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116-589: The Haskalah , or Jewish Enlightenment, movement that arose in the late 18th century played a large role in rejecting Yiddish as a Jewish language. However, many maskilim, particularly in the Russian Empire, expanded the Yiddish press to use it as a tool to spread their enlightenment ideas, thereby building a platform for future Yiddishists. Aleksander Zederbaum , a prominent member of the Haskalah, founded

232-511: 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

348-412: 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. YIVO YIVO ( Yiddish : ייִוואָ , pronounced [jɪˈvɔ] )

464-587: 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

580-418: 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

696-637: 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

812-460: A completely separate language from both German and Hebrew and, in the European context of his audience, the "mother tongue" of the Jewish people. In this essay, which was eventually published in 1863 in an early issue of the influential Yiddish periodical Kol Mevasser , he contended that the refinement and development of Yiddish were indispensable for the humanization and education of Jews. In

928-416: 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

1044-479: A large part to the efforts of the Yiddishist movement, Yiddish , before World War II , was becoming a major language, spoken by over 11,000,000 people. The Holocaust , however, led to a large decline in the use of Yiddish, as the extensive European Jewish communities, both secular and religious, that used Yiddish in their day-to-day life were largely destroyed. Around 5 million, or 85%, of the Jewish victims of

1160-546: A movement for young Yiddish speakers which still continues today. The Yungntruf movement also created the Yiddish Farm in 2012, a farm in New York which offers an immersive education for students to learn and speak in Yiddish. The use of Yiddish is also now offered as a language on Duolingo, used throughout the social media platforms of Jews, and is offered as a language in schools, on an international scale. Particularly in

1276-555: 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

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1392-768: 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,

1508-492: 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

1624-493: A section including psychologists and educators Abraham Golomb , H. S. Kasdan , and Abraham Aaron Roback . Jacob Lestschinsky (1876–1966) headed a section of economists and demographers Ben-Adir , Liebmann Hersch , and Moshe Shalit . Weinreich's language and literature section included Judah Leib Cahan , Alexander Harkavy , Judah A. Joffe , Zelig Kalmanovich , Shmuel Niger , Noach Pryłucki , and Zalman Reisen . YIVO also collected and preserved ethnographic materials under

1740-569: 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

1856-502: A subsequent essay published in the same periodical, he also proposed Yiddish as a bridge linking Jewish and European cultures. Scholar Mordkhe Schaechter characterizes Lifshitz as "[t]he first conscious, goal-oriented language reformer" in the field of Yiddish, and highlights his pivotal role in countering the negative attitudes toward the language propagated within the Haskalah , or Jewish Enlightenment movement: Although an adherent of

1972-614: A third center active today. YIVO has undertaken many major scholarly publication projects, the most recent being The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe , published in March 2008 in cooperation with Yale University Press. Under the leadership of editor-in-chief Gershon David Hundert , professor of history and of Jewish Studies at McGill University in Montreal , this unprecedented reference work systematically represents

2088-492: 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

2204-580: Is also responsible for English-language publications such as the YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Studies (founded 1946). YIVO was initially proposed by Yiddish linguist and writer Nochum Shtif (1879–1933). He characterized his advocacy of Yiddish as "realistic" Zionism , contrasted to the "visionary" Hebraists and the "self-hating" assimilationists who adopted Russian or Polish . Other key founders included philologist Max Weinreich (1894–1969) and historian Elias Tcherikower (1881–1943). YIVO

2320-730: Is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography , lexicography , and other studies related to Yiddish. Established in 1925 in Wilno in the Second Polish Republic (now Vilnius , Lithuania ) as the Yiddish Scientific Institute (Yiddish: ייִדישער וויסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוט , romanized:  Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut , pronounced [ˈjɪdɪʃɛr ˈvɪsn̩ʃaftlɛχɛr ɪnstɪˈtʊt] ;

2436-482: The American Jewish immigrant experience. The archives and library collections include works in twelve major languages, including English , French , German , Hebrew , Russian , Polish , and Judaeo-Spanish . YIVO also functions as a publisher of Yiddish-language books and of periodicals including YIVO Bleter (founded 1931), Yedies Fun YIVO (founded 1929), and Yidishe Shprakh (founded 1941). It

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2552-672: 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

2668-488: 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 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

2784-573: 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

2900-460: 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

3016-715: 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 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

3132-650: 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

3248-789: The Russian Empire , founded in Vilnius , Poland in 1897 and active through 1920, promoted the use of Yiddish as a Jewish national language, and to some extent opposed the Zionist project of reviving Hebrew. Moreover, beyond the Labour Bund group in Poland, the International Jewish Labor Bund regarded Yiddish as the Jewish national language. In the Soviet Union during the 1920s, Yiddish was promoted as

3364-646: 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

3480-535: 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

3596-436: 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

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3712-860: 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

3828-470: The 16th century. Approximately 40,000 volumes are in Yiddish, making the YIVO Library the largest collection of Yiddish-language works in the world. The YIVO archives hold over 23,000,000 documents, photographs, recordings, posters, films, and other artifacts. Together, they comprise the world's largest collection of materials related to the history and culture of Central and East European Jewry and

3944-490: 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

4060-558: 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

4176-638: The Americas when the war broke out or were able to make their way there. The organization's new headquarters were established in New York City. A portion of the Vilna archives was ransacked by the Nazis and sent to Frankfurt to become the basis of an antisemitic department of the Nazis' planned university . In 1946, the U.S. Army recovered these documents and sent them to YIVO in New York. The YIVO Library

4292-532: The Austro-Hungarian city of Czernowitz , Bukovina (today in southwestern Ukraine ). The conference proclaimed Yiddish a modern language with a developing high culture. The organizers of this gathering ( Benno Straucher , Nathan Birnbaum , Chaim Zhitlowsky , David Pinski , and Jacob Gordin ) expressed a sense of urgency to the delegates that Yiddish as a language and as the binding glue of Jews throughout Eastern Europe needed help. They proclaimed that

4408-589: The Division of History, originally headed by Elias Tcherikower , translated major works from Russian to Yiddish and conducted further research on historical topics. The Bund ( The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia ; Yiddish : אַלגעמײנער ייִדישער אַרבעטער בונד אין ליטע פּוילין און רוסלאַנד , Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland ), a secular Jewish socialist party in

4524-485: The Enlightenment, [Lifshitz] broke with its sterile anti-Yiddish philosophy, to become an early ideologue of Yiddishism and of Yiddish-language planning. He courageously stood up for the denigrated folk tongue, calling for its elevation and cultivation. He did this in the form of articles in the weekly Kol-mevaser (in the 1860s) and in his excellent Russian-Yiddish and Yiddish-Russian dictionaries [...]. Several prominent Yiddish authors also emerged in this time, transforming

4640-536: 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,

4756-685: 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

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4872-524: The Holocaust, were speakers of Yiddish. Additionally, the revival of the Hebrew language as the national language of Israel , created a significant decline in the use of Yiddish in the daily Jewish life. To some, Yiddish was seen as the language of the Jewish people in diaspora and believed its use should be extinguished in the early establishment of Israel. Di Goldene Keyt was a literary journal started by Avrom Sutzkever in 1949 in an attempt to bridge

4988-489: 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

5104-538: 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

5220-465: The Jewish people." Zionist activists were, however, not opposed to this decision; Yiddish was seen as the realistic choice of a language to organize the Jews of Eastern Europe for Jewish nationalism. In 1925 YIVO ( Yiddish Scientific Institute ; ייִוואָ : ייִדישער װיסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוט Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut ) was established in Wilno , Poland (Vilnius, now part of Lithuania ). YIVO

5336-475: 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

5452-418: 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 the movement largely as

5568-802: 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

5684-459: 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

5800-647: The Soviet Union all in a single night. In 1928, the Soviet Union created the Jewish Autonomous Oblast ( Yiddish : ייִדישע אווטאָנאָמע געגנט , yidishe avtonome gegnt ). Located in the Russian Far East and bordering China, its administrative center was the town of Birobidzhan . There, the Soviets envisaged setting up a new "Soviet Zion", where a proletarian Jewish culture could be developed. Yiddish, rather than Hebrew , would be

5916-753: The United States, the use of Yiddish has become a part of the identity of young Jewish Americans ranging from queer to orthodox individuals. Additionally, the decline of secular Yiddish education after the Holocaust encouraged the creation of summer programs and university courses at more than 50 institutions catered to Yiddish learning. [1] Scholars including Uriel Weinreich , Mordkhe Schaechter , and Marvin Herzog were especially influential in establishing American academic Yiddish programs. Haskalah The Haskalah ( Hebrew : הַשְׂכָּלָה ; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), often termed

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6032-454: 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 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,

6148-461: 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

6264-482: 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

6380-485: 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 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

6496-521: 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

6612-445: The content, vocabulary, and spelling of Yiddish scholarship. A few years later, in 1937, leading Yiddish writers and scholars were arrested and executed. Stalinist orders then gradually closed down the remaining publishing houses, research academies, and schools. Growing persecution of surviving Yiddish authors ultimately came to an end on August 12, 1952. Stalin ordered the execution of twenty-four prominent Yiddish scholars and artists in

6728-529: The cooperation of the government of the Republic of Lithuania, Brent established the landmark Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project at The YIVO Institute to preserve and digitize over 1.5 million documents and approximately 12,200 books representing 500 years of Jewish history in Eastern Europe and Russia. In addition to New York City and Buenos Aires, the Chicago YIVO Society is

6844-519: 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

6960-403: 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

7076-499: The direction of its Ethnographic Committee. In 1925, YIVO's honorary board of trustees or "Curatorium" consisted of Simon Dubnow , Albert Einstein , Sigmund Freud , Moses Gaster , Edward Sapir and Chaim Zhitlowsky . From 1934 to 1940, YIVO operated a graduate training program known as the Aspirantur . Named after Zemach Shabad , YIVO's chairman, the program held classes and guided students in conducting original research in

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7192-428: 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

7308-511: 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

7424-518: 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

7540-409: 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 the growing body. The emergence of

7656-592: The field of Jewish studies. Many of the students' projects were sociological in nature (reflecting the involvement of Max Weinreich ) and gathered information on contemporary Jewish life in the Vilna region. The Nazi advance into Eastern Europe caused YIVO to move its operations to New York City. A second important center, known as the Fundacion IWO, was established in Buenos Aires , Argentina. All four directors of YIVO's research sections were already in

7772-412: 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

7888-446: 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

8004-468: The gap between Yiddish and Hebrew literature. In this journal, Yiddish and Hebrew poems and pieces of literature were published but much of Sutzkever’s work went unrecognized until the 1980s because of the fierce rivalry between Hebraists and Yiddishists. However, Yiddish did not become a completely “dead” language after the Holocaust. In the mid 20th century there was the establishment of the Yungntruf ,

8120-538: 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,

8236-498: The history and culture of Eastern European Jews from their first settlement in the region to the present day. More than 1,800 alphabetical entries encompass a vast range of topics including religion, folklore, politics, art, music, theater, language and literature, places, organizations, intellectual movements, and important figures. The two-volume set also features more than 1,000 illustrations and 55 maps. With original contributions from an international team of 450 distinguished scholars,

8352-401: 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

8468-432: The influential Yiddish periodical Kol Mevasser , which would become a mainstay of the Yiddish press, including not only news but also stories and several novels in serialization. In 1861, Yehoshua Mordechai Lifshitz (1828–1878), who is considered the father of Yiddishism and Yiddish lexicography, circulated an essay entitled “The Four Classes” (Yiddish: di fir klasn די פיר קלאַסן) in which he referred to Yiddish as

8584-407: 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

8700-709: The language of Jewish labor and political movements in the US. The majority of the Yiddish-speaking political parties from the Pale of Settlement had equivalents in the United States. Notably, even the Zionist parties, like the North-American branch of Poalei-Zion , published much of their material in Yiddish rather than Hebrew. Further, at the beginning of the 20th century, American Jewish radicals also printed many political newspapers and other materials. These included

8816-709: The language of the Jewish proletariat. It became one of the official languages in the Ukrainian People's Republic and in some of the Soviet republics , such as the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Galician Soviet Socialist Republic . A few of the republics included Yiddish public institutions like post offices and courts. A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language

8932-507: 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

9048-420: 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

9164-529: 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

9280-461: 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,

9396-534: 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

9512-477: 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

9628-490: 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

9744-413: 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

9860-413: 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

9976-404: 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

10092-456: 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 –

10208-708: The national language. Although, concurrently, the Soviets made immigration to Birobidzhan very difficult. Ultimately, the vast majority of the Yiddish-language cultural institutions in the Soviet Union were closed in the late 1930s. As many Eastern European Jews began to emigrate to the United States , the movement became very active there, especially in New York City . One aspect of this became known as Yiddish Theatre , and involved authors such as Ben Hecht and Clifford Odets . Yiddish also became

10324-747: The newspaper Forverts , which began as a socialist endeavor, and the Freie Arbeiter Stimme founded by anarchists. The Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews that came to the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were also often underpaid and overworked in unsafe conditions, resulting in the creation of many Jewish unions. Notably, the United Hebrew Trades was a collective of labor unions founded in 1888, eventually representing over 250,000 members. Forverts, and other leftist Yiddishist newspapers, were instrumental in organizing and recruiting for these organizations. Owing in

10440-441: The norm of young Jews choosing Hebrew or another non-Jewish language over Yiddish. Regardless of the extensive plan, the status of Yiddish almost immediately came up and took the majority of the conference’s time. Attendees questioned if Yiddish was only “a” national language of the Jewish people or if it was “the” national language. Eventually, the conference, for the first time in history declared Yiddish to be "a national language of

10556-640: The perception of Yiddish from a "jargon" of no literary value into an accepted artistic language. Mendele Mocher Sforim , Sholem Aleichem , and I.L. Peretz are now seen as the basis for classic Yiddish fiction and are thereby highly influential in the Yiddishist movement. From 30th of August to 4th of September 1908, "The Conference for the Yiddish Language" ( קאָנפֿערענץ פֿאָר דער ייִדישער שפּראַך , Konferents for der Yidisher Shprakh ) also known as "The Czernowitz Conference" ( טשערנאָוויצער קאָנפֿערענץ , Tshernovitser Konferents ) took place in

10672-415: 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

10788-499: 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

10904-451: 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 a standard self-appellation in 1860, when it was taken as the motto of the Odessa -based newspaper Ha-Melitz , but derivatives and

11020-460: 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

11136-516: 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

11252-443: 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

11368-460: The status of Yiddish reflected the status of the Jewish people. Thus only by saving the language could the Jews as a people be saved from the onslaught of assimilation. Before the conference, the plan created by the organizers had several topics that avoided political issues like the status of Yiddish. It included topics addressing the need for more Yiddish educators and educational systems, support for Yiddish press, theater, and literature, and changing

11484-490: 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

11600-476: 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 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

11716-460: 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

11832-804: The word yidisher means both "Yiddish" and "Jewish"). Its English name became Institute for Jewish Research after its relocation to New York City, but it is still known mainly by its Yiddish acronym. YIVO is now a partner of the Center for Jewish History , and serves as the de facto recognized language regulator of the Yiddish language in the secular world. The YIVO system is commonly taught in universities and known as klal shprakh (Yiddish: כּלל־שפּראַך , lit.   'standard language') and sometimes "YIVO Yiddish" (Yiddish: ייִוואָ־ייִדיש ). YIVO preserves manuscripts, rare books, and diaries, and other Yiddish sources. The YIVO Library in New York contains over 385,000 volumes dating from as early as

11948-479: 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",

12064-581: 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

12180-404: Was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions. Advanced research institutions and Yiddish publishing houses began to open throughout the Soviet Union. At the same time, Hebrew was considered a bourgeois language and its use was generally discouraged. By the mid-1930s, Soviet rule forced scholars to work under intense restrictions. Soviet legislation dictated

12296-640: Was founded at a Berlin conference in 1925, but headquartered in Vilnius, a city with a large Jewish population in the Second Polish Republic . The early YIVO also had branches in Berlin , Warsaw and New York City. Over the next decade, smaller groups arose in many of the other countries with Ashkenazi populations. In YIVO's first decades, Tcherikover headed the historical research section, which also included Simon Dubnow , Saul M. Ginsburg , Abraham Menes , and Jacob Shatzky . Leibush Lehrer (1887–1964) headed

12412-439: 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

12528-467: Was initially proposed by Yiddish linguist and writer Nochum Shtif (1879–1933). He characterized his advocacy of Yiddish as "realistic" Jewish nationalism, contrasted to the "visionary" Hebraists and the "self-hating" assimilationists who adopted Russian or Polish. YIVO’s work was largely secular in nature, reflecting its original members. The Division of Philology, which included Max Weinreich , standardized Yiddish orthography under YIVO. Simultaneously,

12644-595: Was looted by the Germans and the ERR , but an organization that called itself " The Paper Brigade " were able to smuggle out many books and preserve them from destruction. These materials were then saved from the Soviets by a Lithuanian librarian, Antanas Ulpis. These materials are now held in the Lithuanian Central State Archives and Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. In 2014, with

12760-608: 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,

12876-498: 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

12992-466: 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

13108-414: 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

13224-566: 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

13340-630: 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

13456-449: 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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