The Jewish Enlightenment

Contents

Contents Preface xi Introduction: The Jews and the Enlightenment  PA RT I A PAS S I ON F O R K N O WL E D GE  Intellectual Inferiority: The Affront  The Restoration of Jewish Honor  ‘‘Precursors of the Haskalah’’ or ‘‘Early Maskilim’’?   The Early Haskalah and the Redemption of Knowledge  The Erotic Seductiveness of Knowledge  The Redeemers of the Neglected Sciences  Confronting Skepticism: The Noble Savage  Shaping Rational Thinking   The Secular Author in the Public Arena  On the Verge of Separation from the Rabbinical Elite  Patrons and the First Circles  Three Avenues of Development  PA RT II J E WI S H KU L T UR K A MPF  The Wessely Affair: Threats and Anxieties  Orthodox Counterreaction  The Subversive Intellectual   Projects of Enlightenment and Tests of Tolerance  The Jewish Free School  Religious Tolerance  Dohm: On the Civil Improvement of the Jews  Mendelssohn’s Bi’ur of the Pentateuch  The Posner Affair   The Rabbinical Elite on the Defensive  ‘‘To Publicize the Wickedness of the Evil Man, Herz Wessely’’  viii Contents An Ultimatum from the Seven Berliners  Rabbi Levin Flees Berlin   On Religious Power and Judaism  Berlin’s Ktav Yosher  Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem  Rabbinical Reactions  Wessely and the Italian Rabbis  PART I I I T H E M A S KI L I C R E P UB L I C  The Society of Friends of the Hebrew Language  Establishing a New Public Sphere  A Maskilic Association in Königsberg   The Maskilim: A Group Portrait  In Mendelssohn’s Salon  Circles and Boundaries in Maskilic Society  Two Groups of Maskilim   Euchel Establishes the Haskalah Movement  The Genesis of a Maskil  The Haskalah Project’s First Initiatives  Hame’asef, –   The Society for the Promotion of Goodness and Justice  The Freischule Printing House  The Haskalah Is Institutionalized  Intensive Acculturation in Berlin   Growth and Radicalization  The Haskalah Library Expands  The Kulturkampf Escalates  An Attack on Rabbi Raphael Kohen  The Search for the Ideal Jewish Society  PART I V O N TWO F RO N T S  Crisis at the Turn of the Century  Voices of Despair and Protest  Decline in the s  Jewish-German Intelligentsia  Friedländer and the Letter to Teller   Tensions and Polemics in the Shadow of Crisis  Satanow and the Haskalah Library in the s  Contents ix Hame’asef, –  The Early Burial Controversy  The Besamim Rosh Affair   On Frivolity and Hypocrisy  The Enemies of Enlightenment  Internal Rifts  Rabbi Josephche and Jettchen in the Brothel  Afterword: Haskalah and Secularization  The Haskalah as a Revolutionary Event  Secular Revolution  Notes  Index  This page intentionally left blank ...