JUDAISM

Jay R. Berkovitz

Owing to the rich textual and hermeneutical legacy of Judaism, Jewish historical research has, until the latter part of the twentieth century, been dominated by an overwhelming concern with intellectual development. This emphasis reflects continuity with central elements of the Jewish religious tradition, on the one hand, and a modern cultural-political response to the increasing participation of Jews in European society, on the other. Aiming to enhance the literary and philosophical prestige of Judaism, and thereby advance the cause of civic and social emancipation, nineteenth-century practitioners of Wissenschaft des Judentums devoted much of their energies to documenting and highlighting contributions that Jews had made to human civilization. Only since the 1980s has the study of Jewish history expanded to include social institutions and the experiences of ordinary people. Employing quantified data drawn from notarial documents, censuses, tax rolls, and birth, marriage, and death records, the new historiography has been able to reconstruct demographic trends, migration patterns, and occupational distributions of European Jewry. More descriptive accounts furnished by memoirs, personal correspondence, and oral testimonies have also been used to balance the picture that emerged from quantified sources. These methodological approaches, shared both by Jewish and general social historians, have been applied to the dynamics of acculturation, assimilation, and the shaping of modern Jewish political, cultural, and religious identities. However, in contrast to general trends in the field of social history, where the focus has only recently shifted from the working classes, the study of Jewish modernization has included the entire Jewish community.

The modern history of Judaism, with its rich variety of geographical, ethnic, cultural, and religious expressions, traces its foundation to the Hebrew scriptures and the Pharisaic articulation of Israelite traditions. Initially preserved and transmitted orally, the authoritative rabbinic interpretation of biblical Judaism was recorded in the Mishnah, elaborated upon in the Talmud, and expanded further in biblical and talmudic commentaries, philosophical tracts, mystical compositions, legal codes, and responsa literature. Medieval interpretations and embellishments of earlier teachings were frequently novel, even far-reaching in character, but remained faithful to the ancient traditions. Even movements that deviated more radically from normative Judaism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries nonetheless continued to derive much of their authority and core ideas from the very same Jewish tradition from which they diverged, albeit each in accordance with its own reading and emphases. Together, these diverse strands constitute a largely unbroken continuity to the Judaism of today and find expression through the corporate life of the Jewish people. Owing to the interdependence of these elements, this article examines the social impact of modernity on Judaism and Jewish culture, and therefore integrates social and intellectual history.

RELIGIOUS TRADITION AND SOCIAL HISTORY

Public discussions concerning the status of the Jews, occasioned first by the prospect of their readmission into western and central Europe in the seventeenth century and later by the need to ascertain their suitability for citizenship, invariably centered on the social dimension of the Jewish religion. As the likelihood for entrance into modern society improved, the challenges it presented seized the attention of the Jewish community and remained the main topic of internal debate for most of the modern era. At issue was the corpus of social teachings that determined the ethical obligations toward non-Jews and the relationship of Jews to general society, its institutions and culture. Various reformulations of Judaism were a product of the encounter with general culture and were made in direct response to demands for social and political accommodation. Equally significant are modes of piety and ritual behavior that, while governed by internal traditions and hermeneutics, were influenced by larger social and cultural forces as well. Thus historians have discovered that even mystical and pietistic expressions of Judaism, such as Kabbalah and Hasidism, though not a direct product of overtly modernizing trends, offer equally fruitful subjects for social historical analysis.

Traditional Judaism is rooted in a set of beliefs and values that are discernible in its distinctive patterns of social organization, ritual, and religious concepts. Outlined in the Torah (the Pentateuch), its fundamental teachings draw upon an ethical-monotheistic faith that combines religious universalism and particularism. In contrast to other ancient religions, Judaism emphasized that the divine presence is encountered mainly within history rather than in nature. The doctrine of the election of Israel implied a responsibility to live an exceptionally moral and religious life, to serve as "a light unto the nations" by exemplifying a heightened awareness of God's presence, sovereignty, and ultimate purpose in the world. The conviction that Israel's relationship to God is unique has shaped the lifestyle and mode of existence of Jews since ancient times. This special relationship, known by the term berit (covenant), required obedience to the ethical, moral, and ritual imperatives of the Torah. Formalized at Sinai, the covenant centered on the attainment of holiness as the ultimate purpose of Judaism and coupled the ideal of faithfulness to the God of Israel with the emphatic denial of the legitimacy of idolatry. Based on the numerous biblical admonitions warning of the harsh consequences that would befall Israel should it fail to live up to the ideals of the Torah, a rabbinic theology of history came to view exile from the land, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and suffering at the hands of other nations as divinely ordained. Ultimately, divine retribution was intended to restore Israel's commitment to the terms of the covenant, to facilitate its spiritual and political redemption, and to pave the way for the establishment of divine sovereignty on earth.

Jewish law and social separation. The system of law known as halakhah (from the Hebrew root "to go") supplied the essential structure for the pursuit of holiness. It consists of traditions either rooted explicitly in biblical legislation or believed to have been transmitted orally to Moses. Halakhah and aggadah (nonlegal teachings) together constitute the Oral Law, which, according to rabbinic tradition, was revealed with the Written Law. The power of the rabbis to enact legislation beyond the areas set forth in the classical literature rests on their authority as interpreters of the oral tradition. Over the centuries, the detailed norms of halakhah have come to regulate virtually every area of life, including personal status, family relations, ritual, torts, purity laws, and communal affairs. The attainment of holiness has remained a central objective of this massive legal framework and, owing to the interconnectedness of the moral, ritual, and ethical spheres, has had important social implications. Biblically, it entailed both a separation from the immoral influences of idolatrous nations and a dedication to the service of God. Social segregation was mandated by the prohibition against following "in their ways" (Leviticus 18:3) and was amplified in the Talmud and by medieval rabbinic literature to include restrictions on the consumption of food and wine prepared by gentiles, the appropriation of non-Jewish folkways and rituals, and the emulation of gentile dress. The extent to which these laws succeeded in limiting the interaction of Jews and non-Jews has varied considerably over the course of history. How restrictively these limitations were applied normally depended on the intensity of social and economic relations in a particular locale, and frequently corresponded to the concerns of rabbinic and communal leaders about the dangers of extensive social intermingling and acculturation that modernity posed.

Ritual observances have also contributed to the ethos of separation, although this may not have been their intended purpose. The elaborate dietary laws are a case in point. A detailed classification system specifying which quadrupeds, fish, and fowl may be consumed (Leviticus 11:1–47), rigorous requirements concerning ritual slaughter, prohibitions against the consumption of blood and certain kinds of fat, and the strict separation of meat and milk products were legislated for the expressed purpose of establishing Israel as a holy nation. Although in the course of discussions concerning the aim of these laws various medical, philosophical, religious, and psychological benefits have been proposed, the social role of the dietary restrictions as markers of Jewish distinctiveness, and their implications for a separate Jewish economy, have remained paramount. These regulations, like many other ritual requirements such as the observance of the Sabbath and festivals, public prayer, religious education, and care for the dead, not only encouraged the formation of separate Jewish communities but also reveal the common interest shared with ecclesiastical and lay authorities that were intent on keeping Jews socially apart.

Divine service. No less than its role in distinguishing the Jews as a separate nation, the ritual system of classical Judaism provided a highly structured framework for divine service, falling under three main headings: worship, the study of the Torah, and the performance of acts of kindness. Worship is broadly defined to include a spectrum of divinely ordained rites known as mitzvot that are designed to hallow the mundane aspects of daily life; using symbolism and ceremony, they seek to cultivate human consciousness of the divine presence, and to place human nature, needs, and instincts in a religiously meaningful context. Some assume the form of blessings recited upon the performance of bodily functions in the morning, before eating, and in advance of any obligatory act, such as the affixing of a mezuzah upon the doorpost, recitation of kiddush (sanctification) over wine at the onset of the Sabbath, or the performance of the rite of habdalah (separation) at its close. Each of the aforementioned rites, like most Jewish ceremonies, is performed in the home, the principal arena for the realization of the vita religiosa alongside the synagogue. Though from the standpoint of talmudic law women are exempt from most affirmative precepts limited as to time, such as wearing phylacteries (tefilin) and ritual fringes (tzitzit), they traditionally enjoyed a central role in the private rituals of the home.

Public ritual, including formal prayer and rites of passage such as circumcision, bar mitzvah, naming of children, and weddings, were generally conducted in the synagogue, not because of its inherent sanctity but because of its communal character; hence the original Hebrew term bet-knesset (house of assembly). Technically, each of the ceremonies marking a lifecycle event could be performed in private, but it became customary to conduct these in a public forum. By its presence the community acknowledged and affirmed the passage to the new status. This was also the case for death and burial rites: beginning with the sixteenth century, preparations of the body for burial were performed by the Hebra Kadishah (sacred society) of the community. Even mourning rites, including condolence visitations during the week of intensive bereavement and the gathering of a minyan (a quorum of ten men) in the home, reflected a public dimension of an otherwise private experience. The central elements of synagogue worship included ancient liturgical compositions that positioned the biblical declaration of faith in the God of Israel, the conception of reward and punishment, and the centrality of mitzvot within a framework devoted to the theme of redemptive history; petitional prayers; and the public reading of the Torah. In contrast to the domain of the home, where women were vitally involved in private family rituals, active participation in the public ritual of the synagogue was limited to men. Historically, so long as the home remained central in the ritual life of Judaism, this imbalance only mirrored the generally distinct roles performed by men and women in Jewish life.

The annual cycle of major and minor festivals played a crucial role in the life of the community. In addition to the Sabbath, the calendar listed the three pilgrimage holidays (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot), the days of repentance (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), Hannukah, the carnival-style Purim celebration, Rosh Hodesh (new moon), and several fasts marking the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem or other catastrophes. The pilgrimage holidays were originally agricultural festivals signifying the beginning of spring (Passover), the summer harvest (Shavuot), and the conclusion of the harvest season (Sukkot). In talmudic times they assumed a primarily historical meaning, commemorating crucial moments in Israel's early history: the exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and the divine protection accorded to the Israelites during their sojourn in the desert. The Passover seder and narration of the exodus is a particularly paradigmatic rite of memory. Festivals and fasts provided a framework both for understanding contemporary developments in a national-historical perspective and for reassessing the significance of earlier events in light of the present. Ritualized remembering forged and sustained the national character of the Jewish people and its religious ideals. At the social level, Jewish festivals fostered shared values and a strong collective identity by bringing ordinary people and elites together regularly in common rituals.

While the study of Jewish ritual can tend to emphasize both separation and timelessness, social historians have contributed some correctives. For example, until the seventeenth century in central Europe, many Jewish rituals were accompanied by considerable spontaneity and even rowdiness, much like popular celebrations by non-Jews in Europe. But religious leaders began to attack these elements, much as their Catholic and Protestant counterparts were doing, and gradually Jewish ceremonies became more consistently somber and serious.

The study of the Torah, according to rabbinic tradition, is a devotional act that stands above all other meritorious activities. Early sources prescribed an equal allotment of time for the study of scripture, Mishnah, and Talmud, but medieval Franco-German practice modified this injunction in favor of the virtually exclusive study of Talmud, said to contain the others. Medieval authorities also debated whether Torah study should be the exclusive preoccupation of the elite and whether it ought to be combined with engagement in either philosophical inquiry or mystical speculation. The debate, which subsequently broadened to include the status of other branches of knowledge such as the natural sciences and humanistic studies, continued into modern times. The ideal of Torah study as a lifelong pursuit was incumbent upon all Jews. According to the majority view among talmudic authorities, however, women were exempt from Torah study. Nevertheless, there is abundant historical evidence of women's involvement in the study of the Bible and those sections of the oral law that applied to them.

Conceived in significantly broader terms than the obligation to give charity, the performance of acts of kindness (gemilut hasadim) encompasses the entire range of duties of consideration toward one's fellow human beings. Rabbinic tradition derived its theoretical and practical dimensions from an interpretation of several biblical narrative passages, concluding that one is enjoined to imitate God's moral attributes. Providing clothing for the needy, visiting the sick, and comforting the mourner, for example, are viewed as acts of divine worship, and such acts are understood, especially according to kabbalistic teaching, as a crucial human-divine partnership in the perfection of the world. The mandate to be holy thus expressed itself in efforts devoted to the needy and, at the communal level, in an array of confraternities and societies for free loans, needy brides, visitation of the sick, burial, and consolation of the bereaved. Occasionally, religious and moral idealism was compromised by financial strain, interethnic tensions, and an antialien and antipoor bias that intensified in response to the growing number of beggars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

TRANSFORMATIONS OF JUDAISM IN MODERN EUROPE

Scholarly opinion remains divided on how the essential feature of modernity ought to be defined and precisely when its impact was first felt in Jewish history. Debate centers on whether the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, an era of momentous political, economic, social, and cultural transformation, left an enduring mark on Jewish society and culture as well.

Influence of the 1492 expulsion and the Renaissance. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, which completed a pattern begun by earlier expulsions from England (1290) and France (1394), offers an example of an event that, according to the standard view, set in motion a monumental rippling effect on Jewish life and culture. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, much of the European Jewish population had shifted eastward to Poland-Lithuania, while centers of Jewish life in the Protestant Netherlands, northwestern Germany, England, and Italy were reinforced by the arrival of the Iberian émigrés. As a result of these migratory patterns, and owing to the pronounced political, social, and cultural dissimilarities between east and west, the Jewish experience of modernity varied widely from region to region. Variability is also reflected in the vastly different patterns of modernization that Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews experienced, owing to their distinctive cultural traditions and histories. These dichotomies emerged boldly in the early modern period and, owing to their comparative dimension, offer social historians numerous opportunities to study European Jewry's dynamic encounter with modernity.

According to the pioneering view advanced by Gershom Scholem, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain set in motion a three-stage process that unfolded over the ensuing several centuries and precipitated the decline of rabbinic hegemony. Initially, the Spanish expulsion aroused acute messianic longings and produced a novel interest in the kabbalistic (mystical) doctrine of redemption. The central force in this development was the system of Kabbalah devised by Isaac Luria, with its strong emphasis on the myth of primeval catastrophe and the conception of tikkun as the mystical essence of salvation. Over the next century, according to Scholem, the revival of Kabbalah produced a wave of ascetic piety, new rituals, liturgical compositions, and mystical meditations that prepared the way for the popular embrace of the pseudomessiah Shabbetai Tzevi in 1666. The expectation of immediate redemption entailed halakhic aberrations, signaling a breakdown of rabbinic authority. The third stage in the process was the emergence of eighteenth-century Hasidism, a movement that attempted to make the world of Kabbalah accessible to the masses. Hasidism preserved those elements of Kabbalah that were capable of evoking a popular response, but it removed the messianic component in the hope of neutralizing the redemptive theology believed to be the cause of the Shabbetai Tzevi debacle. The implications of Scholem's explanation are very far-reaching, especially in relation to the history and phenomenology of mysticism. In constructing his theory of historical causality, Scholem posited a direct linkage between the expulsion, its imputed theological meaning, and movements that would later break with orthodox tradition. Accordingly, Lurianic Kabbalah and the aftermath of Shabbetai Tzevi's apostasy prepared the way for the modernization of Jewish life and the emergence of modern deviant and reformist movements. This interpretation gained wide acceptance among a full generation of historians.

In the 1990s the Scholem thesis underwent thorough reconsideration. Moshe Idel has shown that Lurianic Kabbalah was not an innovative response to the trauma of expulsion but an extension of older mystical trends, some of which even originated in ancient rabbinic Judaism. He has also demonstrated that Lurianic Kabbalah was not the dominant form of Jewish mysticism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and, further, that it failed to infiltrate the masses as Scholem claimed. Where it was disseminated, as in Italy, it was nonmessianic. This refutation of the Scholem thesis, drawing on modes of analysis used in the fields of religion and intellectual history, has recently received additional substantiation from the realm of social history. The publishing history of early modern kabbalistic conduct literature has shown that Lurianism spread much later than has been assumed and that its influence can be documented only after the Shabbetai Tzevi movement. In fact, even the laws and customs contained in the Zohar, the thirteenth-century kabbalistic commentary to the Torah, failed to penetrate ritual life until the emergence of Hasidism. Demonstrating that the eighteenth-century revival of mystical piety did not draw upon Lurianic Kabbalah, which had already weakened by the time the movement appeared, but bore a closer connection to the nonmessianic Cordoveran Kabbalah, Idel has proven that Hasidism was not a reaction to crisis. Far from having become the adversary of rabbinic Judaism, Kabbalah evinced an affinity with patterns of classical rabbinic thought and had firmly permeated normative rabbinic culture before the breakdown of traditional society.

Italy offers an equally instructive case study of vastly differing assessments of the influence of the Renaissance on Jewish life. All agree that the rise of humanism and the emergence of modern science stimulated Jewish scholarly interest in classical philosophy, science, and rhetoric, as well as participation in the arts. Likewise, works of Hebrew poetry and grammar, biblical commentary, historical writing, and systematization of talmudic and halakhic learning reflected the unmistakable imprint of Italian humanism. David Ruderman, for one, cited collaboration between leading Italian humanists and Jewish scholars as proof of the widespread tolerance enjoyed by Jews. Accordingly, the Renaissance is commonly characterized as an era in which Jewish culture and thought was thoroughly transformed, as evidenced by the emergence of new terms of reference, literary sources, and modes of expression, while Judaism was accepted as intrinsically valid by Christians. Others, led by Robert Bonfil, argue that the various indications of acculturation do not represent adaptation to the majority culture, nor do they suggest that Jews came to view their own religion as inferior to that of others, but only that they maintained an openness toward general culture. In spite of noteworthy instances of scholarly cooperation, the social barriers separating Jews and non-Jews were still in force. Jews continued to be an insecure minority threatened with expulsion and forced conversion, and amidst the penetration of humanist ideals and the considerable evidence of cross-cultural exchange, they nonetheless continued to assert their spiritual superiority and uniqueness over their Christian neighbors. Most importantly, there is no evidence of appreciable improvement in the social relations between Jews and non-Jews. The social and political status of the Jews in Renaissance Italy remained virtually unchanged from medieval times.

The example of Italy reveals that the main features of medieval Jewish life—segregation, discriminatory legislation, public assaults on Judaism, and the centrality of rabbinic authority and law—were strongly resistant to the forces that had transformed European society and culture. In fact it was in Venice in 1516 that the term "ghetto" was first used to designate the section of the city where Jews were required to settle; the term was subsequently applied to Jewish quarters in major cities on the continent. European Jewry was largely unaffected by the rise of humanism, the emergence of modern science, and the advent of capitalism, insofar as most could only settle in eastern Europe or in the eastern Mediterranean, far from the centers of economic growth and cultural advancement. As a result, the largest number remained outside the mainstream of society, while medieval social structures and mentalités persisted until the late eighteenth century. One exception to this pattern was the converso diaspora, where there was an encounter of Jewish and Western culture in the seventeenth century. We have also seen a connection between attacks on ceremonial spontaneity and wider currents in European popular culture.

Patterns of modernization. Dissimilarities between the Ashkenazic and Sephardic models of transformation in early modern Europe reflect the divergent historical experiences of the two main ethnic branches of the Jewish people. "Ashkenaz" and "Sepharad" are biblical terms identified with Germany and Spain respectively; each subsequently evolved into a religious and cultural tradition connoting distinctive pronunciation of Hebrew, liturgical rites, religious customs, and approaches to general culture. Ashkenazic Jews traced their lineage to the Land of Israel, from there to Italy, and in the High Middle ages were concentrated in the Rhineland. By the beginning of the early modern period, when the largest concentration was in Poland and smaller numbers resided in central Europe, opportunities for contact with Christian society and culture were severely restricted. Their communities, known as kehillot, were recognized as legally autonomous by the secular governments, and the lay and rabbinic leadership was empowered to govern in accordance with Jewish law. Rabbinic jurisdiction over civil cases, and the right to punish those who failed to abide by communal regulations, evinced their cultural self-containment. Their literary production echoed this social reality, insofar as the language of learned culture was mainly Hebrew and its focus was limited to the religious sphere. With the rapid expansion of printing, rabbinic literature was widely disseminated, and in the seventeenth century numerous communities imposed obligatory participation in a study group or study on one's own. Study assumed its most intensive form in the large concentration of yeshivot of Poland-Lithuania, where professional students were supported by the local community. After the 1648–1649 Chmielnicki massacres, the yeshivot declined, but they were still attended by students from western Europe.

Tracing its religious traditions to Babylonia, Sephardic Jewry was a product of the unique political and cultural forces that shaped Andalusian society of medieval Spain. In contrast to the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim were involved in governmental affairs and in extensive social and intellectual intercourse with the elite of the Muslim population. Their secular poetry and scientific works were inspired by the Arabic literati, and they used Arabic in their prose works. They took keen interest in philosophy, ascribed greater importance to Bible study, and developed systematic approaches to biblical exegesis and the codification of Jewish law. This rich medieval legacy under Islam, as well as the experience of crypto-Judaism engendered by Christian intolerance, predisposed Sephardic Jews historically to successful integration in public life and culture. Moreover, their subsequent resettlement in areas of western Europe where tolerance reigned, and the fact that their reconstituted communities did not possess the range of social and religious controls available to Ashkenazic kehillot, accelerated the Sephardic encounter with modernity. Their extensive participation in European society and culture, as well as a variety of modern religious expressions that included voluntary Jewish identity and individualism, were attained without the concomitant breakdown of traditional Jewish society.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, historians of European Jewry have expanded our understanding of the transformation of traditional Jewish society, some after investigating Levantine Jewry and Sephardic communities of the West, and others on the basis of an examination of individual Ashkenazic communities in western and central Europe. Having detected signs of a break from traditional patterns in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, they agree that the process of acculturation had begun before the onset of ideological and political efforts to ease the acceptance of Jews in general society. In their view, resettlement in the West, not enlightenment and emancipation, marked the beginning of social and cultural reintegration. Communities of Sephardim in France, Holland, Germany, and England exhibited evidence of advanced acculturation, but their integration into general society did not require emancipation from the patterns of social and cultural segregation typical of Ashkenazic Jews.

The argument that sectors of western Ashkenazic Jewry began departing from the traditional lifestyle at the turn of the eighteenth century rests on evidence of growing laxity in ritual observance, increased social interaction between Jews and Christians, imitation of gentile dress and appearance—including shaving the beard and adopting gentile hairstyles—an increasing preoccupation with luxury, the cultivation of secular branches of knowledge such as philosophy and science, and a decline in sexual morality. Many of these changes found expression in contemporary iconography as well, especially in the depiction of Christian interest in Jewish rites and the harmonious relations between Jews and non-Jews. The new tendencies met with an intensification of efforts on the part of leaders of Ashkenazic communities such as Metz and Frankfurt to regulate public morality in the late seventeenth century. Growing social control in communities of western and central Europe corresponds to Peter Burke's theory that after 1650 the struggle to suppress deviant behavior passed from ecclesiastical to lay powers. Lay leaders sought to delineate the boundaries between the sacred and the profane and keep the two domains distinct in order to prevent the incipient dissolution of traditional society. In some instances, class affiliation determined the type of accommodation made by Jews to modernity. Signs of acculturation among the middle and lower classes in England, for example, resemble those changes that had been limited elsewhere to elites, and suggest that Jews imitated the behavior of their economic peers in gentile society while discarding much of Jewish tradition.

Whether the aforementioned indications of acculturation were elements of a new process or were only variations on the traditional pattern is still fiercely contested. According to Jacob Katz, a genuine break from tradition is indicated when nonnormative acts are justified by a new value system; this occurred in the last third of the eighteenth century when the authority of the rabbinic tradition came under attack and a new vision of the future was first formulated. For Katz, it was the era of Enlightenment and Jewish emancipation that launched the process leading to both acculturation and acceptance within European society as citizens. Gentile advocates of Jewish emancipation expected the bestowal of citizenship to bring the Jews' social and cultural isolation to a close. Liberal thinkers envisioned a society open to all persons, irrespective of class, national origin, or religious affiliation. The Jews were invited to participate in this new undertaking, provided they were willing to accept the conditions set by discussants of the Jewish question in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Concretely, this involved the surrender of communal autonomy and rabbinic jurisdiction in civil affairs, and was predicated on the envisioned transformation of Jewish social and economic life.

The Haskalah movement. A cultural revolution from within accompanied the external forces leading to the curtailment of communal autonomy. The promise of a "neutral society" founded upon secular, humanistic, and rational principles, together with a growing frustration with the cultural limitations imposed by ghetto life, inspired the emergence of the Haskalah movement (from the Hebrew root sekhel, which means intellect or reason), a Jewish variant of the European Enlightenment. Its chief proponents, known as maskilim, worked mainly as teachers, writers, employees in Hebrew printing presses, and tutors to the rich. As they became acquainted with the major writings of the philosophes, they subjected traditional Jewish society to a critical reevaluation according to new criteria drawn from the Enlightenment, such as the primacy of reason, the aesthetic ideal, the universal brotherhood of man, and economic productivity. In their writings and through their activism on behalf of educational and communal reform, they constructed a new vision of the ideal Jew and of the relationship of Jews to non-Jewish society.

The Haskalah movement undermined the theological, halakhic, and cultural foundations of social separatism. Conscious of the alleged liabilities presented by traditional Judaism, Jewish intellectuals developed strategies to advance the process of cultural and social integration by adjusting Jewish religious and social teachings to the cultural norms of European society. In the realm of education, the maskilim distinguished between two categories of knowledge, one pertaining to human affairs and another relating to more narrowly conceived religious subjects. The former, humanistic and scientific studies, was an autonomous sphere that was accessible through human reason and empirical observation. Viewed as absolutely crucial for citizens of the modern state, instruction in secular subjects became the highest educational priority in Jewish schools, while the religious curriculum was recast to reflect an emphasis on Hebrew language and grammar, Bible, ethical obligations, and morality. The new schools that were formed under the influence of the Haskalah aimed to produce a generation of Jews capable of taking their place in the new order as productive and loyal citizens. To accomplish this goal, a new Judaism was substituted for the old, one that was refashioned to correspond to the social, cultural, and political underpinnings of emancipation. Restrictions on social intercourse with non-Jews were deemed incompatible with the concrete demands of citizenship and its wider implications; halakhic constraints on the consumption of gentile wine and the emulation of gentile customs were cited as the most egregious examples of the outmoded character of traditional Judaism. Emphasizing the central elements of the Sephardic legacy, particularly its rationalist tradition and integrationist ethos, the maskilim mounted energetic efforts against the rabbinic establishment, which they viewed as the embodiment of cultural obscurantism and excessive political power. Critical of religious and social traditions that were purportedly the product of superstition and persecution, radical maskilim distinguished, as did deism, the divine core of religion from variable customs.

Emancipation and reform. In contrast to the common core of ideological positions to which maskilim in most areas of central and western Europe subscribed, the process of Jewish emancipation varied significantly from state to state, and even from region to region within states. Insofar as emancipation was the product of complex local political forces, the bestowal of civic equality in Europe tended to be uneven. Historically, the era began with the admission of the Sephardic Jews of France to citizenship in 1790 and ended more than a century later with the formal extension of equality in Russia in 1917. Whether granted immediately or only after a prolonged battle, "emancipation" has come to signify the extended process of Jewish acculturation and integration in modern society. The range of its manifold effects is discernible not only in diverse political frameworks but also in various social contexts pertaining to urban or rural populations, class, and gender.

On the basis of these considerations, recent studies have debunked the older view that emancipation led inexorably to rampant assimilation and the rupture of tradition. In the case of the Jews of rural Alsace, occupational patterns, family life, and religious observance were resistant to change because social and economic conditions in the region remained relatively stable for much of the nineteenth century. The conservatism of the rural population is evident in the persistence of folk customs, the use of Yiddish, fertility patterns, opposition to religious reform, use of Jewish names, sentiments of ethnic solidarity, and in the slow pace of assimilation to bourgeois standards of behavior. The city, by contrast, facilitated economic transformation, acculturation to bourgeois lifestyle, and accommodation to the norms of non-Jewish society; as a result, traditional loyalties and affiliations waned, while assimilation accelerated in larger cities such as Paris, Berlin, Prague, and Vienna. Economic and intellectual urban elites active in communal institutions typically labored to "regenerate" the lower classes in accordance with ideals expounded by the Haskalah, and their efforts found expression both in the creation of philanthropic schools for the Jewish urban poor and in broader activities directed at the transformation of Jews in rural areas.

These developments obviously call attention to links between social and religious history in modern Judaism. Divergences emerged within the Jewish community based in part on social class. Many Jews took advantage of opportunities in higher education, and their religious outlook tended to differ from that of other social groups within Judaism. The rural-urban split was pronounced. Patterns of emigration of Jews within Europe by the later nineteenth century added to the complex mix. Many Russian and Polish Jews moved west, interacting with more assimilated coreligionists in places like Britain, and even internal movements, as from Alsace to Paris, had implications for religious outlook and relationships with the wider society.

Barriers to social integration were in the forefront of internal Jewish discussions concerning adaptation to modern society. Concerns about the compatibility of Jewish ritual with the demands of social integration and patriotic loyalty were exacerbated by the acknowledgment that emancipation had shattered the theological assumptions about exile, the return to the Land of Israel, and social separation from non-Jews. For many, citizenship required the removal of problematic aspects of the Jewish religion, and therefore proponents of modernization, including the majority of delegates to the Napoleonic Sanhedrin, repudiated its social and political dimensions. Various factors, including growing indifference to religious observance and the assimilation of bourgeois values, led some to conclude that moderate ritual reform was in order. Typically, efforts to enhance the aesthetic appeal of the synagogue included recitation of prayers in the vernacular, the regularization of the modern sermon, the use of the organ, and the insistence on greater decorum. In Germany, disappointment with the slow progress of legal emancipation, the decline in Jewish observance, the increasing wave of conversion to Christianity, and rising anti-Semitism induced more radical views. As the prospects of civic emancipation grew dimmer, German reformers intensified their efforts to eliminate traces of the political from Judaism. They removed references to the Land of Israel and the Messiah from the prayer book for fear that these might weaken their claim to equal rights, and sought to blur the ethnic and national features of traditional Judaism by eradicating the dietary laws, traditional Sabbath observance, the prohibition of intermarriage, and circumcision.

Despite the vast differences and bitter struggles between reformers and staunch defenders of the normative tradition, all sectors of the Jewish community acknowledged the debilitating effects of modernity. Strongly rejecting the efforts of radical reformers, Neo-Orthodoxy and Positive-Historical Judaism—later to be known as Modern Orthodoxy and Conservative Judaism—offered solutions to the challenges of rampant assimilation and the erosion of rabbinic authority that reflected their respective conceptions of halakhah and Jewish peoplehood, while upholding an unswerving commitment to emancipation and social integration. Ultra-Orthodox opponents of religious reform, on the other hand, resisted any and all compromises to the integrity of the ancestral faith, urging a greater degree of separation from general society.

As in western and central Europe, growing numbers believed that the Russian Haskalah would facilitate acceptance within general society. Education was regarded as the vehicle that would accelerate the acculturation process by encouraging students to reject patterns of traditional behavior and thought believed to be irrational, retrograde, and divisive. As a result of state involvement in the creation of modern Jewish schools in the 1840s and 1850s, together with the policy of liberalization under Alexander II and the example of modernization in the West, the Russian Haskalah flourished. Although it stressed values similar to those of the German Haskalah, it was less inclined to surrender the distinctive social or religious ideals of traditional Judaism, and the idea of religious reform was only rarely considered. Owing to the stagnant economy, lack of liberalism, and discriminatory legislation, the process of modernization in the East was exceedingly slow. Within this context, the response to modernity in eastern Europe assumed several distinct forms: the creation of communal yeshivot to fight off assimilation; the emergence of the pietistic Musar movement; the Jewish socialist movement; the emergence of secular Jewish culture, particularly through the advocacy of national cultural autonomy in the multiethnic society of Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and the creation of the Zionist movement.

Zionism. Influenced by nineteenth-century nationalism, Zionist leaders viewed emancipation in the West as an enormous political disappointment and argued that cultural autonomy would ultimately fail to preserve Jewish identity, although the latter claim proved to be exaggerated. Ethnic identity remained strong, as evidenced by continued Hebrew literacy, Jewish folkways, and the vigor of Yiddish literature and theater. Whether Zionism viewed its goal of national resettlement in the Land of Israel as the solution to the problem of anti-Semitism or to the problem of Judaism in the modern world, its program was a positive, though secularized, assertion of the belief in messianic redemption and the historic destiny of the Jewish people. For Zionism, as for other modern Jewish movements, modernity marked the end of the traditional concept of exile and the passive waiting for divine redemption, and signified the beginning of an active pursuit of personal or national fulfillment. Differences between cultural and political Zionism reflected the contrasting historic experiences of east and west European Jews. In the east, where ethnic identity was strong and anti-Semitism physically brutal, Zionism struck deep roots. In the west, Zionism appeared to contradict the social and political premises of emancipation, and therefore remained a largely philanthropic movement until the advent of Nazism. Known as the "Final Solution," the Nazi policy of extermination tragically confirmed Zionism's analysis of the nineteenth-century Jewish question.

Gender. Emphasizing the different ways that Jewish men and women experienced acculturation and assimilation, recent scholarship has shown that emancipation was a highly gendered process. Limited mainly to the domestic scene, women did not have the same opportunities as men to encounter general society and culture in the workplace or in institutions of higher education; this difference would persist as long as the boundaries between domestic and public realms remained in force. Consequently, among most Jewish women the incidence of conversion to Christianity was far less than for men, as long as women's entrance to the workforce was limited. On the positive side, it has been shown that Jewish women in imperial Germany were more traditionally minded than their assimilated husbands. Because bourgeois culture understood religious sentiment as an expression of family values, religion was believed to fall naturally within the private sphere dominated by women. In eastern Europe, where traditional Jewish society did not discourage women from participating in the public realm, Jewish women were more vulnerable to the allure of modern society than men, as evidenced by the fact that more women than men converted to Christianity. It is also noteworthy that in east European Jewish society, where the cult of domesticity was not adopted, responsibility for the inculcation of Jewish religious values was not entrusted to women only. Owing to the progressive relegation of the home and home-based rituals to a less important status, and the concomitant prominence attached to the public sphere, as well as the broad social movement of feminism in the latter decades of the twentieth century, the participation of women in ritual life has increased, even in areas considered halakhically nonobligatory. This has produced numerous new ritual expressions, mainly in the Reform and Conservative movements, and more recently, the proliferation of women's prayer groups and women's Torah institutes, including the rigorous study of Talmud among the Modern Orthodox.

See alsoThe Jews and Anti-Semitism (volume 1) and other articles in this section.

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