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Preface
- NYU Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Preface The academic study ofJudaica has undergone a remarkable efflorescence in America during the last twenty years_ The dream of the pioneers of Wissenschaft des ]udentums in the early nineteenth century that Judaica would become accepted into the curriculum and research program of great universities has largely come to pass_ As the modern study of Jewish history and literature spread east, west, and south of its original German home, the scholarly investigation of Judaica itself became far richer, more varied, and farreaching . Still encompassing traditional disciplines of philology, literature, theology, biography, and traditional history, the study of the Jewish past and civilizations shows, since the late nineteenth century, the powerful impact of the perspectives and methodologies of the social sciences-sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology-as well as new trends in social thought and literary criticism. A far more complex map of the Jewish heritage has emerged. Simplistic understandings of what was normative and what was nonconformist have given way to a more objective and more sensitive appreciation of historic Jewish subcultures, of intellectual and social tensions and cycles within the Jewish people, and of dissident and marginal forms ofJudaism. Equally important has been the astonishing and often traumatic history of the Jews since the first appearance of Wissenschaft des ]udentums (the scholarly reconstruction of the jewish past). In the r82os the modern odyssey of the Jewish people and the jewish tradition had barely commenced-indeed, the modern age (better, the sequence of modern ages) had just begun. More than a century and a half later, the academic study of Judaica includes not only anix X PREFACE cient and medieval texts, practices, beliefs, and institutions but the dialectic of two centuries of modern challenges and responses: ideological replies to liberalism, conservatism, anti-Semitism, and socialism ; institutional reactions to the pressures of acculturation and assimilation; social reconstruction after the experience of migration , economic dislocation, and attempted genocide; and secular and spiritual reactions to the vast technological and scientific changes occurring since the industrial revolution. The careful study of all these phenomena and more is indispensable for an adequate grasp of contemporary jewish postures and mentalities. And modern jewish studies has proven to be of immense value in the comparative study of traditional and modern ethnic and religious groups everywhere on the globe. This series, Reappraisals in jewish Social and Intellectual History , seeks to contribute to the further growth and clarification of jewish studies, especially in the early modern and modern periods, through a dedication to two tasks. First, the books included will deal with topics that at one time were high on the agenda ofjewish research and now can be subjected to fresh appraisal in the light of newly discovered data or newly developed explanatory models. There are individuals, events, and movements whose exemplary significance are illuminated through concepts and methodologies developed since the classical presentation or the authoritative treatment of the subject. Second, the series is intended to facilitate the reappraisal of topics in a broad comparative perspective. Works included will articulate the reciprocal influences and parallel developments that clarify the interrelationship ofJewish history and thought and the general context and that further integrate jewish studies into the contemporary academy. Some publications in Reappraisals in]ewish Social and Intellec· tual History will be diachronic, tracing development through time; others will be synchronic, cutting across the temporal process to look for new patterns of interrelationship. In common will be a bridging of the gap between highly specialized studies directed primarily to scholars working in the area and popular accounts for the general public through an up-to-date, fresh synthesis for students, teachers, scholars, and laypeople struggling to keep abreast of current knowledge. Some works will be collections of studies by groups [18.209.63.120] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:48 GMT) PREFACE Xi of scholars who have met together in a preliminary conference for the initial phases of the development of the theme. Others will be monographs by an individual scholar on a subject of intense interest to him or her for a number ofyears. The publication of this volume of essays on Mordecai M. Kaplan, who dominated so much of non-Orthodox American Jewish intellectual life for so many years, is especially appropriate for this series. The authors of these essays have approached Kaplan from many perspectives, asking a wide variety of different questions that add new depth to our knowledge of his personal development and remarkably consistent point of view. Togeth~r. these essays constitute a...