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By Shira Schoenberg: Modern Jewish History: The Haskalah
By Shira Schoenberg: Modern Jewish History: The Haskalah
By Shira Schoenberg: Modern Jewish History: The Haskalah
Background
As early as the 1740s, many German Jews and some individual Polish and Lithuanian
Jews had a desire for secular education. Some of the elite members of Jewish society
knew European languages. Absolutist governments in Germany, Austria and Russia
deprived the Jewish community’s leadership of its authority and many Jews became
"Court Jews." They gave economic assistance to the local rulers, using their
connections with Jewish businessmen to serve as military contractors, managers of
mints, founders of new industries and providers to the court of precious stones and
clothing. Court Jews were protected by the rulers and acted as did everyone else in
society in their speech, manners, and awareness of European literature and ideas.
The lower class was also exposed to the outside world. Jewish peddlers interacted
frequently with non-Jews.
During the general Enlightenment (1600s to late 1700s), many Jewish women began to
frequent non-Jewish salons and to campaign for emancipation (the granting of
equality to Jews). In Western Europe and the German states, observance of halakhah
(Jewish law) started to be neglected.
In the first half of the 18th century, even some traditional German scholars and
leaders, such as the doctor and author of Ma’aseh Tuviyyah, Tobias b. Moses Cohn,
appreciated secular culture. In Italy, there were some rabbis who had studied
philosophy and Christian theological literature. Jewish Italian physicians held
particular prestige.
The Haskalah began in Galicia (Germany, Poland and Central Europe) and later
spread to Eastern Europe (Lithuania and other provinces of the Pale of Jewish
Settlement1). The Haskalah was characterized by a scientific approach to religion in
which secular culture and philosophy became a central value. It was influenced by a
Maimonidean approach that valued secular studies and used reason as the measure
of all things.
Education
One of the biggest changes of the Haskalah was in education. The maskilim tried to
remove Talmud from its central position in Jewish education. They included Jewish
studies in their curricula but emphasized secular knowledge, modern languages and
practical training in labor, in order to help the Jews become integrated into society.
They advocated the study of Jewish history and ancient Hebrew as a way to revive a
national Jewish consciousness. They wanted to train Jewish children in common
sense, tolerance and reasonableness.
The goals of the maskilim were affected by the absolutist rulers of the time. Joseph II
issued one typical edict for the Jews of Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary and Galicia in the
1780s. He decreed that Jews must establish "normal" schools or send their children to
state schools, Jews were allowed to attend general secondary schools and universities,
marriage was prohibited without a certificate of school attendance and anyone who
studied Talmud before completing the school curriculum could be imprisoned. As a
result of this decree, many new, modern Jewish schools were created. In 1820, Francis
I of Austria required rabbis to study sciences and use the language of the country in
prayers and sermons. As a result, a rabbinical seminary opened in Padua in 1829.
The first Haskalah school was founded in Berlin in 1778 and called both the Freischule
("Free School") and Hinnukh Ne’arim ("Youth Education"). It was a free education
designed for poor children and the curriculum included German, French, arithmetic,
geography, history, art, some Bible studies and Hebrew. The school was successful and
began with 70 students. Other Haskalah style schools developed in Dessau and
Frankfort on the Main, among other places. In all of these schools, Talmud was almost
completely abandoned and both Hebrew and general studies were taught. Educators
began to write textbooks to guide the new curricula.
The Haskalah also brought about change in the education of girls. Daughters of
wealthy families generally studied with private teachers. In the 1790s, the maskilim
established schools for poorer girls in Breslau, Dessau, Koenigsberg and Hamburg.
The curriculum generally included some Hebrew, German, the fundamentals of
religion and ethics, prayers and arithmetic. Some schools also taught Yiddish writing,
handiwork, art and singing.
The Haskalah also affected education in other European countries besides Germany.
In 1813, a school was started in Tarnopol (Galicia) that had classes in Bible, Mishnah,
Gemara, Hebrew grammar, Polish, French, arithmetic, history and geography. Classes
were taught in German and there were classes given for both boys and girls. In 1819,
three boys’ schools opened in Warsaw in which instruction was given in Polish. Two
girls schools also opened there. In 1845, a school similar to that in Tarnopol opened in
Lvov. In the 1820s and 1830s, schools opened in Russia that were modeled after those
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and
in Germany. During the 1840s 1850s, the Russian government created a network
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of governmental Jewish schools in which the language of instruction was either
German or Russian.
Education was needed to instruct teachers on how to teach in these new schools. The
first teachers’ training seminary was opened in Kassel in 1810, and others followed in
Amsterdam, Budapest and other cities. In Vilna and Zhitomir (Russia), government
rabbinical seminaries were established and funded by a tax imposed on the masses.
The maskilim educated there were taught in Russian and their ties with the Hebrew
language and Jewish tradition were weak.
There were no Jewish secondary schools and those who continued their studies went
to non-Jewish institutions. In Russia, as the hope of emancipation grew, the number of
Jewish children studying in Russian secondary schools increased from 2,045 in 1870 to
8,000 in 1880.
Language
The Haskalah marked the end of the use of Yiddish, the revival of Hebrew and an
adoption of European languages. At the end of the 17th century, wealthy Jews in
Germany taught their children German and French to facilitate business and social
contacts with non-Jews. By the 1790s, French had become the language of the Jewish
elite while German was the spoken language of the middle class.
German writers had previously claimed that Jews deceived non-Jews by using Yiddish
in business transactions and a negative attitude toward Yiddish developed.
Mendelssohn thought that Yiddish was "ridiculous, ungrammatical, and a cause of
moral corruption."2 Some reformers called for the removal of Yiddish from Jewish
schools and others suggested that Jews refrain from using Yiddish or Hebrew in
bookkeeping and business contracts.
In the Netherlands, Jews gave up Yiddish in favor of Dutch. A Jewish weekly published
in Dutch began in 1806. In 1808, a Jewish society in Amsterdam translated the Bible
and prayer book into Dutch and printed textbooks in both Dutch and Hebrew. In 1809,
King Louis Bonaparte of the Netherlands issued a decree prohibiting the use of
Yiddish in documents. Sermons were to be given in Dutch and Dutch became the
language of instruction for youth. In France, French had been spoken even before the
Haskalah. In Hungary, maskilim substituted Hungarian for Yiddish in Jewish schools
and synagogue sermons.
The Haskalah led to the revival of Hebrew, particularly biblical Hebrew. Mendelssohn
wrote a Hebrew commentary on the Bible called the Biur to accompany a German
translation. Ha-Me’assef (meaning "The Gatherer") was the first Hebrew publication of
the Haskalah. It was founded in Konigsberg, Prussia, by students of Mendelssohn and
appeared quarterly between 1783 and 1790 and irregularly until 1811. Doreshei
Leshon Ever ("Friends of the Hebrew Language") published Ha-Me’assef with the goals
of promoting increased use of the Hebrew language and preparing the Jews for
emancipation. Hebrew became a vehicle for secular and professional scientific
expression. The writers of Ha-Me’assef rejected Rabbinic Hebrew in favor of classical
Biblical Hebrew. Ha-Me’assef printed poetry, fables, biblical exegesis, studies on
Hebrew linguistics, essays on Jewish history and news about the Jewish people.
By the 1820s, the focus of the Haskalah shifted to the Austrian empire. A new journal,
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Bikkurei ha-Ittim ("First FruitsSign
ofupthe Times") was published annually in Vienna
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between 1821 and 1832. It included poetry, literature, biographies and satire of
aspects of traditional Judaism that the maskilim opposed. The first Hebrew journal
devoted to modern Jewish scholarship was the Kerem Hemed ("Vineyard of Delight")
published in Vienna, Prague and Berlin between 1833 and 1856.
In Russia, a Jewish press helped spread Haskalah ideas. Newspapers were founded in
the 1860s in both Hebrew and Yiddish that called for an alliance between the Jews
and the Russian government. Most maskilim, however, saw Yiddish and even Hebrew
as only temporary instruments for spreading ideas, and sought to promote Russian as
the dominant language.
Literature
The resurgence in Hebrew language led to a new form of Hebrew literature. The
Haskalah writers first tried to capture the attention of readers by writing Hebrew
novels modeled after the type of writing that was popular at the time. The novels
were set mostly in Palestine with Jews as heroines, lovers and villains. The novels
depicted ancient Jews as romantic lovers and brave warriors. They implied that Jews
could change their present situation by taking political action instead of sitting and
waiting for the messiah.
Later, Haskalah writers turned to more serious themes including the meaning of
Judaism and an examination of the Jewish condition. Writers of the Haskalah bred
new ideas for the Jews: "that their afflictions were not part of an eternal design or a
punishment for their sins; that orthodoxy was not synonymous with God’s
commandments; that Hasidism was not a paradise on earth."3 They wrote in Hebrew
for the intellectuals, though they still used Yiddish for the masses. In theory, German
writings in Yiddish were addressed to women (who were not taught Hebrew) and
uneducated men. The Yiddish writers generally wrote fiction while the Hebrew
writers composed essays and poetry. The Yiddish writers developed from the early
Hebrew romanticism into realism. The Hebrew writers turned eventually to Zionism,
the Jewish aspiration for a national homeland. Haskalah writers include Sholem
Aleichem and I.L. Peretz.
The Haskalah reached Russia in the 1840s. In 1841, a Russian group called Shoharei Or
ve-Haskalah ("Seekers of Light and Education") put out the first Hebrew literary
periodical, Pirhei Zafon ("Flowers of the North"). One of its writers, Mordecai
Guenzburg, wrote stories based on Jewish, general and Russian history adapted from
non-Jewish sources. Many of its poets wrote about secular subjects in lyrical Hebrew.
In Lithuania, European fiction and textbooks were translated into Hebrew. Modern
Hebrew weekly newspapers were created and, in 1863, the Society for the Promotion
of Culture among the Jews of Russia was established. During the 1860s and 1870s
many Hebrew writers turned to literary and social criticism.
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Orthodox Jewry
Orthodox Jews were against the Haskalah from the start because it went against
traditional Judaism and challenged both rabbinic orthodoxy and the role of Talmud in
education. They retained Torah, not secular studies, as their central value;
nevertheless, the Haskalah influenced even the Orthodox Jews. The first Orthodox
schools that taught both Judaic and general studies started in Halberstadt and
Hamburg.
The Haskalah in Russia was in a large part based on the views of an Orthodox rabbi,
Elijah b. Solomon Zalman (1720-1797), also known as the Vilna Gaon. The Vilna Gaon
wrote commentaries on the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, midrash, the Sefer
Yetzirah, the Zohar and the Shulhan Arukh. His method was to apply an exact
interpretation of the common-sense meaning of the text. He also studied secular
subjects including algebra, geometry, astronomy, geography and Hebrew grammar to
understand Talumudic discussions. Many Russian maskilim regarded themselves as
his disciples.
Anti-Messianism
One of the ideas characterizing Haskalah thought was anti-messianism, a feeling that
one should not be constantly yearning for a miraculous messiah. This was boosted by
the failure of Shabbetai Zevi, a false Messiah in the 1600s. The maskil Jonathan
Eybeschuetz is quoted as saying that the main achievement of the Messiah would be
that the Jews "would find clemency among the nations,"4 i.e., the better legal and
social status they were striving for in Europe. Mendelssohn agreed in principle to
messianic hope but considered it not to have "any influence on our civic behavior,"
particularly in places that "have treated the Jews with tolerance."5 Others equated the
Messiah with universal peace and toleration. Exile was no longer seen as divine, but
as the result of historical factors.
Nationalism
After emancipation there was a rise in assimilation, but also in Jewish nationalism.
Many maskilim identified themselves expressly as Germans. The Assembly of Jewish
Notables in 1806 coined the term "Frenchmen of the Mosaic religion." Later maskilim,
however, also had a sense of Jewish nationalism and combined that attitude with
Haskalah views. Much of this nationalism was fostered by anti-Semitism and led to
aspirations for redemption by a natural, human effort. This was the start of modern
Zionism.
Reform Movement
The Haskalah was one of the primary causes of the start of the Jewish Reform
movement. The Reform movement tried to bring Judaism closer to contemporary
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Christianity by Jews who were estranged from traditional ritual. In Germany,
synagogues began to allow sermons, choirs and organ accompaniments. Wearing a
hat was no longer compulsory in synagogue and the sexes were not separated in the
congregation. The liturgy of the prayer book was changed to omit repetitions, drop the
medieval poems (piyyutim), remove references to Zion or Jerusalem and reword
traditional prayers that referred to a national redemption of the Jewish people in the
messianic age. The observance of the law started being more focused on the ethical
commandments than on ritual observance. In 1807, a confirmation ceremony for boys
in German, an imitation of a Christian ceremony, was introduced in a school in
Wolfenbuettel, Germany. This custom spread to other Jewish schools in Germany.
In most of Western Europe, the Haskalah ended with large numbers of Jews
assimilating. Many Jews stopped adhering to halakha (Jewish law). The struggle for
emancipation in Germany awakened some doubts about the future of Jews in Europe
and eventually led to both immigration to America and Zionism. In Russia, anti-
Semitism ended the Haskalah. Some Jews responded to this anti-Semitism by
campaigning for emancipation, others joined revolutionary movements and
assimilated, and some turned to Jewish nationalism in the form of the Zionist Hibbat
Zion movement.
The Haskalah created the first Hebrew literature and also the first secular Yiddish
literature. It spawned a Jewish press in Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian. It marked the
transition of Jews from commercial jobs to labor jobs, specifically agriculture. It also
began a system of secular and Judaic education that has influenced the Jewish world
until today.
Notes
1The Pale of Jewish Settlement was part of Poland that Russia conquered. Russia did
not allow Jews to move from that area into the rest of Russia.
3Dimont, p. 350.
Sources:
Dimont, Max. Jews, God and History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962
Encyclopedia Britannica Online. "Haskala"
Encyclopedia Judaica. "Haskalah"
Kung, Hans. Judaism. New York: Crossroad, 1992
Seltzer, Robert. Jewish People, Jewish Thought. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1980.
The World Book Encyclopedia. "Haskalah". Vol. 9, 1988 Edition.