8 - Jewish Enlightenment Beyond Western Europe

Summary

INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING EAST AND WEST IN MODERN JEWISH THOUGHT

The Haskalah – or “Jewish Enlightenment” – is often regarded as a movement that emerged in eighteenth-century Berlin, in response to social and cultural conditions there, and as engaged in dialogue with the various branches of European Enlightenment, particularly the German Aufklärung. Like-minded Jewish intellectuals in other areas of “western” Europe, notably the Low Countries, England, and eastern France, similarly engaged with Enlightenment thought, identified themselves as “enlightened,” and engaged in correspondence and even joint projects with their counterparts in Berlin. In early nineteenth-century Germany and other areas of central and western Europe, younger generations of Jewish intellectual modernizers turned to more radical programs of political, educational, and religious change. The traditional narrative then suggests that the “Haskalah” migrated eastward into Galicia (in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and then to the Russian Empire. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Haskalah continued as an eastern European phenomenon with branches in some areas of the Muslim world, especially Palestine. That is, the Haskalah is often seen as a movement that began in “western” Europe and migrated eastward.