The Origins of Jewish Secularization in Eighteenth-Century Europe (review)

The decline of religious observance in modern Europe—commonly referred to as "secularization"—is a highly contested historical phenomenon. As originally conceived by sociologists more than forty years ago, the "secularization thesis" assumes that the more modern a society is, the more secular it will be. Although there is no denying that the role of religion in some modern societies has become noticeably shrunken, such critics as José Casanova, Talal Asad, and now Peter Berger reject the claim that this decline was inevitable. They have also rejected the structural assumptions upon which the idea of secularization is based.

With the publication of Israeli historian Shmuel Feiner's Origins of Jewish Secularization, we have a work that aims to rehabilitate the beleaguered secularization thesis. Organized chronologically, the book examines the background to the abandonment of religious norms, the denial of beliefs, and the growing indifference to religious authority in six leading cities in Western and Central Europe: London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Breslau, and Prague. Feiner is concerned primarily with the behavioral aspects of secularization and how these reflected changes in Jewish self-definition. In his view, polar differences between the secular and religious orientations account for the emergence of two socially distinct and ideologically charged camps.

Feiner's main historical claim is that the roots of Jewish secularization extended back to the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than two generations before the cultural revolution of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment). On this point, he repeats the argument made by Azriel Shohet a half-century ago, though Feiner has broadened his study to include the Netherlands and England in addition to Germany. He argues that such marginal groups as conversos, neo-Karaites, and Sabbatians, which openly challenged religious norms and rabbinic authority, were crucial to the early history of secularization, though it was the influence of Deism that was felt most concretely by those who broke with religious orthodoxy. As to internal forces, Feiner attributes deviations from religious norms to the decline of rabbinic authority. Here he follows Gershom Scholem and Jacob Katz, who argued that the messianic Sabbatian movement irrevocably weakened religious authority across the continent.

The volume's most important contribution is its detailed illustration of secularizing trends, including the rich biographical sketches that fill its pages. This approach follows from the author's suggestion that the process of secularization was sparked by men and women who hoped to realize their individuality through the enjoyment of autonomy and the pursuit of pleasure. Biographical vignettes portray the varied lives of men and women who experienced religious doubt, philosophical dilemmas, and the attraction of European culture and amusements. Feiner also details the growing tension in urban communities where individuals identified as deists, skeptics, and subversives were marginalized and vilified. The ensuing culture wars were, in the author's view, fueled by the perception that after mid-century secularization had intensified and expanded in scope. Feiner links these developments to the emergence of the city in the eighteenth century as a cultural center to which the broader public had access. Evidence of Jews' participation in European high culture is drawn from published and unpublished sources, as well as from the more official communal record books. These details add depth and texture to an otherwise familiar picture; they also attest to the prodigious research upon which this book rests.

As to the interpretation of the data he has assembled, Feiner is on less certain ground. His description of secular behavior, especially in the first half of the eighteenth century, relies heavily on the perspective of rabbinic critics. Although one can surely learn a great deal about patterns of religious behavior from rabbinic sources, these materials overwhelmingly reflect the perceptions of the rabbinic class, their concerns about the erosion of traditional behavior, and their hypersensitivity to minor infractions. On occasion, Feiner even appears to adopt the judgment of rabbinic critics who railed against fashionable dress, wigs, and beardlessness because these signified, in their...