The Eternal Maskil

What is the literature of the Haskalah worth? Why should we read it? Granted that the period has high historical interest, representing a watershed moment in Jewish history—the point of rapid and startling transition from "traditional" to "modern" Jewish society—does Haskalah writing possess a literary, as opposed to merely a historical, value? These are some of the questions that in recent years have been engaging Moshe Pelli, the foremost scholar of the Haskalah in the United States and one of the most prominent worldwide. He is decidedly in the affirmative camp, and his answers to these questions, relying on recent scholarship of genre theory, provide some of the richest readings of this literature yet and strengthen the claim of Haskalah supporters that this body of writing is rewarding to read in and of itself. For Pelli, along with other senior Haskalah scholars, a defense of the literature that they teach and write about has particular urgency today. The number of classes devoted to this material continues to decline in Israel and elsewhere, a trend that threatens to render both Haskalah literature and its scholarly pursuit a dead, dust-bound field of letters. Pelli's remarkably productive scholarship aims to impress upon contemporary Hebrew readers a sense of this material's liveliness and imaginative power.

Moshe Pelli's career has been characterized by his passionate devotion to the Hebrew language, pursued in a variety of channels and genres, reminiscent of the heroic efforts of the German Maskilim he has so diligently chronicled in his scholarly writings. He has written the authoritative history of the Histadrut Ivrit in America (Hatarbut haʿivrit baʾamerikah), a movement in which he himself has served vigorously over the years as editor of two of its journals and as a committee member. Scarcely a field of literary activity has he left unplowed: he has authored two novels in Hebrew, eight children's books, and an introduction to the Hebrew language, aside from numerous book reviews. Pelli's main contribution to Hebrew literary scholarship lies in the sustained attention he has given to the work of the German Maskilim, a group that has been generally overlooked or dismissed by mainstream Hebrew academics. Building upon the efforts of Shmuel Werses, the leading figure in Haskalah studies for the past several decades, Pelli has offered expanded treatments of the most interesting writers of the group—Saul Berlin, Isaac Satanow, Naftali Herz Wessely, and Isaac Euchel—as well as dusting off significant works by lesser lights. In Pelli's writing, these writers demonstrate an intellectual ferment and literary resourcefulness little suspected heretofore. Berlin and Satanow in particular, both authors of multilayered pseudepigraphic gems, emerge in their full genius in Pelli's writing. Author of dozens of articles over the past decades, including pioneering studies of Haskalah liter ature, Pelli has recently begun to reap the fruits of his labors in several handsome books that represent the culmination of his scholarly career. Although he cannot turn this oeuvre into great literature, he has succeeded in making it interesting—much more...