The Encyclopedia of European Social History

275

JUDAISM

Owing to the rich textual and hermeneutical

legacy of Judaism, Jewish historical research

has, until the latter part of the twentieth

century, been dominated by an

overwhelming concern with intellectual

development. This emphasis reflects

continuity with central elements of the

Jewish religious tradition, on the one hand,

and a modern cultural-political response to

the increasing participation of Jews in

European society on the other. Aiming to

enhance the literary and philosophical

prestige of Judaism, and thereby advance the

cause of civic and social emancipation,

nineteenth-century practitioners of

Wissenschaft des Judentums devoted much

of their energies to documenting and

highlighting contributions that Jews had

made to human civilization. Only since the

1980s has the study of Jewish history

expanded to include social institutions and

the experiences of ordinary people.

Employing quantified data drawn from

notarial documents, censuses, tax rolls, and

birth, marriage, and death records, the new

historiography has been able to reconstruct

demographic trends, migration patterns, and

occupational distributions of European

Jewry. More descriptive accounts furnished

by memoirs, personal correspondence, and

oral testimonies have also been used to

balance the picture that emerged from

quantified sources. These methodological

approaches, shared both by Jewish and

general social historians, have been applied

to the dynamics of acculturation,

assimilation, and the shaping of modern

Jewish political, cultural, and religious

identities. However, in contrast to general

trends in the field of social history, where the

focus has only recently shifted from the

working classes, the study of Jewish

modernization has included the entire Jewish

community.

The modern history of Judaism, with its

rich variety of geographical, ethnic, cultural,

and religious expressions, traces its

foundation to the Hebrew scriptures and the

Pharisaic articulation of Israelite traditions.

Initially preserved and transmitted orally, the authoritative rabbinic interpretation of

biblical Judaism was recorded in the

Mishnah, elaborated upon in the Talmud,

and expanded further in biblical and

talmudic commentaries, philosophical

tracts, mystical compositions, legal codes,

and responsa literature. Medieval

interpretations and embellishments of

earlier teachings were frequently novel,

even far-reaching in character, but remained

faithful to the ancient traditions. Even

movements that deviated more radically

from normative Judaism in the last two

centuries nonetheless continued to derive

much of their authority and core ideas from

the very same Jewish tradition from which

they diverged, albeit each in accordance

with its own reading and emphases.

Together, these diverse strands constitute a

largely unbroken continuity to the Judaism

of today and find expression through the

corporate life of the Jewish people. Owing

to the interdependence of these elements,

this article examines the social impact of

modernity on Judaism and Jewish culture,

and therefore integrates social and

intellectual history.

Religious Tradition and Social History Public discussions concerning the status of

the Jews, occasioned first by the prospect of

their readmission into western and central

Europe in the seventeenth century and later

by the need to ascertain their suitability for

citizenship, invariably centered on the social

dimension of the Jewish religion. As the

likelihood of entrance into modern society

improved, the challenges it presented seized

the attention of the Jewish community and

remained the main topic of internal debate

for most of the modern era. At issue was

the corpus of social teachings that

determined the ethical obligations toward

non-Jews and the relationship of Jews to

general society, its institutions and culture.

Various reformulations of Judaism were a

product of the encounter with general

culture and were made in direct response to

demands for social and political

accommodation. Equally significant are

modes of piety and ritual behavior that,

while governed by internal traditions and

hermeneutics, were influenced by larger

social and cultural forces as well. Thus

276

historians have discovered that even mystical

and pietistic expressions of Judaism, such as

Kabbalah and Hasidism, though not a direct

product of overtly modernizing trends, offer

equally fruitful subjects for social historical

analysis.

Traditional Judaism is rooted in a set of

beliefs and values that are discernible in its

distinctive patterns of social organization,

ritual, and religious concepts. Outlined in

the Torah (the Pentateuch), its fundamental

teachings draw upon an ethical-monotheistic

faith that combines religious universalism

and particularism. In contrast to other

ancient religions, Judaism emphasized that

the divine presence is encountered mainly

within history rather than in nature. The

doctrine of the election of Israel implied a

responsibility to live an exceptionally moral

and religious life, to serve as “a light unto

the nations” by exemplifying a heightened

awareness of God’s presence, sovereignty

and ultimate purpose in the world. The

conviction that Israel’s relationship to God is

unique has shaped the lifestyle and mode of

existence of Jews since ancient times. This

special relationship, known by the term berit

(covenant), required obedience to the ethical,

moral, and ritual imperatives of the Torah.

Formalized at Sinai, the covenant centered

on the attainment of holiness as the ultimate

purpose of Judaism and coupled the ideal of

faithfulness to the God of Israel with the

emphatic denial of the legitimacy of idolatry.

Based on the numerous biblical admonitions

warning of the harsh consequences that

would befall Israel should it fail to live up to

the ideals of the Torah, a rabbinic theology

of history came to view exile from the land,

the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and

suffering at the hands of other nations as

divinely ordained. Ultimately, divine

retribution was intended to restore Israel’s

commitment to the terms of the covenant, to

facilitate its spiritual and political

redemption, and to pave the way for the

establishment of divine sovereignty on earth.

Jewish law and social separation The system of law known as halakhah (from the Hebrew root “to go”) supplied the

essential structure for the pursuit of holiness.

It consists of traditions either rooted

explicitly in biblical legislation or believed

to have been transmitted orally to Moses;

halakhah and aggadah (nonlegal teachings)

together constitute the Oral Law, which,

according to rabbinic tradition, was revealed

with the Written Law. The power of the

rabbis to enact legislation beyond the areas

set forth in the classical literature rests on

their authority as interpreters of the oral

tradition. Over the centuries, the detailed

norms of halakhah have come to regulate

virtually every area of life, including

personal status, family relations, ritual,

torts, purity laws, and communal affairs.

The attainment of holiness has remained a

central objective of this massive legal

framework and, owing to the

interconnectedness of the moral, ritual, and

ethical spheres, has had important social

implications. Biblically, it entailed both a

separation from the immoral influences of

idolatrous nations and a dedication to the

service of God. Social segregation was

mandated by the prohibition against

following “in their ways” (Leviticus 18:3)

and was amplified in the Talmud and by

medieval rabbinic literature to include

restrictions on the consumption of food and

wine prepared by gentiles, the appropriation

of non-Jewish folkways and rituals, and the

emulation of gentile dress. The extent to

which these laws succeeded in limiting the

interaction of Jews and non-Jews has varied

considerably over the course of history.

How restrictively these limitations were

applied normally depended on the intensity

of social and economic relations in a

particular locale, and frequently

corresponded to the concerns of rabbinic

and communal leaders about the dangers of

extensive social intermingling and

acculturation that modernity posed.

Ritual observances have also contributed

to the ethos of separation, although this may

not have been their intended purpose. The

elaborate dietary laws are a case in point. A

detailed classification system specifying

which quadrupeds, fish, and fowl may be

consumed (Leviticus 11:1-47), rigorous

requirements concerning ritual slaughter, prohibitions against the consumption of

blood and certain kinds of fat, and the strict

277

separation of meat and milk products were

legislated for the expressed purpose of

establishing Israel as a holy nation.

Although in the course of discussions

concerning the aim of these laws various

medical, philosophical, religious, and

psychological benefits have been proposed,

the social role of the dietary restrictions as

markers of Jewish distinctiveness, and their

implications for a separate Jewish economy,

have remained paramount. These

regulations, like many other ritual

requirements such as the observance of the

Sabbath and festivals, public prayer,

religious education, and care for the dead,

not only encouraged the formation of

separate Jewish communities but also reveal

the common interest shared with

ecclesiastical and lay authorities that were

intent on keeping Jews socially apart.

Divine service No less than its role in distinguishing the

Jews as a separate nation, the ritual system

of classical Judaism provided a highly

structured framework for divine service,

falling under three main headings: worship,

the study of the Torah, and the performance

of acts of kindness. Worship is broadly

defined to include a spectrum of divinely

ordained rites known as mitzvot that are

designed to hallow the mundane aspects of

daily life; using symbolism and ceremony,

they seek to cultivate human consciousness

of the divine presence, and to place human

nature, needs, and instincts in a religiously

meaningful context. Some assume the form

of blessings recited upon the performance of

bodily functions in the morning, before

eating, and in advance of any obligatory act,

such as the affixing of a mezuzah upon the

doorpost, recitation of kiddush

(sanctification) over wine at the onset of the

Sabbath or the performance of the rite of

habdalah (separation) at its close. Each of

the aforementioned rites, like most Jewish

ceremonies, is performed in the home, the

principal arena for the realization of the vita

religiosa alongside the synagogue. Though

from the standpoint of talmudic law women

are exempt from most affirmative precepts

limited as to time, such as wearing

phylacteries (tefilin) and ritual fringes

(tzitzit), they traditionally enjoyed a central

role in the private rituals of the home.

Public ritual, including formal prayer

and rites of passage such as circumcision,

bar-mitzvah, naming of children, and

weddings, were generally conducted in the

synagogue, not because of its inherent

sanctity but because of its communal

character; hence the original Hebrew term

bet-knesset (house of assembly).

Technically, each of the ceremonies

marking a life-cycle event could be

performed in private, but it became

customary to conduct these in a public

forum. By its presence the community

acknowledged and affirmed the passage to

the new status. This was also the case for

death and burial rites: beginning with the

sixteenth century preparations of the body

for burial were performed by the Hebra

Kadishah (sacred society) of the

community. Even mourning rites, including

condolence visitations during the week of

intensive bereavement and the gathering of

a minyan (a quorum of ten men) in the

home, reflected a public dimension of an

otherwise private experience. The central

elements of synagogue worship included

ancient liturgical compositions that

positioned the biblical declaration of faith in

the God of Israel, the conception of reward

and punishment, and the centrality of

mitzvot within a framework devoted to the

theme of redemptive history; petitional

prayers; and the public reading of the Torah.

In contrast to the domain of the home,

where women were vitally involved in

private family rituals, active participation in

the public ritual of the synagogue was

limited to men. Historically, so long as the

home remained central in the ritual life of

Judaism, this imbalance only mirrored the

generally distinct roles performed by men

and women in Jewish life, although recent

evidence from thirteenth-century Germany

implies that some women were dissatisfied

with certain ritual limitations.

The annual cycle of major and minor

festivals played a crucial role in the life of

the community. In addition to the Sabbath, the calendar listed the three pilgrimage

holidays (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot),

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the days of repentance (Rosh Hashanah and

Yom Kippur), Hannukah, the carnival-style

Purim celebration, Rosh Hodesh (new

moon), and several fasts marking the

destruction of the ancient Temples in

Jerusalem or other catastrophes. The

pilgrimage holidays were originally

agricultural festivals signifying the

beginning of spring (Passover), the summer

harvest (Shavuot), and the conclusion of the

harvest season (Sukkot); in talmudic times

they assumed a primarily historical meaning,

commemorating crucial moments in Israel’s

early history: the exodus from Egypt, the

giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and the

divine protection accorded to the Israelites

during their sojourn in the desert. The

Passover seder and narration of the exodus is

a particularly paradigmatic rite of memory.

Festivals and fasts provided a framework

both for understanding contemporary

developments in a national-historical

perspective, and for reassessing the

significance of earlier events in light of the

present. Ritualized remembering forged and

sustained the national character of the Jewish

people and its religious ideals. At the social

level, Jewish festivals fostered shared values

and a strong collective identity by bringing

ordinary people and elites together regularly

in common rituals. While the study of

Jewish ritual can tend to emphasize both

separation and timelessness, social historians

have contributed some correctives. For

example, until the seventeenth century in

central Europe, many Jewish rituals were

accompanied by considerable spontaneity

and even-rowdiness, much like popular

celebrations by non-Jews in Europe. But

religious leaders began to attack these

elements, much as their Catholic and

Protestant counterparts were doing, and

gradually Jewish ceremonies became more

consistently somber and serious.

The study of the Torah, according to

rabbinic tradition, is a devotional act that

stands above all other meritorious activities.

Early sources prescribed an equal allotment

of time for the study of scripture, Mishnah,

and Talmud, but medieval Franco-German

practice modified this injunction in favor of the virtually exclusive study of Talmud, said

to contain the others. Medieval authorities

also debated whether Torah study should be

the exclusive preoccupation of the elite and

whether it ought to be combined with

engagement in either philosophical inquiry

or mystical speculation. The debate, which

subsequently broadened to include the

status of other branches of knowledge such

as the natural sciences and humanistic

studies, continued into modern times. The

ideal of Torah study as a lifelong pursuit

was incumbent upon all Jews. According to

the majority view among talmudic,

authorities, however, women were exempt

from Torah study. Nevertheless, there is

abundant historical evidence of women’s

involvement in the study of the Bible and

those sections of the oral law that applied to

them.

Conceived in significantly broader terms

than the obligation to give charity, the

performance of acts of kindness (gemilut

hasadim) encompasses the entire range of

duties of consideration toward one’s fellow

human being. Rabbinic tradition derived its

theoretical and practical dimensions from an

interpretation of several biblical narrative

passages, concluding that one is enjoined to

imitate God’s moral attributes. Providing

clothing for the needy, visiting the sick, and

comforting the mourner, for example, are

viewed as acts of divine worship, and such

acts are understood, especially according to

kabbalistic teaching, as a crucial human-

divine partnership in the perfection of the

world. The mandate to be holy thus

expressed itself in efforts devoted to the

needy and, at the communal level, in an

array of confraternities and societies for free

loans, needy brides, visitation of the sick,

burial, and consolation of the bereaved.

Occasionally, religious and moral idealism

was compromised by financial strain,

interethnic tensions, and an anti-alien and

anti-poor bias that intensified in response to

the growing number of beggars in the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

TRANSFORMATIONS OF JUDAISM

IN MODERN EUROPE

Scholarly opinion remains divided on how

the essential feature of modernity ought to

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be defined and precisely when its impact was

first felt in Jewish history. Debate centers on

whether the period between the sixteenth and

eighteenth centuries, an era of momentous

political, economic, social, and cultural

transformation, left an enduring mark on

Jewish society and culture as well.

Influence of the 1492 expulsion and the

Renaissance The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in

1492, which completed a pattern begun by

earlier expulsions from England (1290) and

France (1394), offers an example of an event

that, according to the standard view, set in

motion a monumental rippling effect on

Jewish life and culture. By the beginning of

the sixteenth century, much of the European

Jewish population had shifted eastward to

Poland-Lithuania, while centers of Jewish

life in the Protestant Netherlands,

northwestern Germany, England, and Italy

were reinforced by the arrival of the Iberian

émigrés. As a result of these migratory

patterns, and owing to the pronounced

political, social, and cultural dissimilarities

between east and west, the Jewish

experience of modernity varied widely from

region to region. Variability is also reflected

in the vastly different patterns of

modernization that Ashkenazic and

Sephardic Jews experienced, owing to their

distinctive cultural traditions and histories.

These dichotomies emerged boldly in the

early modern period and, owing to their

comparative dimension, offer social

historians numerous opportunities to study

European Jewry’s dynamic encounter with

modernity.According to the pioneering view

advanced by Gershom Scholem, the

expulsion of the Jews from Spain set in

motion a three-stage process that unfolded

over the ensuing several centuries and

precipitated the decline of rabbinic

hegemony. Initially, the Spanish expulsion

aroused acute messianic longings and

produced a novel interest in the kabbalistic

(mystical) doctrine of redemption. The

central force in this development was the

system of Kabbalah devised by Isaac Luria, with its strong emphasis on the myth of

primeval catastrophe and the conception of

tikkun as the mystical essence of salvation.

Over the next century, according to

Scholem, the revival of Kabbalah produced

a wave of ascetic piety, new rituals,

liturgical compositions, and mystical

meditations that prepared the way for the

popular embrace of the pseudo-messiah

Shabbetai Zevi in 1666. The expectation of

immediate redemption entailed halakhic

aberrations, signaling a breakdown of

rabbinic authority. The third stage in the

process was the emergence of eighteenth-

century Hasidism, a movement that

attempted to make the world of Kabbalah

accessible to the masses. Hasidism

preserved those elements of Kabbalah that

were capable of evoking a popular response,

but it removed the messianic component in

the hope of neutralizing the redemptive

theology believed to be the cause of the

Sabbatai Zevi debacle. The implications of

Scholem’s explanation are very far-

reaching, especially in relation to the history

and phenomenology of mysticism. In

constructing his theory of historical

causality, Scholem posited a direct linkage

between the expulsion, its imputed

theological meaning, and movements that

would later break with orthodox tradition.

Accordingly, Lurianic Kabbalah and the

aftermath of Shabbatai Zevi’s apostasy

prepared the way for the modernization of

Jewish life and the emergence of modern

deviant and reformist movements. This

interpretation gained wide acceptance

among a full generation of historians.

In the 1990s the Scholem thesis

underwent thorough reconsideration.

Moshe Idel has shown that Lurianic

Kabbalah was not an innovative response to

the trauma of expulsion but an extension of

older mystical trends, some of which even

originated in ancient rabbinic Judaism. He

has also demonstrated that Lurianic

Kabbalah was not the dominant form of

Jewish mysticism in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries and, further, that it

failed to infiltrate the masses as Scholem

claimed. Where it was disseminated, as in

Italy, it was non-messianic. This refutation

of the Scholem thesis, drawing on modes of analysis used in the fields of religion and

intellectual history, has recently received

280

additional substantiation from the realm of

social history. The publishing history of

early modern kabbalistic conduct literature,

has shown that Lurianism spread much later

than has been assumed and that its influence

can be documented only after the Shabbatai

Zevi movement. In fact, even the laws and

customs contained in the Zohar, the

thirteenth-century kabbalistic commentary to

the Torah, failed to penetrate ritual life until

the emergence of Hasidism. Demonstrating

that the eighteenth-century revival of

mystical piety did not draw upon Lurianic

Kabbalah, which had already weakened by

the time the movement appeared, but bore a

closer connection to the non-messianic

Cordoveran Kabbalah, Idel has proven that

Hasidism was not a reaction to crisis. Far

from having become the adversary of

rabbinic Judaism, Kabbalah evinced an

affinity with patterns of classical rabbinic

thought and had firmly permeated normative

rabbinic culture before the breakdown of

traditional society.

Italy offers an equally instructive case

study of vastly differing assessments of the

influence of the Renaissance on Jewish life.

All agree that the rise of humanism and the

emergence of modern science stimulated

Jewish scholarly interest in classical

philosophy, science, and rhetoric, as well as

participation in the arts. Likewise, works of

Hebrew poetry and grammar, biblical

commentary, historical writing, and

systematization of talmudic and halakhic

learning reflected the unmistakable imprint

of Italian humanism. David Ruderman, for

one, cited collaboration between leading

Italian humanists and Jewish scholars as

proof of the widespread tolerance enjoyed by

Jews; accordingly, the Renaissance is

commonly characterized as an era in which

Jewish culture and thought was thoroughly

transformed, as evidenced by the emergence

of new terms of reference, literary sources,

and modes of expression, while Judaism was

accepted as intrinsically valid by Christians.

Others, led by Robert Bonfil, argue that the

various indications of acculturation do not

represent adaptation to the majority culture,

nor do they suggest that Jews came to view their own religion as inferior to that of

others, but only that they maintained an

openness toward general culture. In spite of

noteworthy instances of scholarly

cooperation, the social barriers separating

Jews and non-Jews were still in force. Jews

continued to be an insecure minority

threatened with expulsion and forced

conversion, and amidst the penetration of

humanist ideals and the considerable

evidence of cross-cultural exchange, they

nonetheless continued to assert their

spiritual superiority and uniqueness over

their Christian neighbors. Most

importantly, there is no evidence of

appreciable improvement in the social

relations between Jews and non-Jews. The

social and political status of the Jews in

Renaissance Italy remained virtually

unchanged from medieval times

The example of Italy reveals that the

main features of medieval Jewish life --

segregation, discriminatory legislation,

public assaults on Judaism, and the

centrality of rabbinic authority and law --

were strongly resistant to the forces that had

transformed European society and culture.

In fact it was in Venice in 1516 that the

term “ghetto” was first used to designate the

section of the city where Jews were required

to settle; the term was subsequently applied

to Jewish quarters in major cities on the

continent. European Jewry was largely

unaffected by the rise of humanism, the

emergence of modern science, and the

advent of capitalism, insofar as most could

only settle in eastern Europe or in the

eastern Mediterranean, far from the centers

of economic growth and cultural

advancement. As a result, the largest

number remained outside the mainstream of

society, while medieval social structures

and mentalités persisted until the late

eighteenth century. One exception to this

pattern was the converso diaspora where

there was an encounter of Jewish and

western culture in the seventeenth century.

We have also seen a connection between

attacks on ceremonial spontaneity and wider

currents in European popular culture.

Patterns of modernization Dissimilarities between the Ashkenazic and

Sephardic models of transformation in early

281

modern Europe reflect the divergent

historical experiences of the two main ethnic

branches of the Jewish people. “Ashkenaz”

and “Sepharad” are biblical terms identified

with Germany and Spain respectively; each

subsequently evolved into a religious and

cultural tradition connoting distinctive

pronunciation of Hebrew, liturgical rites,

religious customs, and approaches to general

culture. Ashkenazic Jews traced their

lineage to the Land of Israel, from there to

Italy, and in the High Middle ages were

concentrated in the Rhineland. By the

beginning of the early modern period, when

the largest concentration was in Poland and

smaller numbers resided in central Europe,

opportunities for contact with Christian

society and culture were severely restricted.

Their communities, known as kehillot, were

recognized as legally autonomous by the

secular governments, and the lay and

rabbinic leadership was empowered to

govern in accordance with Jewish law.

Rabbinic jurisdiction over civil cases, and

the right to punish those who failed to abide

by communal regulations, evinced their

cultural self-containment. Their literary

production echoed this social reality, insofar

as the language of learned culture was

mainly Hebrew and its focus was limited to

the religious sphere. With the rapid

expansion of printing, rabbinic literature was

widely disseminated, and in the seventeenth

century numerous communities imposed

obligatory participation in a study group or

study on one’s own. Study assumed its most

intensive form in the large concentration of

yeshivot of Poland-Lithuania, where

professional students were supported by the

local community. After the 1648-49

Chmielnicki massacres, the yeshivot

declined, but they were still attended by

students from western Europe.

Tracing its religious traditions to

Babylonia, Sephardic Jewry was a product of

the unique political and cultural forces that

shaped Andalusian society of medieval

Spain. In contrast to the Ashkenazim, the

Sephardim were involved in governmental

affairs and in extensive social and

intellectual intercourse with the elite of the Muslim population. Their secular poetry and

scientific works were inspired by the Arabic

literati, and they used Arabic in their prose

works. They took keen interest in

philosophy, ascribed greater importance to

Bible study, and developed systematic

approaches to biblical exegesis and the

codification of Jewish law. This rich

medieval legacy under Islam, as well as the

experience of crypto-Judaism engendered

by Christian intolerance, predisposed

Sephardic Jews historically to successful

integration in public life and culture.

Moreover, their subsequent resettlement in

areas of western Europe where tolerance

reigned, and the fact that their reconstituted

communities did not possess the range of

social and religious controls available to

Ashkenazic kehillot, accelerated the

Sephardic encounter with modernity. Their

extensive participation in European society

and culture, as well as a variety of modern

religious expressions that included

voluntary Jewish identity and individualism,

were attained without the concomitant

breakdown of traditional Jewish society.

In the last quarter of the twentieth

century, historians of European Jewry have

expanded our understanding of the

transformation of traditional Jewish society,

some after investigating Levantine Jewry

and Sephardic communities of the west, and

others on the basis of an examination of

individual Ashkenazic communities in

western and central Europe. Having

detected signs of a break from traditional

patterns in the late seventeenth and early

eighteenth centuries, they agree that the

process of acculturation had begun before

the onset of ideological and political efforts

to ease the acceptance of Jews in general

society. In their view, resettlement in the

west, not enlightenment and emancipation,

marked the beginning of social and cultural

reintegration. Communities of Sephardim

in France, Holland, Germany, and England

exhibited evidence of advanced

acculturation, but their integration into

general society did not require emancipation

from the patterns of social and cultural

segregation typical of Ashkenazic Jews.

The argument that sectors of western

Ashkenazic Jewry began departing from the traditional lifestyle at the turn of the

eighteenth century rests on evidence of

282

growing laxity in ritual observance,

increased social interaction between Jews

and Christians, imitation of gentile dress and

appearance, including shaving the beard and

adopting gentile hairstyles, an increasing

preoccupation with luxury, the cultivation of

secular branches of knowledge such as

philosophy and science, and a decline in

sexual morality. Many of these changes

found expression in contemporary

iconography as well, especially in the

depiction of Christian interest in Jewish rites

and the harmonious relations between Jews

and non-Jews. The new tendencies met with

an intensification of efforts on the part of

leaders of Ashkenazic communities such as

Metz and Frankfort to regulate public

morality in the late seventeenth century.

Growing social control in communities of

western and central Europe corresponds to

Peter Burke’s theory that after 1650 the

struggle to suppress deviant behavior passed

from ecclesiastical to lay powers. Lay

leaders sought to delineate the boundaries

between the sacred and the profane and keep

the two domains distinct, in order to prevent

the incipient dissolution of traditional

society. In several instances, class affiliation

determined the type of accommodation made

by Jews to modernity. Signs of acculturation

among the middle and lower classes in

England, for example, resemble those

changes that had been limited elsewhere to

elites, and suggest that Jews imitated the

behavior of their economic peers in gentile

society while discarding much of Jewish

tradition.

Whether the aforementioned indications

of acculturation were elements of a new

process or were only variations on the

traditional pattern is still fiercely contested.

According to Jacob Katz, a genuine break

from tradition is indicated when non-

normative acts are justified by a new value

system; this occurred in the last third of the

eighteenth century when the authority of the

rabbinic tradition came under attack and a

new vision of the future was first formulated.

For Katz, it was the era of Enlightenment

and Jewish emancipation that launched the

process leading to both acculturation and acceptance within European society as

citizens. Gentile advocates of Jewish

emancipation expected the bestowal of

citizenship to bring the Jews’ social and

cultural isolation to a close. Liberal

thinkers envisioned a society open to all

persons, irrespective of class, national

origin, or religious affiliation. The Jews

were invited to participate in this new

undertaking, provided they were willing to

accept the conditions set by discussants of

the Jewish question in the late eighteenth

and early nineteenth centuries. Concretely,

this involved the surrender of communal

autonomy and rabbinic jurisdiction in civil

affairs, and was predicated on the

envisioned transformation of Jewish social

and economic life.

The Haskalah movement A cultural revolution from within

accompanied the external forces leading to

the curtailment of communal autonomy.

The promise of a “neutral society” founded

upon secular, humanistic, and rational

principles, together with a growing

frustration with the cultural limitations

imposed by ghetto life, inspired the

emergence of the Haskalah movement

(from the Hebrew root sekhel, which means

intellect or reason), a Jewish variant of the

European Enlightenment. Its chief

proponents, known as maskilim, worked

mainly as teachers, writers, employees in

Hebrew printing presses, and tutors to the

rich. As they became acquainted with the

major writings of the philosophes, they

subjected traditional Jewish society to a

critical reevaluation according to new

criteria drawn from the Enlightenment, such

as the primacy of reason, the aesthetic ideal,

the universal brotherhood of man, and

economic productivity. In their writings

and through their activism on behalf of

educational and communal reform, they

constructed a new vision of the ideal Jew

and of the relationship of Jews to non-

Jewish society.

The Haskalah movement undermined the

theological, halakhic, and cultural

foundations of social separatism.

Conscious of the alleged liabilities presented by traditional Judaism, Jewish

intellectuals developed strategies to advance

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the process of cultural and social integration

by adjusting Jewish religious and social

teachings to the cultural norms of European

society. In the realm of education, the

maskilim distinguished between two

categories of knowledge, one pertaining to

human affairs and another relating to more

narrowly conceived religious subjects. The

former, humanistic and scientific studies,

was an autonomous sphere that was

accessible through human reason and

empirical observation. Viewed as absolutely

crucial for citizens of the modern state,

instruction in secular subjects became the

highest educational priority in Jewish

schools, while the religious curriculum was

recast to reflect an emphasis on Hebrew

language and grammar, Bible, ethical

obligations, and morality. The new schools

that were formed under the influence of the

Haskalah aimed to produce a generation of

Jews capable of taking their place in the new

order as productive and loyal citizens. To

accomplish this goal, a new Judaism was

substituted for the old, one that was

refashioned to correspond to the social,

cultural, and political underpinnings of

emancipation. Restrictions on social

intercourse with non-Jews were deemed

incompatible with the concrete demands of

citizenship and its wider implications;

halakhic constraints on the consumption of

gentile wine and the emulation of gentile

customs were cited as the most egregious

examples of the outmoded character of

traditional Judaism. Emphasizing the central

elements of the Sephardic legacy,

particularly its rationalist tradition and

integrationist ethos, the maskilim mounted

energetic efforts against the rabbinic

establishment, which they viewed as the

embodiment of cultural obscurantism and

excessive political power. Critical of

religious and social traditions that were

purportedly the product of superstition and

persecution, radical maskilim distinguished,

as did deism, the divine core of religion from

variable customs.

Emancipation and reform In contrast to the common core of

ideological positions to which maskilim in

most areas of central and western Europe

subscribed, the process of Jewish

emancipation varied significantly from state

to state, and even from region to region

within states. Insofar as emancipation was

the product of complex local political

forces, the bestowal of civic equality in

Europe tended to be uneven. Historically,

the era began with the admission of the

Sephardic Jews of France to citizenship in

1790 and ended more than a century later

with the formal extension of equality in

Russia in 1917. Whether granted

immediately or only after a prolonged

battle, “emancipation” has come to signify

the extended process of Jewish

acculturation and integration in modern

society. The range of its manifold effects is

discernible not only in diverse political

frameworks but also in various social

contexts pertaining to urban or rural

populations, class, and gender.

On the basis of these considerations,

recent studies have debunked the older view

that emancipation led inexorably to rampant

assimilation and the rupture of tradition. In

the case of the Jews of rural Alsace,

occupational patterns, family life, and

religious observance were resistant to

change because social and economic

conditions in the region remained relatively

stable for much of the nineteenth century.

The conservatism of the rural population is

evident in the persistence of folk customs,

the use of Yiddish, fertility patterns,

opposition to religious reform, use of

Jewish names, sentiments of ethnic

solidarity, and in the slow pace of

assimilation to bourgeois standards of

behavior. The city, by contrast, facilitated

economic transformation, acculturation to

bourgeois lifestyle, and accommodation to

the norms of non-Jewish society; as a result,

traditional loyalties and affiliations waned,

while assimilation accelerated in larger

cities such as Paris, Berlin, Prague, and

Vienna. Economic and intellectual urban

elites active in communal institutions

typically labored to “regenerate” the lower

classes in accordance with ideals expounded

by the Haskalah, and their efforts found expression both in the creation of

philanthropic schools for the Jewish urban

284

poor and in broader activities directed at the

transformation of Jews in rural areas.

These developments obviously call

attention to links between social and

religious history in modern Judaism.

Divergences emerged within the Jewish

community based in part on social class.

Many Jews took advantage of opportunities

in higher education, and their religious

outlook tended to differ from that of other

social groups within Judaism. The rural-

urban split was pronounced. Patterns of

emigration of Jews within Europe by the

later nineteenth century added to the

complex mix. Many Russian Polish Jews

moved west, interacting with more

assimilated coreligionists in places like

Berlin, and even internal movements, as

from Alsace to Paris, had implications for

religious outlook and relationships with the

wider society.

Barriers to social integration were in the

forefront of internal Jewish discussions

concerning adaptation to modern society.

Concerns about the compatibility of Jewish

ritual with the demands of social integration

and patriotic loyalty were exacerbated by the

acknowledgement that emancipation had

shattered the theological assumptions about

exile, the return to the Land of Israel and

social separation from non-Jews. For many,

citizenship required the removal of

problematic aspects of the Jewish religion,

and therefore proponents of modernization,

including the majority of delegates to the

Napoleonic Sanhedrin, repudiated its social

and political dimensions. Various factors,

including growing indifference to religious

observance and the assimilation of bourgeois

values, led some to conclude that moderate

ritual reform was in order. Typically, efforts

to enhance the aesthetic appeal of the

synagogue included recitation of prayers in

the vernacular, the regularization of the

modern sermon, the use of the organ, and the

insistence on greater decorum. In Germany,

disappointment with the slow progress of

legal emancipation, the decline in Jewish

observance, the increasing wave of

conversion to Christianity, and rising anti-

Semitism induced more radical views. As the prospects of civic emancipation grew

dimmer, German reformers intensified their

efforts to eliminate traces of the political

from Judaism. They removed references to

the land of Israel and the Messiah from the

prayer book for fear that these might

weaken their claim to equal rights, and

sought to blur the ethnic and national

features of traditional Judaism by

eradicating the dietary laws, traditional

Sabbath observance, the prohibition of

intermarriage, and circumcision.

Despite the vast differences and bitter

struggles between reformers and staunch

defenders of the normative tradition, all

sectors of the Jewish community

acknowledged the debilitating effects of

modernity. Strongly rejecting the efforts of

radical reformers, Neo-Orthodoxy and

Positive-Historical Judaism – later to be

known as Modern Orthodoxy and

Conservative Judaism -- offered solutions to

the challenges of rampant assimilation and

the erosion of rabbinic authority that

reflected their respective conceptions of

halakhah and Jewish peoplehood, while

upholding an unswerving commitment to

emancipation and social integration. Ultra-

Orthodox opponents of religious reform, on

the other hand, resisted any and all

compromises to the integrity of the ancestral

faith, urging a greater degree of separation

from general society.

As in western and central Europe,

growing numbers believed that the Russian

Haskalah would facilitate acceptance within

general society. Education was regarded as

the vehicle that would accelerate the

acculturation process by encouraging

students to reject patterns of traditional

behavior and thought believed to be

irrational, retrograde, and divisive. As a

result of state involvement in the creation of

modern Jewish schools in the 1840s and

1850s, together with the policy of

liberalization under Alexander II and the

example of modernization in the west, the

Russian Haskalah flourished. Although it

stressed values similar to those of the

German Haskalah, it was less inclined to

surrender the distinctive social or religious

ideals of traditional Judaism, and the idea of

religious reform was only rarely considered. Owing to the stagnant economy, lack of

liberalism, and discriminatory legislation,

285

the process of modernization in the east was

exceedingly slow. Within this context, the

response to modernity in eastern Europe

assumed several distinct forms: the creation

of communal yeshivot to fight off

assimilation; the emergence of the pietistic

Musar movement; the Jewish socialist

movement; the emergence of secular Jewish

culture, particularly through the advocacy of

national cultural autonomy in the multi-

ethnic society of Russia and the Austro-

Hungarian Empire; and the creation of the

Zionist movement.

Zionism Influenced by nineteenth-century

nationalism, Zionist leaders viewed

emancipation in the West as an enormous

political disappointment and argued that

cultural autonomy would ultimately fail to

preserve Jewish identity, although the latter

claim proved to be exaggerated. Ethnic

identity remained strong, as evidenced by

continued Hebrew literacy, Jewish folkways,

and the vigor of Yiddish literature and

theater. Whether Zionism viewed its goal of

national resettlement in the Land of Israel as

the solution to the problem of anti-Semitism

or to the problem of Judaism in the modern

world, its program was a positive, though

secularized, assertion of the belief in

messianic redemption and the historic

destiny of the Jewish people. For Zionism,

as for other modern Jewish movements,

modernity marked the end of the traditional

concept of exile and the passive waiting for

divine redemption, and signified the

beginning of an active pursuit of personal or

national fulfillment. Differences between

cultural and political Zionism reflected the

contrasting historic experiences of east and

west European Jews. In the east, where

ethnic identity was strong and anti-Semitism

physically brutal, Zionism struck deep roots.

In the west, Zionism appeared to contradict

the social and political premises of

emancipation, and therefore remained a

largely philanthropic movement until the

advent of Nazism. Known as the “Final Solution,” the Nazi policy of extermination

tragically confirmed Zionism’s analysis of

the nineteenth-century Jewish question.

Gender Emphasizing the different ways that Jewish

men and women experienced acculturation

and assimilation, recent scholarship has

shown that emancipation was a highly

gendered process. Limited mainly to the

domestic scene, women did not have the

same opportunities as men to encounter

general society and culture in the workplace

or in institutions of higher education; this

difference would persist as long as the

boundaries between domestic and public

realms remained in force. Consequently,

among most Jewish women the incidence of

conversion to Christianity was far less than

for men, as long as women’s entrance to the

work force was limited. On the positive

side, it has been shown that Jewish women

in imperial Germany were more

traditionally minded than their assimilated

husbands. Because bourgeois culture

understood religious sentiment as an

expression of family values, religion was

believed to fall naturally within the private

domain dominated by women. In eastern

Europe, where traditional Jewish society did

not discourage women from participating in

the public realm, Jewish women were more

vulnerable to the allure of modern society

than men, as evidenced by the fact that

more women than men converted to

Christianity. It is also noteworthy that in

east European Jewish society, where the

cult of domesticity was not adopted,

responsibility for the inculcation of Jewish

religious values was not entrusted to women

only. Owing to the progressive relegation

of the home and home-based rituals to a less

important status, and the concomitant

prominence attached to the public sphere, as

well as the broad social movement of

feminism in the latter decades of the

twentieth century, the participation of

women in ritual life has increased, even in

areas considered halakhically non-

obligatory. This has produced numerous

new ritual expressions, mainly in the Reform and Conservative movements, and

more recently, the proliferation of women’s

286

prayer groups and women’s Torah institutes,

including the rigorous study of Talmud

among the Modern Orthodox.

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