the same time, however, Yiddish and Hebrew literature of the period abounds with images of pious women reading from the taysh-khumesh (Yiddish version of the Pentateuch), female shopkeepers speaking Polish and keeping the accounts, and even occasionally disputing Torah with men. The chapter thus attempts to explain this dichotomy. It shows how women were able to acquire the knowledge and skills that allowed them to fulfil their roles in society.
Henry Abramson A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917–1920
Authors: Weiner Amir
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Ukrainian–Jewish relations as portrayed in Henry Abramson’s A Prayer for the Government. Few topics in east European history are as complex, emotional, and politically charged as Ukrainian–Jewish relations — all the more so when the focus is on the troubled times of the Russian Revolution. The extensive historiography of this theme has been largely polemical, self-righteous, and one-sided. In his first monograph, Abramson plunges head on into this forbidding swamp. The result is a thoughtful, lucid, and level-headed study of a topic that has often defied these terms. Although Abramson does not offer a radically new interpretation — a practically impossible task given the voluminous literature — he makes full use of his command of all the necessary languages (Ukrainian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian), judiciously analysing archival sources and extensive secondary literature to produce the most authoritative study to date of this difficult question and era.
Henryk Hoffman Z Drohobycza do Ziemi Obiecanej
Authors: Kacnelson Dora
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the second volume of the series Głosy przeżytych (Voices of the Survivors), which contains the memoirs of Henryk Hoffman. The publication of this memoir has enormous significance for the Jewish community of Drohobych and of the Lviv region. Hoffman’s book is viewed as a living and fascinating source for acquainting oneself with the recent history of the region in the inter-war period, under the so-called first and second Soviet occupations, and during the Holocaust. The author provides abundant testimony to the neighbourly, cooperative relations that existed between Jews and Poles in the spheres of economics, culture, and medicine. One example of such honesty, hard work, modesty, and goodness is the memoirist’s father, Eliasz Hoffman. There are still a dozen or so people living in Drohobych, Jews and Poles, who recall Dr Hoffman — as well as the equally helpful and self-sacrificing Polish doctors Kozłowski and Skulski — with gratitude.
Tadeusz Piotrowski Poland’s Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918–1947
Authors: Zlatkes Gwido
Published: February 2021

This chapter argues that the merit and importance of Tadeusz Piotrowski’s Poland’s Holocaust lie in the fact that all of the principal actors in the tragedy are gathered together in one book. The book reminds us that what happened between 1939 and 1945 on the territory of pre-war Poland involved the actions of seven parties (rather than two or three, as indicated in most historical monographs on the subject): Germany, the Soviet Union, the Poles, the Jews, the Lithuanians, the Belarusians, and the Ukrainians. The book’s fundamental flaw is that it fails to draw a balanced picture of their interrelations; rather it defends the cause of one of them, and this results in one-sidedness. The book offers little new material, relying mainly on secondary sources. One of the book’s main defensive weapons is deflection.
Wiktoria Śliwowska (ed.) The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak
Authors: Zimmerman Joshua D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter showcases the accounts of child survivors in Nazi-occupied Poland, as written in The Last Eyewitnesses. The accounts all follow a similar format, beginning with a discussion of pre-war family background, continuing with harrowing tales of wartime survival, and concluding with a section on the survivor’s experiences in post-war Poland. The consistent format makes the collection a particularly useful tool for scholarly analysis as well as for classroom use. The testimonies depict the life of Jewish children from all regions of inter-war Poland, both urban and rural, in a wide variety of settings in Nazi-occupied Poland: in hiding, in ghettos, in the camps, in the forests. In addition, a full range of family backgrounds is represented, from those who came from assimilated families and had been raised in a Polish milieu to those from Yiddish-speaking Orthodox backgrounds.
Ann Charney Dobryd
Authors: Bumble Anna Petrov
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers Ann Charney’s Dobryd, a memoir with a profound treatment of the aftermath of the Holocaust. Reported from a child’s point of view, the narrative provides a glimpse into the deepest workings of Charney’s psyche from the age of 3 until the age of 10. Though not a feminist fable, Dobryd is a story in which all the protagonists — Charney, her mother, and her aunt — are women who struggle and succeed on their own during the war and in the chaos of post-war Poland. Named after a Polish town near Lviv, the memoir encompasses the lives of members of three generations of a Jewish family as they and their community suffer through the horrors of the Holocaust. The story follows family members over a period of about forty years, penetrating deep into their inner world.
The Badkhn: From Wedding Stage to Writing Desk
Authors: Krasney Ariela
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses two key roles of the traditional Jewish entertainer known as the badkhn: as a performer on the wedding stage (bimah) at Jewish weddings and as the author of published versions of such performances. It examines, first, the badkhn's techniques of expression and, second, the process through which, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the badkhn's work began to move from oral performance to written literature. The badkhn first emerged in Europe during the Middle Ages alongside comparable artists among other peoples. As Jewish society and Judaism evolved from the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, the badkhn adapted himself to the changing conditions. By the nineteenth century, his identity had crystallized into that of a figure with two faces: one of riotous, chaotic, topsy-turvy jesting, rooted in ancient sacrificial traditions surrounding the god Dionysus and evincing a tendency towards social subversiveness; and the other of conservative, learned discourse rooted in the fixed system of halakhic mitsvot and serving as a mouthpiece for them.
The Badkhn in Contemporary Hasidic Society: Social, Historical, and Musical Observations
Authors: Mazor Yaakov
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the badkhn in contemporary hasidic society. Hasidic society does not approve of radical innovations in relation to religious custom, and this is certainly true of the activities of badkhonim at weddings. Nevertheless, the hasidic leadership has been able to channel such activities into preferred directions, in accordance with its own conceptions and usages. Earlier practices that clashed with hasidic customs and beliefs have been discarded. On the other hand, mystical interpretation has invested some traditional values with new meanings. The badkhn's position has thus been strengthened, thanks to the legitimization of his activity from a religious point of view. The same is true of the badkhn's verses and the accompanying music. It would appear, however, that the shift of emphasis from form to content, to the inner meaning of the badkhn's activities, has resulted in the formation, on one hand, of rigorous new constraints and, on the other, of new possibilities for the creation of local or even individual, personal styles, depending on the relative involvement of the tsadikim in such activities.
Conclusion
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This concluding chapter examines changes to the role of yeshiva in Jewish society as well as several developments to yeshiva history after the nineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, the changes and conflicts that had struck the Jewish world had affected the yeshiva too. Contemporary discussion of the yeshiva was frequently in the context of the Haskalah and noted its power to effect change. There is no clear answer as to what it was that persuaded young people to abandon traditional Jewish life, but the wholesale attribution of this to the Haskalah is not self-evident. It seems much more likely that the threat to traditional ways came from indifference to Jewish identity rather than from any desire to change that identity. Indifference is naturally hard to identify, and it was easier for conservatives to battle against a concrete enemy, equally eager to do battle, than to engage with an attitude that was so contemptuous of traditional approaches that it did not even bother to argue with them.
Hadassah
Authors: Katxzburg-Yungman Mira
Published: February 2021

In February 1912, thirty-eight American Jewish women founded Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. This has become the largest Zionist organization in the diaspora and the largest and most active Jewish women's organization ever. Its history is an inseparable part of the history of American Jewry and of the State of Israel. Hadassah is also part of the history of Jewish women in the United States and in the modern world more broadly. Its achievements are not only those of Zionism but, crucially, of women, and this book pays particular attention to the life stories of the women who played a role in them. The book analyses many aspects of the history of Hadassah. The introductory section describes the contexts and challenges of Hadassah's history from its founding to the birth of the State of Israel. Subsequent sections explore the organization's ideology and its activity on the American scene after Israeli statehood; its political and ideological role in the World Zionist Organization; and its involvement in the new State of Israel in medicine and health care, and in its work with children and young people. The final part deals with topics such as gender issues, comparisons of Hadassah with other Zionist organizations, and the importance of people of the Yishuv and later of Israelis in Hadassah's activities. It concludes with an epilogue that considers developments up to 2005, assessing whether the conclusions reached with regard to Hadassah as an organization remain valid.
The Entry of East European Jews into Medicine, 1914‒1939
Authors: Cooper John
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines why so many young Jews from east European immigrant backgrounds in England set out to become doctors, when this trend began, and how it gathered momentum. The concentration of the immigrant generation in England in the tailoring, cabinet-making, and shopkeeping businesses meant that Jewish families favoured self-employment—an inclination further encouraged by the difficulty of maintaining strict sabbath observance when working for non-Jewish or public authority employers. The professions of medicine and law were more prestigious and generated higher incomes than the manual occupations or shopkeeping, but nevertheless were based on the same model of self-employment, and this attracted upwardly mobile Jewish men and women into them. Moreover, employment prospects in the medical profession were believed to be reasonably good. The chapter then considers the rate of recruitment of Jewish medical students in London and the leading provincial centres with large immigrant populations—Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool. It also discusses whether or not there was antisemitism in the admissions policy of the medical schools, and how important antipathy towards Jews was among English medical students.
Jewish General Practitioners and Consultants between the World Wars
Authors: Cooper John
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at Jewish general practitioners and consultants between the world wars. It shows that the massive influx of Jews into the medical profession started during the First World War and continued into the 1920s and 1930s. Although there is a widespread belief among Anglo-Jewish historians that discrimination made entry into the medical profession difficult for Jews, finding a place in an English medical school was in fact—apart from a few isolated incidents—relatively straightforward for Jewish students during the inter-war period. However, problems arose when Jews from an immigrant background tried to obtain house appointments and staff positions in the leading London and provincial hospitals. Even the top students, if they were the children of east European Jewish immigrants, sometimes found it difficult to obtain these positions in the London teaching hospitals or such institutions as the Manchester Royal Infirmary during the 1920s, though it became slightly easier in the following decade.