Neologs ( Hungarian : neológ irányzat , "Neolog faction") are one of the two large communal organizations among Hungarian Jewry . Socially, the liberal and modernist Neologs had been more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society since the Era of Emancipation in the 19th century. This was their main feature, and they were largely the representative body of urban, assimilated middle- and upper-class Jews. Religiously, the Neolog rabbinate was influenced primarily by Zecharias Frankel 's Positive-Historical School, from which Conservative Judaism evolved as well, although the formal rabbinical leadership had little sway over the largely assimilationist communal establishment and congregants. Their rift with the traditionalist and conservative Orthodox Jews was institutionalized following the 1868–1869 Hungarian Jewish Congress , and they became a de facto separate denomination . The Neologs remained organizationally independent in those territories ceded under the terms of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon , and are still the largest group among Hungary's Jews.
144-671: In the early 19th century, when the first attempts to reform Judaism under the influence of Enlightenment ( Haskalah ) were made, they had little impact in the Kingdom of Hungary . Rabbi Aaron Chorin of Arad was an early proponent of religious modification; from the publication of his 1803 book "Emeq ha-Shave" and onwards, he dismissed Practical Kabbalah and the Book of Radiance , authored guidelines for modernizing Judaism according to Talmudic principles and sought to remove what he regarded as superstitious or primitive elements, like spitting in
288-570: A personal Messiah . The affair occurred at a time in which the rift between the modern Orthodox in Germany and Zecharia Frankel's Positive-Historical School was widening. While many still regarded him as an ally, his 1859 treatise Darche ha-Mischna ("Ways of the Mishnha ") was severely condemned by Samson Raphael Hirsch. Hildesheimer, who was bothered that public opinion did not perceive a difference between both groups in regards to observance, used
432-523: A revival of Hebrew for use in secular life, which resulted in an increase in Hebrew found in print. Concurrently, it strove for an optimal integration in surrounding societies. Practitioners promoted the study of exogenous culture, style, and vernacular, and the adoption of modern values. At the same time, economic production, and the taking up of new occupations was pursued. The Haskalah promoted rationalism , liberalism , relativism , and enquiry , and
576-507: A Torah-observant rabbi, who was loyal to traditional Judaism. Mendelssohn explicitly linked positive Jewish views of Jesus with the issues of Emancipation and Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Similar revisionist views were expressed by Rabbi Isaac Ber Levinsohn and other traditional representatives of the Haskalah movement. Zecharias Frankel Zecharias Frankel , also known as Zacharias Frankel (30 September 1801 – 13 February 1875)
720-587: A change in Jewish tradition, in particular, regarding rituals like circumcision. Another non-Orthodox group was the Conservative Jews, who emphasized the importance of traditions but viewed with a historical perspective. The Orthodox Jews were actively against these reformers because they viewed changing Jewish tradition as an insult to God and believed that fulfillment in life could be found in serving God and keeping his commandments. The effect of Haskalah
864-418: A common theme in maskilic autobiographies. Having imbibed the image of European bourgeoisie family values, many of them sought to challenge the semi-matriarchal order of rabbinic families – which combined a lack of Jewish education for women with granting them the status of providers – early marriage, and rigid modesty. Instead, they insisted that men become economically productive while confining their wives to
1008-637: A common theme in Haskalah literature – the use of anathema to enforce community will and the concentration on virtually only religious studies. Maskilic reforms included educational efforts. In 1778, partisans of the movement were among the founders of the Berlin Jewish Free School, or Hevrat Hinuch Ne'arim (Society for the Education of Boys), the first institution in Ashkenazi Jewry that taught general studies in addition to
1152-416: A corrupt dialect and another symptom of Jewish destitution – the movement pioneered the negative attitude to Yiddish which persisted many years later among the educated – though often its activists had to resort to it for lack of better medium to address the masses. Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn , for example, authored the first modern Judaeo-German play, Leichtsinn und Frömmelei (Rashness and Sanctimony) in 1796. On
1296-448: A defined ideological worldview during the 1770s, and its last stage ended around 1881, with the rise of Jewish nationalism . The movement advocated against Jewish reclusiveness, encouraged the adoption of prevalent attire over traditional dress, while also working to diminish the authority of traditional community institutions such as rabbinic courts and boards of elders. It pursued a set of projects of cultural and moral renewal, including
1440-643: A fraternal, "non-Orthodox but halakhic " movement, the two are unaffiliated. Haskalah The Haskalah ( Hebrew : הַשְׂכָּלָה ; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), often termed the Jewish Enlightenment , was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe , with a certain influence on those in Western Europe and the Muslim world . It arose as
1584-557: A new challenge appeared before Löw and his circle. The Modern Orthodox founder Azriel Hildesheimer arrived from Prussia to serve as rabbi of Eisenstadt , bringing with him the philosophy of Torah im Derech Eretz . While the Neologs did not perceive the "Old Orthodoxy" of Moses Sofer's disciples as a potent competitor for the loyalty of the educated Jews, Hildesheimer signaled a different approach. Neolog publications, especially Löw's Ben Chananja , launched constant tirades against
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#17327794794861728-766: A new regulation (13 February 1840) put the Jews on the same basis as Christians as regards testimony in court. His second great work was his Historical-Critical Studies on the Septuagint as Addition to the Targumim Contributions: Preliminary Studies for the Septuagint (Leipzig, 1841). To the same category belong three later works: On the Influence of Palestinian Exegesis on Alexandrian Hermeneutics (Leipzig, 1851); About Palestinian and Alexandrian Writing Research published in
1872-626: A non-Jew on the Sabbath, and mixed choirs, traditional liturgy was upheld; only few communities abolished Kol Nidre or Av HaRachamim . The Neolog rabbis also opposed legitimizing intermarriage when they were enabled in Hungary in 1896, after civil unions were authorized. They conducted marriage and divorce according to traditional standards. During the Second World War, when the government banned ritual slaughter on animal rights' grounds,
2016-454: A political question. The law of 16 August 1838, had improved the position of the Jews in Saxony, but still discriminated with regard to the Jewish oath, which was to be taken under conditions which seemed to involve the supposition that a Jew could not fully be trusted in his testimony before a civil court. Frankel proved that no Jewish doctrine justified such an assumption, and owing to his work,
2160-555: A progressive into an adversary of more radical elements within a generation. In the Maghreb , the few local maskilim were more concerned with the rapid assimilation of local Jews into the colonial French culture than with the ills of traditional society. Likewise, those who abandoned the optimistic, liberal vision of the Jews (albeit as a cohesive community) integrating into wider society in favour of full-blown Jewish nationalism or radical, revolutionary ideologies which strove to uproot
2304-768: A religion, because of the degree to which different sects desired to be integrated, and in turn, integrate their religious traditions. The effects of the Enlightenment were already present in Jewish religious music, and in opinion on the tension between traditionalist and modernist tendencies. Groups of Reform Jews, including the Society of the Friends of Reform and the Association for the Reform of Judaism were formed, because such groups wanted, and actively advocated for,
2448-492: A sanitized manner. On the other hand, the curriculum was augmented by general studies like math, vernacular language, and so forth. In the linguistic field, the maskilim wished to replace the dualism which characterized the traditional Ashkenazi community, which spoke Judaeo-German and its formal literary language was Hebrew, with another: a refined Hebrew for internal usage and the local vernacular for external ones. They almost universally abhorred Judaeo-German, regarding it as
2592-569: A stable financial base, and they required patrons, whether affluent Jews or the state's institutions. This triplice – the authorities, the Jewish communal elite, and the maskilim – was united only in the ambition of thoroughly reforming Jewish society. The government had no interest in the visions of renaissance which the Enlightened so fervently cherished. It demanded the Jews to turn into productive, loyal subjects with rudimentary secular education, and no more. The rich Jews were sometimes open to
2736-458: A standard self-appellation in 1860, when it was taken as the motto of the Odessa -based newspaper Ha-Melitz , but derivatives and the title Maskil for activists were already common in the first edition of Ha-Meassef from 1 October 1783: its publishers described themselves as Maskilim . While Maskilic centres sometimes had loose institutions around which their members operated, the movement as
2880-432: A united representative organization for all Jews. The Orthodox viewed this proposal with great suspicion, believing it to be a Neolog conspiracy; the term itself entered Orthodox discourse at that time. Eventually, the traditionalists seceded from the founding Congress of the new organ and formed a separate one, which was formally recognized in 1871. Most liberal communities, which were prone to elect like-minded rabbis, joined
3024-579: A whole lacked any such. In spite of that diversity, the Maskilim shared a sense of common identity and self-consciousness. They were anchored in the existence of a shared literary canon, which began to be formulated in the first Maskilic locus at Berlin . Its members, like Moses Mendelssohn , Naphtali Hirz Wessely , Isaac Satanow and Isaac Euchel , authored tracts in various genres that were further disseminated and re-read among other Maskilim. Each generation, in turn, elaborated and added its own works to
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#17327794794863168-642: A young lay leader of the Pesth Jewish community, Gabriel Ullmann, established a prayer quorum that practiced the rite of the Stadttempel in Vienna . This style was carefully crafted by Isaac Noah Mannheimer to introduce aesthetic change without breaching the Shulchan Aruch ; the bimah was set in the front of the hall, as in churches, and the wedding canopy was held inside rather than under
3312-492: Is a common theme in the movement's literature. The term Haskalah became synonymous, among friends and foes alike and in much of early Jewish historiography , with the sweeping changes that engulfed Jewish society (mostly in Europe) from the late 18th century to the late 19th century. It was depicted by its partisans, adversaries and historians like Heinrich Graetz as a major factor in those; Feiner noted that "every modern Jew
3456-585: Is largely perceived as the Jewish variant of the general Age of Enlightenment . The movement encompassed a wide spectrum ranging from moderates, who hoped for maximal compromise, to radicals, who sought sweeping changes. In its various changes, the Haskalah fulfilled an important, though limited, part in the modernization of Central and Eastern European Jews. Its activists, the Maskilim , exhorted and implemented communal, educational and cultural reforms in both
3600-558: The 1848 Revolution , Ede Horn, a disciple of the radical German rabbi Samuel Holdheim , headed the Pesth Reform Association, where he abolished circumcision and moved the Sabbath to Sunday. Löw and Schwabb condemned him sharply, and demanded the authorities close down the Association – now headed by David Einhorn , who arrived to replace Horn after the latter fled the country – and similar groups that sprung up at
3744-672: The Berlin Haskalah influenced multiple Jewish communities who were interested in non-religious scholarly texts and insight to worlds beyond their Jewish enclaves. Haskalah did not stay restricted to Germany, however, and the movement quickly spread throughout Europe. Poland–Lithuania was the heartland of Rabbinic Judaism, with its two streams of Misnagdic Talmudism centred primarily in Lithuania and Belarus , and Hasidic mysticism popular in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Russia. In
3888-692: The Budapest University of Jewish Studies was founded along the lines of its Breslau archetype. The large majority of rabbis who served in Congressional communities were graduates of the seminary. The main figures in its early years were scholars Moses Löb Bloch , David Kaufmann and Wilhelm Bacher . Judah Schweizer, who surveyed the religious positions of the Neolog rabbis throughout the years, concluded they rarely voiced their opinion. While congregations introduced synagogue organs, played by
4032-573: The Haskalah in its entirety. His most famous work was the 1876 epic Qotzo shel Yodh (Tittle of a Jot). Mendele Mocher Sforim was during his youth a Maskilic writer but from his 1886 Beseter ra'am ( Hebrew : בסתר רעם ), (Hidden in Thunder), he abandoned its strict conventions in favour of a mixed, facile and common style. His career marked the end of the Maskilic period in Hebrew literature and
4176-460: The Haskalah was dualistic in nature. The Jewish Enlighteners pursued two parallel agendas: they exhorted the Jews to acculturate and harmonize with the modern state, and demanded that the Jews remain a distinct group with its own culture and identity. Theirs was a middle position between Jewish community and surrounding society, received mores and modernity. Sliding away from this precarious equilibrium, in any direction, signified also one's break with
4320-615: The Mishnah , "Darkei ha-Mishnah" (Leipzig, 1859), with a supplement and index under the title "Tosafot u-Mafteah; le-Sefer Darkei ha-Mishnah" (1867). Of the storm which this book created mention has been made already. It is one of the most valuable attempts at a systematized exposition of the history of early rabbinical literature and theology, and has largely inspired subsequent works of that kind, as those of Jacob Brüll and Isaac H. Weiss . His outline of rabbinical marriage law, "Grundlinien des Mosaisch-Talmudischen Eherechts" (Breslau, 1860),
4464-475: The Mishnah . The first attack began with the letter of Jedidiah Gottlieb Fischer [ hu ] , rabbi of Székesfehérvár , published in Hirsch's "Jeschurun", 1860. Hirsch himself began in the following year a series of articles in which he took exception to some of Frankel's statements, especially to his definition of rabbinical tradition, which he found vague; he further objected to Frankel's conception of
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4608-650: The Moravian and Galician Haskalah . That function was later fulfilled by the Prague -based Kerem Hemed from 1834 to 1857, and to a lesser degree by Kokhvei Yizhak , published in the same city from 1845 to 1870. The Russian Haskalah was robust enough to lack any single platform. Its members published several large magazines, including the Vilnius -based Ha-Karmel (1860–1880), Ha-Tsefirah in Warsaw and more, though
4752-646: The Sephardi pronunciation , considered more prestigious, to the Ashkenazi one , which was linked with the Jews of Poland , who were deemed backward. The movement's literary canon is defined by a grandiloquent, archaic register copying the Biblical one and often combining lengthy allusions or direct quotes from verses in the prose. During a century of activity, the Maskilim produced a massive contribution, forming
4896-647: The Septuagint , but also of the Vulgate and of the Peshitta . A political motive was involved in his study on legal procedure, "Der Gerichtliche Beweis nach Mosaisch-Talmudischem Rechte: Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Mosaisch-Talmudischen Criminal-und Civilrechts: Nebst einer Untersuchung über die Preussische Gesetzgebung Hinsichtlich des Zeugnisses der Juden" (Berlin, 1846). The law of Prussia discriminated against
5040-490: The controversy on the new Hamburg prayer book (1842) displeased both parties; the liberals were dissatisfied because, instead of declaring that their prayer-book was in accord with Jewish tradition, he pointed out inconsistencies from the historical and dogmatic points of view; and the Orthodox were dissatisfied because he declared changes in the traditional ritual permissible (l.c. iii. 352–363, 377–384). A great impression
5184-535: The ghetto ", not just physically but also mentally and spiritually, in order to assimilate among gentile nations. The example of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), a Prussian Jew, served to lead this movement, which was also shaped by Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn (1754–1835) and Joseph Perl (1773–1839). Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews. Mendelssohn also provided methods for Jews to enter
5328-436: The maskilim were raised in the rabbinic elite, in which (unlike among the poor Jewish masses or the rich communal wardens) the males were immersed in traditional studies and their wives supported them financially, mostly by running business. Many of the Jewish enlightened were traumatized by their own experiences, either of assertive mothers or early marriage, often conducted at the age of thirteen. Bitter memories from those are
5472-461: The "Pest of Neo-Orthodoxy", castigating the Eisenstadt rabbi for merely presenting a shallow facade of modernity. His school, which introduced secular studies, was condemned as a "Polish yeshiva under a different name". The Neologs and Hildesheimer often came to public dispute, with the most important taking place in 1863, after Heinrich Graetz was sued for dismissing the traditional concept of
5616-924: The "Russian Mendelssohn". Joseph Perl 's (1773–1839) satire of the Hasidic movement, "Revealer of Secrets" (Megalleh Temirim), is said to be the first modern novel in Hebrew. It was published in Vienna in 1819 under the pseudonym "Obadiah ben Pethahiah". The Haskalah's message of integration into non-Jewish society was subsequently counteracted by alternative secular Jewish political movements advocating Folkish, Socialist or Nationalist secular Jewish identities in Eastern Europe. While Haskalah advocated Hebrew and sought to remove Yiddish, these subsequent developments advocated Yiddish Renaissance among Maskilim. Writers of Yiddish literature variously satirised or sentimentalised Hasidic mysticism. The Haskalah also resulted in
5760-478: The 1860s, constant conflict between conservative and liberal elements was prevalent in many communities. In 1867, full emancipation was granted to the Jews in the newly autonomous Hungary . However, no separation of Church and State took place, and all Hungarians were mandated to belong to religious bodies that collected their own taxes and retained control over aspects of civilian lives, like birth registrations and marriage. The Pesth community board suggested forming
5904-490: The 18th and 19th centuries and cast them in their own particular mold. This intellectual upheaval was accompanied by the desire to practically change Jewish society. Even the moderate maskilim viewed the contemporary state of Jews as deplorable and in dire need of rejuvenation, whether in matters of morals, cultural creativity or economic productivity. They argued that such conditions were rightfully scorned by others and untenable from both practical and idealistic perspectives. It
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6048-558: The 19th century, Haskalah sought dissemination and transformation of traditional education and inward pious life in Eastern Europe. It adapted its message to these different environments, working with the Russian government of the Pale of Settlement to influence secular educational methods, while its writers satirised Hasidic mysticism, in favour of solely Rationalist interpretation of Judaism. Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788–1860) became known as
6192-626: The 23 Neolog communities and 7 of the 11 local Status Quo communities united to form the "Western Rite Union of Transylvania and Banat". In 1922, the Neolog community of Rechnitz was the only one in Burgenland not to join the newly created Association of Autonomous Orthodox Congregations. During the Holocaust , most Hungarian Jews perished. Subsequently, in the Hungarian People's Republic , all communal organizations were merged into
6336-470: The 29 Neolog and 31 Status Quo congregations united to form a single federation in 1926, named "Jeschurun" from 1928. In Yugoslavia, the 70 Neolog communities constituted the majority of the Federation of Jewish Religious Congregations ( Savez jevrejskih veroispovednih opština ) founded in 1919, together with 38 Sephardi ones; the 12 Orthodox refused to join and formed a union of their own. In Romania,
6480-503: The Association but refrained from enforcing the constitution, which was severely opposed by the Orthodox. A network of German-language schools was set in many communities, and it switched to Hungarian in 1860, greatly increasing the acculturation of the Jews. By the time of the official schism in 1868–1871, most of the young were already graduates of these. In the cultural sphere, the Neolog elements tended to embrace Magyarization , while
6624-419: The Federation of Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ) was founded as a non-fractional body. It became de facto Neolog after the small Orthodox minority seceded in 1994. As of 2022, there were 42 synagogues affiliated with the movement operating in Hungary. Of 15,695 Jews who chose to donate part of their income to one of the fractions, 11,885 (75.7%) gave theirs to the Neolog. While Conservative Judaism regards them as
6768-527: The Graetz controversy to prove the existence of a dogmatic chasm. He had hundreds of rabbis sign a petition against the historian, denouncing him for violating one of Maimonides' 13 principles of faith , a belief in the Messiah, and for doubting the integrity of Scripture. The Neologs, on the other hand, rallied behind Graetz, stating the incident proved that Hildesheimer was rejecting modern Biblical research. By
6912-536: The Haskalah was a widespread cultural adaptation, as those Jews who participated in the enlightenment began, in varying degrees, to participate in the cultural practices of the surrounding gentile population. Connected with this was the birth of the Reform movement , whose founders (such as Israel Jacobson and Leopold Zunz ) rejected the continuing observance of those aspects of Jewish law which they classified as ritual—as opposed to moral or ethical. Even within orthodoxy,
7056-687: The Haskalah was felt through the appearance, in response, of the Mussar Movement in Lithuania, and Torah im Derech Eretz in Germany. "Enlightened" Jews sided with gentile governments, in plans to increase secular education and assimilation among the Jewish masses, which brought them into acute conflict with the orthodox, who believed this threatened the traditional Jewish lifestyle – which had up until that point been maintained through segregation from their gentile neighbors – and Jewish identity itself. The spread of Haskalah affected Judaism, as
7200-489: The Jewish Enlightenment. Virtually all maskilim received old-style, secluded education, and were young Torah scholars before they were first exposed to outside knowledge (from a gender perspective, the movement was almost totally male-dominated; women did not receive sufficient tutoring to master Hebrew). For generations, Mendelssohn's Bible translation to German was employed by such young initiates to bridge
7344-538: The Jewish community. In addition to being a religious scholar and "clergy", a rabbi also acted as a civil judge in all cases in which both parties were Jews. Rabbis sometimes had other important administrative powers, together with the community elders. The rabbinate was the highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Talmud was the means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important communal distinctions. Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of
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#17327794794867488-594: The Jews insofar as the testimony of a Jew against a Christian was valid only in civil cases, and in these only when they involved a sum less than fifty thalers. It was due to Frankel's work, which was cited as an authority in the Prussian Diet, that the new law of 23 July 1847 referring to the Jews, abolished this discrimination. Frankel's duties as professor of Talmudic literature showed him the necessity of modern scientific text-books on rabbinical literature and archeology. To this necessity are due his introduction to
7632-475: The Jews to introduce general subjects, like science and vernacular language, into their children's curriculum; this "Teaching of Man" was necessarily linked with the "Teaching ( Torah ) of God", and the latter, though superior, could not be pursued and was useless without the former. Historian Shmuel Feiner discerned that Wessely insinuated (consciously or not) a direct challenge to the supremacy of sacred teachings, comparing them with general subjects and implying
7776-479: The Jews; he was the first to preach in that language, doing so from 1844. But even he shared the views of Zecharias Frankel , whom he considered his mentor along with Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport . The ideas of Abraham Geiger and the other German pioneers of Reform Judaism found barely any support in Hungary. In 1845, the Ksav Sofer could still recommend that Jacob Ettlinger approach Löw Schawbb – Rabbi of
7920-511: The Kingdom's Jews underwent rapid urbanization and acculturation, and many began to assimilate. A gradual linguistic shift from Yiddish to German took place, and later to Hungarian. The pressures that motivated German Jews to seek aesthetic changes in their synagogues a generation earlier began to manifest themselves. In addition, the local Liberals – Lajos Kossuth among them – insisted that Emancipation would be granted only after Jews abandoned
8064-802: The Medieval Grammarians' – such as Jonah ibn Janah and Judah ben David Hayyuj – distaste of Mishnaic Hebrew and preference of the Biblical one as pristine and correct. They turned to the Bible as a source and standard, emphatically advocating what they termed "Pure Hebrew Tongue" ( S'fat E'ver tzacha ) and lambasting the Rabbinic style of letters, which mixed it with Aramaic as a single " Holy Tongue " and often employed loanwords from other languages. Some activists, however, were not averse to using Mishnaic and Rabbinic forms. They also preferred
8208-477: The Neolog rabbinate refused to allow electric shock during the process , declaring an animal slaughtered after such treatment was not kosher . Schweitzer concluded that while the Neolog rabbis were extremely moderate in their approach, they had little influence over the congregants of the Bureau communities, who were inclined toward full assimilation and religiously lax, at best. Prominent rabbinical authorities among
8352-608: The Neologs included also Immanuel Löw of Szeged , Leopold's son, who was one of only two rabbis to be given permanent seat in the Hungarian Upper House of Parliament, alongside the Orthodox Koppel Reich. In 1896, there were 539 communities affiliated with the Neolog Bureau, 179 of which were mother congregations and the rest smaller ones, subordinated to one of the former. In 1944, prior to
8496-629: The Orthodox Oberlander Jews in the northwest of the Kingdom were more inclined toward the German culture. The Unterlander Jews in the northeast, even more conservative and barely acculturated, remained Yiddish-speaking. However, after the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise , the Orthodox leadership was quick in declaring its support of Magyar nationalism; by the turn of the century, most Hungarian Jews, regardless of affiliation, viewed themselves as "Magyars of Israelite faith". In 1851,
8640-459: The Pentateuch and prayers and thus better identify with their heritage; ignorance of Hebrew was often lamented by maskilim as breeding apathy towards Judaism. Far less Talmud, considered cumbersome and ill-suited for children, was taught; elements considered superstitious, like midrashim , were also removed. Matters of faith were taught in rationalistic spirit, and in radical circles also in
8784-653: The Reform movement, wrote on the different factions in Hungarian Jewry: "religiously they are practically on the same footing. Religious Reform as conceived in Germany and realized in the United States is unknown." The 1911 Central Conference of American Rabbis ' Year Book noted with disappointment: "in the Szegedin and Budapest reform temples , there are no mixed choirs, no family pews , no bareheaded praying and not even confirmation of boys and girls. As to
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#17327794794868928-409: The Upper House of Parliament and against Antisemitism – in the 1890s, 1920s and 1930s, respectively – were led by the Congressionals. Pesth remained their stronghold: in 1880, its Neolog community numbered some 64,000 (as opposed to a few thousands of Orthodox in the city) out of 238,947 country-wide. In 1930, the congregation had 172,933 members, 59.2% of the Bureau's general membership. Tensions between
9072-400: The abrogation of some hymns, the introduction of a choir of boys, and the like. He was opposed to any innovation which was objectionable to Jewish sentiment. In this respect, his denunciation of the action of the "Landesrabbiner" Joseph Hoffmann of Saxe-Meiningen, who permitted Jewish high-school boys to write on the Sabbath , is very significant ("Orient," iii. 398 et seq.). His position in
9216-460: The acceptance of the new ritual, and they were content with what German progressive Jews condemned as "cosmetic changes". The Neologs had theologians who applied critical analysis to the study of Judaism and sought to modify it on the basis of scientific research. Of those, the most prominent was Rabbi Leopold Löw , who was also instrumental in promoting the cause of Emancipation and in the adoption of Hungarian language and national identification among
9360-423: The aesthetic modifications practiced in Pesth across the country and aimed at creating schools for public education at the communities. The committee defined the Association as "a cult, similar to Hasidism ", and had the government disperse it. Jacob Katz viewed the constitution as an important testimony to the "emerging Neolog tendency": while it opposed any changes in the laws of religion pertaining to Sabbath and
9504-411: The ancientness of the Zohar , were extremely controversial in traditional society; apart from that, the maskilim had little in common. On the right-wing were conservative members of the rabbinic elite who merely wanted a rationalist approach, and on the extreme left some ventured far beyond the pale of orthodoxy towards Deism . Another aspect was the movement's attitude to gender relations. Many of
9648-430: The archaic I'vri-Taitsch (medieval Yiddish) translation and an exclusive focus on the Talmud as a subject of higher learning, all presided over by old-school tutors, melamdim , who were particularly reviled in maskilic circles. Those were replaced by teachers trained in modern methods, among others in the spirit of German philanthropinism , who sought to acquaint their pupils with refined Hebrew so they may understand
9792-418: The assimilated Jews had long since ceased to uphold traditional religious rules such as Sabbath observance and the requirement for Jewish-cooked food . According to Rebekah Klein-Pejšová , Neolog Judaism "developed as a means of fulfilling Magyar social assimilationist expectations that were rooted in the reform era". She noted that there was no equivalent of Neolog Judaism in other countries. In 1827,
9936-416: The beginning of the Era of Renaissance . The writers of the latter period lambasted their Maskilic predecessors for their didactic and florid style, more or less paralleling the Romantics' criticism of Enlightenment literature. The central platforms of the Maskilic "Republic of Letters" were its great periodicals, each serving as a locus for contributors and readers during the time it was published. The first
10080-449: The chief rabbi at Berlin, which position had been vacant since 1800. However, after a long correspondence he declined, chiefly because the Prussian government, in accordance with its fixed policy, refused to officially recognize the office. He remained in Dresden until 1854, when he was called to the presidency of the Breslau seminary, where he remained until his death. Frankel held that reason based on scholarship, and not mere desire on
10224-456: The communal affiliation of Hungarian Jews (from 1920, only in post- Trianon territory). The functionaries who headed the Bureau sought to minimize differences with the Orthodox. They hoped, among others, to refute the opposing party's claim that they constituted a separate religion. The Hungarian government accepted their stance and recognized the communal associations only as "fractions" ( irányzat ), stressing that all three belonged "one and
10368-572: The contents of the prayers themselves, they are the same as the Orthodox have." When Theodor Herzl 's confirmation took place in 1873, his family had to hold it at home rather than in the Dohány Street Synagogue . The only Hungarian rabbi in the decades to come who administered some of the ritual changes proposed by Geiger was Ede Neumann, who served in Nagykanizsa from 1883 to 1918. Another attempt for more radical innovations
10512-519: The creation of a secular Jewish culture , with an emphasis on Jewish history and Jewish identity , rather than on religion. This, in turn, resulted in the political engagement of Jews in a variety of competing ways within the countries where they lived on issues that included One commentator describes these effects as "The emancipation of the Jews brought forth two opposed movements: the cultural assimilation, begun by Moses Mendelssohn , and Zionism , founded by Theodor Herzl in 1896." One facet of
10656-413: The customs that set them apart from society so that they could fully integrate. As in Germany, both moderate and extreme religious reformers in Hungary opposed this demand, claiming civil rights should be unconditional and that the changes they instituted were made for their own sake. However, there was a clear correlation between the levels of education and acculturation and support for change. At that time,
10800-403: The demise of Jewish Enlightenment in Eastern Europe, authors abandoned the maskilic paradigm not toward assimilation but in favour of exclusive use of Hebrew and Yiddish. The political vision of the Haskalah was predicated on a similar approach. It opposed the reclusive community of the past but sought a maintenance of a strong Jewish framework (with themselves as leaders and intercessors with
10944-557: The deportation to the death camps, there were 167 such in Trianon Hungary. The majority of these communities were located in the north and west of the kingdom, in the economically developed areas. The Neologs, throughout history, were more affluent, urbanized and integrated than the Orthodox, and had more political clout. The campaigns for granting Judaism the status of an "accepted faith", legally recognized and subsidized by government funds, for installing chief rabbis as members of
11088-428: The economic front, the maskilim preached productivization and abandonment of traditional Jewish occupations in favour of agriculture, trades and liberal professions. In matters of faith (which were being cordoned off into a distinct sphere of "religion" by modernization pressures) the movement's partisans, from moderates to radicals, lacked any uniform coherent agenda. The main standard through which they judged Judaism
11232-511: The end of the 19th century. Solomon Löwisohn was the first to translate Shakespeare into Hebrew, and an abridged form of the "Are at this hour asleep!" monologue in Henry IV, Part 2 was included in his 1816 lyrical compilation Melitzat Yeshurun (Eloquence of Jeshurun ). Joseph Perl pioneered satirist writings in his biting, mocking critique of Hasidic Judaism , Megaleh Tmirin "Revealer of Secrets" from 1819. Avraham Dov Ber Lebensohn
11376-518: The established order like Socialism , also broke with the Haskalah . The Jewish national movements of Eastern Europe, founded by disillusioned maskilim , derisively regarded it – in a manner similar to other romantic-nationalist movements' understanding of the general Enlightenment – as a naive, liberal and assimilationist ideology which induced foreign cultural influences, gnawed at the Jewish national consciousness and promised false hopes of equality in exchange for spiritual enslavement. This hostile view
11520-412: The first phase of modern Hebrew literature. In 1755, Moses Mendelssohn began publishing Qohelet Musar "The Moralist", regarded as the beginning of modern writing in Hebrew and the first journal in the language. Between 1789 and his death, Naphtali Hirz Wessely compiled Shirei Tif'eret "Poems of Glory", an eighteen-part epic cycle concerning Moses that exerted influence on all neo-Hebraic poets in
11664-643: The first. The majority of the religiously conservative ones affiliated with the Orthodox. Some of both chose to remain independent, under the label "Status Quo". Many congregations split, polarized between progressive and traditional elements, to form two or even three new ones, each selecting a different affiliation. The liberal body, formed at the 1868 Congress in Pesth, was named the National Jewish Bureau. Its members were henceforth known colloquially as "Neologs" or "Congressionals". The table presents
11808-446: The following generations. Joseph ha-Efrati Troplowitz [ he ] was the Haskalah's pioneering playwright, best known for his 1794 epic drama Melukhat Sha'ul "Reign of Saul ", which was printed in twelve editions by 1888. Judah Leib Ben-Ze'ev was the first modern Hebrew grammarian, and beginning with his 1796 manual of the language, he authored books which explored it and were vital reading material for young Maskilim until
11952-518: The following year he was appointed district rabbi ( Kreisrabbiner ) of Litoměřice by the government, being the first rabbi in Bohemia with a modern education. He made Teplice his seat, where the congregation, the largest in the district, had elected him rabbi. He was called to Dresden in 1836 as chief rabbi, and was confirmed in this position by the Saxon government. In 1843 he was invited to become
12096-485: The general society of Germany. A good knowledge of the German language was necessary to secure entrance into cultured German circles, and an excellent means of acquiring it was provided by Mendelssohn in his German translation of the Torah . This work became a bridge over which ambitious young Jews could pass to the great world of secular knowledge. The Biur , or grammatical commentary, prepared under Mendelssohn's supervision,
12240-429: The growing body. The emergence of the Maskilic canon reflected the movement's central and defining enterprise, the revival of Hebrew as a literary language for secular purposes (its restoration as a spoken tongue occurred only much later). The Maskilim researched and standardized grammar, minted countless neologisms and composed poetry, magazines, theatrical works and literature of all sorts in Hebrew. Historians described
12384-501: The holidays, marriage and divorce, dietary regulations etc., it also refused to apply any coercion to enforce them, whether by legal or social means. Rabbi Meir Eisenstaedter , representing the Orthodox, opposed public education and wished that Jewish children continue to be privately tutored in cheders . He also requested that the government insure that only conservative rabbis be appointed, and that they will be granted jurisdiction to deal with "heretical elements". The Austrians closed
12528-401: The home environment but also granting them proper religious education, reversing Jewish custom and copying contemporary Christian attitudes. The Haskalah was also mainly a movement of transformation, straddling both the declining traditional Jewish society of autonomous community and cultural seclusion and the beginnings of a modern Jewish public. As noted by Feiner, everything connected with
12672-407: The jurisdiction of traditional community institutions – the rabbinic courts , empowered to rule on numerous civic matters, and the board of elders, which served as lay leadership. The maskilim perceived those as remnants of medieval discrimination. They criticized various traits of Jewish society, such as child marriage – traumatized memories from unions entered at the age of thirteen or fourteen are
12816-507: The languages of the countries in which they settled, providing another gateway for integration. Berlin was the city of origin for the movement. The capital city of Prussia and, later, the German Empire , Berlin became known as a secular, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic center, a fertile environment for conversations and radical movements. This move by the Maskilim away from religious study, into much more critical and worldly studies
12960-568: The largest Neolog center, Pesth, and Leopold's father-in-law – and request to add his signature to a petition against the conferences assembled by Geiger and his colleagues. Leopold Löw supported Frankel's failed attempt to convene a counter-conference in Dresden. Graduates of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau , hub of Frankel's Positive-Historical School, were sought after by the liberal congregations in Hungary for
13104-420: The latter had an intrinsic rather than merely instrumental value. He therefore also contested the authority of the rabbinical establishment, which stemmed from its function as interpreters of the holy teachings and their status as the only truly worthy field of study. Though secular subjects could be and were easily tolerated, their elevation to the same level as sacred ones was a severe threat, and indeed mobilized
13248-529: The liberating influence of reason and progress. The reconstituted Jews, these radical maskilim believed, would be able to take their place as equals in an enlightened world. But all, including the moderate and disillusioned, stated that adjustment to the changing world was both unavoidable and positive in itself. Haskalah ideals were converted into practical steps via numerous reform programs initiated locally and independently by its activists, acting in small groups or even alone at every time and area. Members of
13392-461: The linguistic gap and learn a foreign language, having been raised on Hebrew and Yiddish only. The experience of abandoning one's sheltered community and struggle with tradition was a ubiquitous trait of maskilic biographies. The children of these activists almost never followed their parents; they rather went forward in the path of acculturation and assimilation. While their fathers learned the vernaculars late and still consumed much Hebrew literature,
13536-534: The little available material in the language did not attract their offspring, who often lacked a grasp of Hebrew due to not sharing their parents' traditional education. Haskalah was, by and large, a unigenerational experience. In the linguistic field, this transitory nature was well attested. The traditional Jewish community in Europe inhabited two separate spheres of communication: one internal, where Hebrew served as written high language and Yiddish as vernacular for
13680-601: The local Orthodox by the end of the 1860s, during the Congress controversy. They borrowed it from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Frankfurt, who applied it to denote all religious reformers. The term "Neologs" remained in common use only in Hungary, and became identified with that movement. As opposed to the German states , the weight of intellectual rabbis in the Hungary was low; the communities' dignitaries were those who led
13824-477: The maintenance of both spheres. When acculturation far exceeded the movement's plans, Central European Jews turned almost solely to the vernacular. David Sorkin demonstrated this with the two great journals of German Jewry: the maskilic Ha-Me'assef was written in Hebrew and supported the study of German; the post-maskilic Sulamith (published since 1806) was written almost entirely in German, befitting its editors' agenda of linguistic assimilation. Likewise, upon
13968-490: The masses, and one external, where Latin and the like were used for apologetic and intercessory purposes toward the Christian world. A tiny minority of writers was concerned with the latter. The Haskalah sought to introduce a different bilingualism: renovated, refined Hebrew for internal matters, while Yiddish was to be eliminated; and national vernaculars, to be taught to all Jews, for external ones. However, they insisted on
14112-413: The monopoly of the rabbinic elite over the intellectual sphere of Jewish life, contesting its role as spiritual leadership. In his 1782 circular Divrei Shalom v'Emeth (Words of Peace and Truth), Hartwig Wessely , one of the most traditional and moderate maskilim , quoted the passage from Leviticus Rabbah stating that a Torah scholar who lacked wisdom was inferior to an animal's carcass. He called upon
14256-413: The movement completely in propelling such processes as acculturation, secularization, religious reform from moderate to extreme, adoption of native patriotism and so forth. In many regions the Haskalah had no effect at all. As long as the Jews lived in segregated communities, and as long as all social interaction with their gentile neighbors was limited, the rabbi was the most influential member of
14400-484: The movement largely as a Republic of Letters , an intellectual community based on printing houses and reading societies. The Maskilim's attitude toward Hebrew, as noted by Moses Pelli, was derived from Enlightenment perceptions of language as reflecting both individual and collective character. To them, a corrupt tongue mirrored the inadequate condition of the Jews which they sought to ameliorate. They turned to Hebrew as their primary creative medium. The Maskilim inherited
14544-404: The movement sought to acquaint their people with European culture, have them adopt the vernacular language of their lands, and integrate them into larger society. They opposed Jewish reclusiveness and self-segregation, called upon Jews to discard traditional dress in favour of the prevalent one, and preached patriotism and loyalty to the new centralized governments. They acted to weaken and limit
14688-456: The movement's agenda, but mostly practical, hoping for a betterment of their people that would result in emancipation and equal rights. Indeed, the great cultural transformation which occurred among the Parnassim (affluent communal wardens) class – they were always more open to outside society, and had to tutor their children in secular subjects, thus inviting general Enlightenment influences –
14832-486: The official, statewide leadership and the Budapest communal functionaries were sharp, as the latter virtually dominated Neolog politics. In 1932, after encountering strong resistance, the Pesth community president Samu Stern was elected Chairman of the Bureau, uniting both posts. In the territories ceded in 1920, the communal separation of Hungarian Jewry remained legally sanctioned. In Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia ,
14976-430: The opening of the seminary, addressed an open letter to Frankel, demanding a statement as to the religious principles which would guide the instruction at the new institution. Frankel ignored the challenge. When the fourth volume of Heinrich Graetz 's history appeared, Hirsch impeached the orthodoxy of the new institution (1856), and his attacks became more systematic when Frankel in 1859 published his Hebrew introduction to
15120-708: The part of the laity, must be the justification for any reforms within Judaism. In this sense Frankel declared himself when the president of the Teplice congregation expressed the hope that the new rabbi would introduce reforms and do away with the "Missbräuche" (abuses). He stated that he knew of no abuses; and that if there were any, it was not at all the business of the laity to interfere in such matters (Brann, in his "Jahrbuch," 1899, pp. 109 et seq.). He introduced some slight modifications in Jewish prayer services such as:
15264-632: The prayer of Aleinu . In 1818, Chorin was one of the few rabbis who backed the Hamburg Temple . He drew the ire of Hungarian Orthodoxy headed by Rabbi Moses Sofer of Pressburg , and, as well, had but meager following in his country. The rural character and social seclusion of the Jews in the kingdom offered little incentive for his endeavor. With the commencement of the Hungarian Reform Era in 1825, especially after virtually all limitations on Jewish settlement were removed in 1840,
15408-415: The probably most influential of them all was Ha-Melitz , launched in 1860 at Odessa by Aleksander Zederbaum . While the partisans of the Haskalah were much immersed in the study of sciences and Hebrew grammar, this was not a profoundly new phenomenon, and their creativity was a continuation of a long, centuries-old trend among educated Jews. What truly marked the movement was the challenge it laid to
15552-652: The program for the opening of the Breslau seminary (Breslau, 1854); and On the Targum of the Prophets (Breslau, 1872). In all these works it was his object to show that the exegesis of the Alexandrian Jews , and with it that of the early Church Fathers , was dependent on Talmudic exegesis. In this investigation he became a pioneer, and many of his disciples followed him with similar investigations, not only of
15696-471: The public and the private spheres. Owing to its dual policies, it collided both with the traditionalist rabbinic elite, which attempted to preserve old Jewish values and norms in their entirety, and with the radical assimilationists who wished to eliminate or minimize the existence of the Jews as a defined collective. The Haskalah was multifaceted, with many loci which rose and dwindled at different times and across vast territories. The name Haskalah became
15840-551: The rabbi's office. The Neologs' main efforts were directed at establishing an institution along similar lines in their country. One such graduate, Alexander Kohut , became a Neolog activist and rabbi; afterwards, he immigrated overseas and co-founded the Jewish Theological Seminary of America . Later on, a considerable number of the rabbis affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in its early days arrived from Hungary and were linked with Neology. During
15984-472: The rabbinical conferences, he planned conventions of scholars. His principles were enunciated in his monthly Journal of the Religious Interests of Judaism , which he published from 1844 onward. But Frankel's conciliatory attitude was bound to create for him enemies on both liberal and orthodox sides, and such was the case with Abraham Geiger and Samson Raphael Hirsch , respectively. Frankel
16128-413: The rabbinical controversies, which were, according to Frankel, improperly decided by certain devices common in parliamentary bodies. It can hardly be denied that Frankel evaded the clear definition of what "tradition" meant to him. He contented himself with proving from Rabbenu Asher that not everything called a "law", and reputed as given by Moses on Mount Sinai , was actually of Mosaic origin. Hirsch
16272-499: The rabbis against the nascent Haskalah . The potential of "Words of Peace and Truth" was fully realized later, by the second generation of the movement in Berlin and other radical maskilim , who openly and vehemently denounced the traditional authorities. The appropriate intellectual and moral leadership needed by the Jewish public in modern times was, according to the maskilim , that of their own. Feiner noted that in their usurpation of
16416-460: The radical universalists who broke off the late Berlin Haskalah or the Russified intelligentsia in Eastern Europe a century later, were castigated and derided no less than the old rabbinic authorities which the movement confronted. It was not uncommon for its partisans to become a conservative element, combating against further dilution of tradition: in Vilnius , Samuel Joseph Fuenn turned from
16560-516: The reformulated and reduced traditional curriculum. This model, with different stresses, was applied elsewhere. Joseph Perl opened the first modern Jewish school in Galicia at Tarnopol in 1813, and Eastern European maskilim opened similar institutes in the Pale of Settlement and Congress Poland . They all abandoned the received methods of Ashkenazi education: study of the Pentateuch with
16704-473: The romantic environments of the ancient city of Prague, that love and sympathy for the past that made him the typical expounder of the historical school which was known as the "Breslau school." His marriage with Rachel Meyer was childless. Zacharias Frankel College, a conservative yeshiva in Berlin, is named after him. The Yeshiva is headed by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson . In 2017, Nitzan Stein Kokin, who
16848-400: The same denomination" ( vallásfelekezethez ). The Neolog leadership adopted a careful line in matters of faith and practice. Leopold Löw, who became increasingly independent in the 1860s, slid toward Geiger's positions and even boycotted the Congress, demonstrating sympathy for the Orthodox. He became estranged from the lay establishment of the Bureau. David Philipson , in his 1907 history of
16992-413: The sky. An all-male choir accompanied prayers, and the rabbi delivered his sermon in the vernacular, dressed in a cassock . In 1830, the Pesth quorum turned to a fully functional synagogue, and from there the new rite spread to other large cities. The Viennese Rite, wrote Michael Silber, was the key factor in what would be known as "Neology" in Hungary – the designation itself was late, and was first used by
17136-443: The state authorities); the Enlightened were not even fully agreeable to civic emancipation, and many of them viewed it with reserve, sometimes anxiety. In their writings, they drew a sharp line between themselves and whom they termed "pseudo- maskilim " – those who embraced the Enlightenment values and secular knowledge but did not seek to balance these with their Jewishness, but rather strove for full assimilation. Such elements, whether
17280-490: The sway held by the rabbis and the traditional values over Jewish society. Combined with many other factors, they laid the path to all modern Jewish movements and philosophies, either those critical, hostile or supportive to themselves. The maskilim sought to replace the framework of values held by the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe with their own philosophy, which embraced the liberal, rationalistic notions of
17424-401: The time of the revolution. In 1851, the victorious Austrians requested Jewish leaders to propose means to govern itself. The authorities did not favor Horn's extreme measures, but were not keen on the Orthodox either. Eventually, a committee chaired by Löw drafted a general constitution, which mandated the forming of a seminary as the only certified institute for training rabbis, sought to apply
17568-460: The title of spiritual elite, unprecedented in Jewish history since the dawn of Rabbinic Judaism (various contestants before the Enlightened were branded as schismatics and cast out), they very much emulated the manner in which secular intellectuals dethroned and replaced the Church from the same status among Christians. Thus the maskilim generated an upheaval which – though by no means alone – broke
17712-627: The two magazines which he edited, the Zeitschrift für die Religiösen Interessen des Judenthums (Leipzig, 1844–46), and the Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums , begun in 1851, and which he edited until 1868, when Graetz succeeded him as editor. Though a son of the rationalistic era which produced two of its most intense partisans, Peter Beer and Herz Homberg in his native city, Frankel developed, partly through opposition to shallow rationalism and partly through
17856-523: The unified National Deputation of Hungarian Jews (MIOK). The Budapest Seminary remained the only rabbinic institute in the Eastern Bloc . The most prominent Neolog leader under Communism was its director, Rabbi Alexander Scheiber . With the emigration of virtually all Orthodox, the Neologs remained the vast majority. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, communal independence was restored. In 1989,
18000-473: The whole controversy, and Frankel's position was gradually strengthened by the number of graduates from the seminary who earned reputations as scholars and as representatives of conservative Judaism. Frankel began his literary career rather late. His first independent publication was his work on the Jewish oath , Jewish Oaths in Theology and History (Dresden, 1840, 2d ed. 1847). This work owed its origin to
18144-448: Was German, became the first person to graduate from Zacharias Frankel College, which also made her the first Conservative rabbi to be ordained in Germany since before World War II . He married Rachel Maier of Teplice. Through her mother, she was the great-granddaughter of Isak Landesmann of Police u Jemnice, who was remembered as a notable victim of eighteenth century antisemitism. In Chaim Potok 's best-selling novel The Chosen ,
18288-508: Was a Bohemian-German rabbi and a historian who studied the historical development of Judaism. He was born in Prague and died in Breslau . He was the founder and the most eminent member of the school of positive-historical Judaism , which advocates freedom of research while upholding the authority of traditional Jewish belief and practice. This school of thought was the intellectual progenitor of Conservative Judaism . Through his father, he
18432-497: Was a descendant of the Vienna exiles of 1670 and of the famous rabbinical Spira family; on his mother's side he descended from the Fischel family, which has given the community of Prague a number of distinguished Talmudists . He received his early Jewish education at the yeshiva of Bezalel Ronsburg (Daniel Rosenbaum). In 1825 he went to Budapest , where he prepared himself for the university, from which he graduated in 1831. In
18576-479: Was a precondition of Haskalah . The state and the elite required the maskilim as interlocutors and specialists in their efforts for reform, especially as educators, and the latter used this as leverage to benefit their ideology. However, the activists were much more dependent on the former than vice versa; frustration from one's inability to further the maskilic agenda and being surrounded by apathetic Jews, either conservative "fanatics" or parvenu "assimilationists",
18720-563: Was a serious drawback in the critical investigation of the development of Talmudic law. To this field he determined to devote the remainder of his life. In 1870 he published his introduction to the Jerusalem Talmud under the title "Mebo ha-Yerushalmi" (Breslau). He afterward began a critical edition of the Jerusalem Talmud, with a commentary, but only three treatises had appeared, Berakot and Peah (Vienna, 1874) and Demai (Breslau, 1875), when his death intervened. He wrote frequently for
18864-535: Was chosen president of the new rabbinical seminary at Breslau (10 August 1854). Geiger, who had inspired Jonas Fränkel , the president of his congregation, to found this institution, opposed the appointment vigorously, and when the examination questions given by Frankel to the first graduating class appeared, Geiger published them in a German translation with the evident intention of ridiculing his methods of Talmudic instruction as sophistry (Geiger, "Jüd. Zeit." i. 169 et seq.). Samson Raphael Hirsch , immediately on
19008-581: Was designed to counteract the influence of traditional rabbinical methods of exegesis . Together with the translation, it became, as it were, the primer of Haskalah. Language played a key role in the haskalah movement, as Mendelssohn and others called for a revival of Hebrew and a reduction in the use of Yiddish . The result was an outpouring of new, secular literature, as well as critical studies of religious texts . Julius Fürst along with other German-Jewish scholars compiled Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries and grammars. Jews also began to study and communicate in
19152-439: Was identified as a maskil and every change in traditional religious patterns was dubbed Haskalah ". Later research greatly narrowed the scope of the phenomenon and limited its importance: while Haskalah undoubtedly played a part, the contemporary historical consensus portrays it as much humbler. Other transformation agents, from state-imposed schools to new economic opportunities, were demonstrated to have rivaled or overshadowed
19296-471: Was likewise meant to serve as a textbook on that subject, as was also his attempt at a history of the post-Talmudic literature of sophistry, "Entwurf einer Geschichte der Literatur der Nachtalmudischen Responsen" (Breslau, 1865), which, however, is considered the weakest of his works. Frankel's studies in the history of Talmudic literature had convinced him that the neglect of the Jerusalem Talmud
19440-804: Was made by the Pesth layman Ernő Naményi, who founded the Isaiah Religious Association ( Ézsaiás Vallásos Társaság ) in the early 1930s. They held services inspired by Einhorn's 1848 group in private homes, which included prayers in Hungarian. The local congregation never allowed them to formally organize. In 1932, when Lily Montagu visited Budapest on behalf of the World Union for Progressive Judaism , she met several lay leaders but no Neolog rabbi attended for, as written by Raphael Patai , they "were all Conservative and hence opposed in principle to Liberal or Reform Judaism". In 1877,
19584-608: Was made possible by this German city of modern and progressive thought. It was a city in which the rising middle class Jews and intellectual elites not only lived among, but were exposed to previous Age of Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire , Diderot , and Rousseau . The movement is often referred to as the Berlin Haskalah . Reference to Berlin in relation to the Haskalah movement is necessary because it provides context for this episode of Jewish history. Subsequently, having left Germany and spreading across Eastern Europe,
19728-498: Was primarily a leading metricist, with his 1842 Shirei S'fat haQodesh "Verses in the Holy Tongue" considered a milestone in Hebrew poetry , and also authored biblical exegesis and educational handbooks. Abraham Mapu authored the first Hebrew full-length novel, Ahavat Zion "Love of Zion", which was published in 1853 after twenty-three years of work. Judah Leib Gordon was the most eminent poet of his generation and arguably of
19872-424: Was produced by his letter of 18 July 1845, published in a Frankfurt-am-Main journal, in which he announced his secession from the rabbinical conference then in session in that city. He said that he could not cooperate with a body of rabbis who had passed a resolution declaring the Hebrew language unnecessary for public worship. This letter made Frankel one of the leaders of the conservative element. In opposition to
20016-466: Was promulgated by nationalist thinkers and historians, from Peretz Smolenskin , Ahad Ha'am , Simon Dubnow and onwards. It was once common in Israeli historiography. A major factor which always characterized the movement was its weakness and its dependence of much more powerful elements. Its partisans were mostly impoverished intellectuals, who eked out a living as private tutors and the like; few had
20160-515: Was seconded by various Orthodox rabbis, such as Ezriel Hildesheimer , Solomon Klein of Colmar, and Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach , while some of Frankel's supporters, like Salomon Juda Rappoport , were half-hearted. Frankel but once published a brief statement in his magazine, in which, however, he failed to give an outspoken exposition of his views ("Monatsschrift", 1861, pp. 159 et seq.). The general Jewish public remained indifferent to
20304-414: Was that it gave a voice to plurality of views, while the orthodoxy preserved the tradition, even to the point of insisting on dividing between sects. Another important facet of the Haskalah was its interest in non-Jewish religions, and for some the desire to synchronize or appreciate Christian and Islamic traditions and history. Moses Mendelssohn criticized some aspects of Christianity, but depicted Jesus as
20448-566: Was that of rationalism. Their most important contribution was the revival of Jewish philosophy , rather dormant since the Italian Renaissance , as an alternative to mysticist Kabbalah which served as almost the sole system of thought among Ashkenazim and an explanatory system for observance. Rather than complex allegorical exegesis , the Haskalah sought a literal understanding of scripture and sacred literature. The rejection of Kabbalah , often accompanied with attempts to refute
20592-578: Was the Königsberg (and later Berlin )-based Ha-Meassef , launched by Isaac Abraham Euchel in 1783 and printed with growing intervals until 1797. The magazine had several dozen writers and 272 subscribers at its zenith, from Shklow in the east to London in the west, making it the sounding board of the Berlin Haskalah . The movement lacked an equivalent until the appearance of Bikurei ha-I'tim in Vienna between 1820 until 1831, serving
20736-449: Was to be remedied by the shedding of the base and corrupt elements of Jewish existence and retention of only the true, positive ones; indeed, the question what those were, exactly, loomed as the greatest challenge of Jewish modernity. The more extreme and ideologically bent came close to the universalist aspirations of the radical Enlightenment , of a world freed of superstition and backwardness in which all humans will come together under
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