Conclusion

2001 ◽  
pp. 341-348
Author(s):  
Shmuel Feiner
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Old World ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
The Past ◽  
Normal Life ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Historical Awareness

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

Introduction

2001 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Shmuel Feiner
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Life ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Modern Era

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.

Eastern European Jewry in the Modern Period: 1750–1939

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Stanislawski
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
East European ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This article notes that the study of the modern history of East European Jews is not a field driven at present by deep conceptual or ideological divides or abiding scholarly or methodological controversies. The past debates on this score between Israeli and diaspora Jewish scholarship have all but disappeared, as has even more dramatically the attempt at a Marxist version of juedische Wissenschaft. While the major works of the founders of the field from Simon Dubnov on ought to be studied and the impressive resurgence of interest in the history and culture of East European Jewry in the modern age is underway, the work is still largely undone. The crucial challenge to the field is not to succumb to the lachrymose and romanticized stereotypes of Jewish life in Eastern Europe while continuing to explore the history of this the largest Jewry in the world before the Holocaust.

Zionism and the Biology of the Jews

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 587-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Falk
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Gene Pool ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
Biological Nature

The ArgumentWhereas eugenics aspired to redeem the human species by forcing it to face the realities of its biological nature, Zionism aspired to redeem the Jewish people by forcing it to face the realities of its biological existence. The Zionists claimed that Jews maintained their ancient distinct “racial” identity, and that their regrouping as a nation in their homeland would have profound eugenic consequences, primarily halting the degeneration they fell prey to because of the conditions imposed on them in the past. Some Zionists believed in a Lamarckian driven eugenics that expected the “normalization” of Jewish life styles to change their constitution. Others believed that transforming conditions would shift selective pressures exerted on the Jewish gene pool.

Introduction

2005 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Marcin Wodziński
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Jewish Historiography ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Polish Jews

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.

Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Shaul Stampfer
Keyword(s):  
Family Formation ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Smooth Transition ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
East European ◽  
The Past ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
European Jewish

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the author's collection of articles which all deal with aspects of east European Jewish life in the modern period. This was a time of transition from a society in which tradition was a key force to one in which models of the past no longer significantly determined behaviour and thought. This shift took place rapidly and under conditions that were not obviously conducive to a quick and smooth transition, and the consequences are still very evident today. The chapter explains thar divided into three sections, the book studies the workings of Jewish communities, particularly east European Jewish society. The first section deals with family formation, family reformation, and family maintenance. The second section deals with education. Finally, the last section deals with the rabbinate — not with specific rabbis but with the institution.

Ingathering the Exiles of the Past?

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-84
Author(s):  
Jason Lustig
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Life ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This chapter follows the history of the Jewish Historical General Archives in Jerusalem, founded in 1939 and opened in 1947, which in 1969 changed its name to the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People. This archive sought to bring Jewish archives from all over the world to Jerusalem under the banner of what they termed the “ingathering of the exiles of the past.” Its leaders, including Alex Bein and Daniel Cohen, who spearheaded the effort to gather materials from Europe, hoped to draw upon the legacy of European Jewry and thereby place Jews around the world within a sphere of Israeli cultural hegemony. In this archive, one finds an extension and intensification of the Gesamtarchiv’s dream of a total archive of Jewish life—and a powerful instance showing both its possibilities and the problems of fundamentally reframing the Jewish past.

The Courts

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-154
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Person
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
Warsaw Ghetto ◽  
Postwar Reconstruction ◽  
Jewish Society

This chapter explores the discussion of justice and revenge that began in the Warsaw Ghetto and continued in the chaos of the postwar reconstruction of Jewish life both in Poland and abroad. It highlights how Jewish newspapers, political parties, and social organizations were flooded with denunciations from those who considered themselves to be the victims of policemen. It also refers to the Honor Court of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland that “cleansed” the Jewish society in 1946 of people who cooperated with the Nazi authorities during the occupation, unmasking traitors of the Jewish people. The chapter looks at cases examined by the Honor Court, which largely concerned Jewish policemen from Warsaw, particularly lawyers who had returned to legal practice. It points out how the Honor Court did not consider the responsibility of the Jewish Order Service as an institution, but instead, each policeman was tried individually.

Families, Rabbis and Education

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaul Stampfer
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Life ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
East European ◽  
The Past ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
The Family ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
The Way

The realities of Jewish life in eastern Europe that concerned the average Jew meant the way their children grew up, the way they studied, how they married, and all the subsequent stages of the life cycle. The family and the community were the core institutions of east European Jewish society. These realities were always dynamic and evolving but in the nineteenth century, the pace of change in almost every area of life was exceptionally rapid. This book deals with these social realities. The result is a picture that is far from the stereotyped view of the past that is common today, but a more honest and more comprehensive one. Topics covered consider the learning experiences of both males and females of different ages. They also deal with and distinguish between study among the well off and learned and study among the poorer masses. A number of chapters are devoted to aspects of educating the elite. Several chapters deal with aspects of marriage, a key element in the life of most Jews. The attempt to understand the rabbinate in its social and historical context is no less revealing than the studies in other areas. The realities of rabbinical life are presented in a way that explains rabbinic behaviour and the complex relations between communities, ideologies, and modernization. The chapters look at the past through the prism of the lives of ordinary people, with some surprising.

The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: A Historical Reader

1999 ◽  
pp. 349-350
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Life ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Past ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Czech Lands ◽  
Source Of Information

This chapter discusses The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia. It explains that this book is an important source of information about Jewish life in the Czech lands. The book offers a collection of carefully chosen fragments of memoirs, private and public documents, and literary selections (including poetry) supplemented by the editor's comments. These help the reader to understand the course of events. The chapter shows how this collection can present an excellent and exciting portrait of the life and death of Jewish society in the Czech lands. The book relates the troubles, failures, and achievements of individuals as well as small communities, and through these accounts depicts the fate of Czech Jewry and describes the changes of the past 200 years.

Haskalah and History

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shmuel Feiner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Awareness ◽  
The Future ◽  
Awareness Change

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.

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