Haskalah
From JudaismWiki
HASKALAH. Literally, enlightenment. Great social and cultural changes began to take place in Western Europe in the 18th century. Philosophers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Locke in France and England began to question the existing authority of Church and State and the prevailing social order. They introduced new concepts of freedom, religious tolerance, equality, and reliance on reason rather than tradition. These ideas ushered in a new era of rationalism and enlightenment.
During the early Enlightenment period, Jewish life in most European countries was still enclosed in the ghetto. As a result of generations of persecution and isolation, Jews differed from their neighbors not only in religion and education but also in language, dress, and habits. The hostile attitude of the gentile world forced Jews to seek security and peace within their own community. As the Enlightenment movement began to take hold educated Jews in Prussia and those who held high economic and financial positions clamored for equal rights. They sought to abolish the degrading and discriminating laws directed against them. Believing that emancipation was at hand, they sought to break down the ghetto walls; many broke with Jewish religious traditions as well.
More Jews began to participate in the cultural and literary life of Germany. Berlin became the center of the Jewish Enlightenment movement. The leading spirit of this group was Moses Mendelssohn who began as a poor rabbinical student and gained fame as a German author and philosopher. Mendelssohn sought to bring Jews closer to European culture and lifestyle without giving up their own cultural and religious values. Under his guidance and inspiration there was a short-lived revival of Hebrew Language.
By the beginning of the 19th century, a large part of German Jewry was well on the road to assimilation. From Germany, the Enlightenment moved first to Galicia and later to Russia. In both countries, the Jewish masses followed their traditional way of life, and outside influences had little effect. Hence, they turned inward to the development of Jewish literature, enriching it with new forms and ideas. Rabbi Nachman Krochmal in Galicia, Yitzhak Ber Levinson, Abraham Mapu, J. L. Gordon, and Peretz Smolenskin in Russia were the outstanding leaders of the Haskalah movement.
In Eastern Europe, the Haskalah movement developed a national purpose and a practical ap¬proach to the Jewish problem. It proposed that Jews improve their economic condition by engaging in agriculture and other useful trades. It also called for the inclusion of secular subjects in Jewish schooling and the relaxing of rabbinical restrictions. On the whole, the movement aimed at striking a happy medium between faith and enlightenment. Orthodox Jews, however, were frightened by the assimilation and conversion that had resulted from the Haskalah movement in Germany. They opposed every effort to institute innovations and bring about changes in traditional Jewish life.
The writers of the Haskalah were the forerunners of the Jewish national revival which took place after the Russian pogroms in 1881. This revival later gave rise to the Zionist movement, which finally culminated in the establishment of the State of Israel.
