Study Questions for Week 7
Vital, chapter 2 ("Disjunctions")
According to Vital, what were the key questions in early nineteenth century Jewish life?
Vital returns us to the ideas of Hourwitz's "Apologie" in the opening of this chapter--what does he see as Hourwitz's main aim, and in what way was this based upon Enlightenment principles?
Did all French Jews demand full legal equality in 1789? Explain.
Along what sort of social lines was the community divided by the issue of emancipation?
How did traditional Jewish leaders view the Christian world, and how did this shape their attitude toward emancipation?
How, for instance, did traditional Jews understand proposals to "improve" Jews through public education?
How did very Orthodox Jews in Eastern Europe feel about emancipation, and why (for instance) would they have supported Russia during the Napoleonic wars?
Why did modern life seem to contradict traditional Jewish life and threaten such matters of halakha (legal [ritual] behavior) as observance of the Sabbath? In other words, did emancipation and integration "fit well" with Jewish observance?
Why were issues of halakha so important to Jewish identity?
The Reform movement, which we will discuss later, tried to adapt Jewish practice to modern conditions. What sort of changes did the reforming synagogue in Hamburg make in the 1810s, and why were these so offensive to more Orthodox Jews? What sort of social arguments did reformers make in favor of reform (Vital comes back to this on p. 121)?
Explain how Orthodox leader Moshe Safer responded to modern social change and social pressures and what he thought of emancipation.
What does the difference between the responses of Sofer and the Hamburg reformed synagogue tell you about divisions within the European Jewish community over the issues of emancipation and integration?
What social group was first to embrace the idea of Jewish reform? (Think of the example of Alsace--what group there was most closely tied to the Revolution and Napoleon, and in what ways did they acculturate?)
Was religious conversion common in the 1800s? Where and when was it most (and least) common, what "types were most likely to convert, and what might this tell us? (For instance, how does Vital se the examples of H. Marx, Rakhel Varnhagen, and H. Heine?)
According to Vital, why did acculturation mean moving away from Judaism? (e.g. bottom of 129-130)
What is Vital's point about Jewish attitudes towards public schooling in Eastern Europe? Were attitudes much different in Western Europe? Explain.
What evidence does Vital present about acculturation in Alsace (the most "traditional" Jewish community in Western Europe)?
What signs of acculturation does Vital note in Central Europe?
Vital links religious reform and acculturation to the "drive to de-nationalize Jewry"--what does he mean by this phrase?
Does Vital think that the Jewish Enlightenment movement (the Haskalah) had as its aim the de-nationalization of Jews?
What were the main ideas that the Haskalah took from the (German) Enlightenment?
According to Vital, did the maskilim (followers of the Haskalah) accept the Enlightenment attitude towards Jews? Explain.
What does Vital see as the major early accomplishments of the Haskalah?
What social purpose did Moses Mendelssohn, Leopold Zunz, and other scholars see in "Jewish Learning" (Wissenschaft des Judentums)? Could this be accomplished in Hebrew?
While most of the Haskalah's aims were secular and while it represented an effort to integrate Jews into European life, Vital repeatedly points out that it was not anti-Jewish or even anti-religious. In what ways do the life and work of Moses Mendelssohn demonstrate this point?
The story of Mendelssohn's involvement in the 1772 debate over a burial law provides an interesting example of how he tried to apply Enlightenment principles to issues of Halakha. Explain the issues in this debate, Mendelssohn's conclusions, and why these contradicted Orthodox attitudes about the relationship between Jewish and Christian scholarship and reasoning.
Does Vital think that by the mid 1800s progress had been made toward Jewish civil equality outside of France and Holland? What countries were the main exceptions?
What kinds of attitudes/hostilities towards Jews were common in Russia in the early 1800s?
Did the Russian government under Tsar Nicholas I (1825-1855) approve of the social, cultural, and political changes taking place in Europe?
The ideological doctrine of tsarist regime under Nicholas I was (Uvarov's concept of) Nationality, Orthodoxy, and Autocracy. Was the Russian state really fully Russian or fully Orthodox Christian? Were Jews Russians, Christians, or supporters of Autocracy? Explain what this meant for the state's Jewish policies. Could Jews "fit" into the official vision of the Empire without being "transformed"?
Explain Uvarov's approach to "transforming" the Jews. How did maskilim figure into this "plan"? And why would the Empire's maskilim be willing to work in cooperation with the autocratic state?
Explain how the creation of a Jewish primary and secondary school system and state-supported rabbinical seminaries in the 1840s represented the mutual advantages of cooperation to the Russian state and the maskilim.
Explain the story of the cooperation between Uvarov and Max Lilienthal. Did rabbinical authorities trust the Lilienthal-Uvarov education project? Was this project successful?
Why did Nicholas I abolish the kahal (the kehillot) in 1844? And did this mean that there were no Jewish communal organizations in Russia? Explain.
Why did the Tsarist regime consider the existence of Jewish communal organization (the obshchestvo) useful?
Explain Nicholas I's program to conscript Jews into the army--what were its aims, who did it effect, how were recruits chosen, what impact did the "cantonist system" and military service have on the life of recruits, what did Jews think of the policy, and did it have any impact on the unity of the Jewish community?
According to Vital, what were the legacies of this military policy (which Russian Jews called the rekrutchina--loosely translated, "the recruiting disaster")? (Note--the French phrase on p. 163--sauve qui peut, loosely translated means "save yourself if you can.")
According to Vital, what did Europe's Jewish community loose during the post-Napoleonic era? Explain. Could the traditionalists effectively respond to social change? Was the pro-emancipationist position without dangers? Was there any political means (or even forum for discussion) whereby Europe's Jewish community could forge a new consensus?
What is Vital's main point in this chapter?
Documents:
Anti-Semitic Legends (translated and/or edited D. L. Ashliman), that appeared in early 19th century Germany (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/antisemitic.html)
Examine the German legends reproduced at this site--"The Jews' Stone," "The Girl Who Was Killed By Jews," "Pfefferkorn the Jew at Halle," "The Expulsion of the Jews From Prussia," "The Bloody Children of the Jews," "The Imprisoned Jew at Magdeburg," "The Chapel of the Holy Body at Magdeburg," and "The Lost Jew." When were these published? Note also that the non-German tales were collected and published in Germany at the same time and by the same people.
What might publication of these legends at this time by leading figures in the Romantic German national culture movement tell you about a) popular attitudes towards Jews in early nineteenth century Germany; b) whether nationalists like the Brothers Grimm considered Jews part of the German nation?
Reform Rabbinical Conference at Brunswick, The Question of Patriotism (from Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World)
This document is an excerpt from a long discussion among reform movement German rabbis in 1844 (the second such conference). The dominant group at the conference were "moderate" reformers who supported Jewish emancipation and "modernization" of Jewish religious practice, but who opposed total assimilation of Jews into German society. In this excerpt, they debate whether or not they should endorse a German equivalent to the answer that the Sanhedrin had given Napoleon when asked if Jews considered themselves Frenchmen (see week 6 documents).
What was their consensus? How did they defend this position? And how does this (reformed) view of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in Germany compare to a) the attitude of Jewish traditionalists; b) the attitude toward Jews revealed in the publication of anti-Semitic legends in the early 1800s?