Haskalah

Secularism and Its Discontents

In an essay first published December 17, 2010, Yehudah Mirsky examines a defense of Jewish secularism and finds it—and Jewish secularism itself—wanting.

Enigmas of Modern Jewish Identity

Over the course of a lifetime facing modernity's conflicting demands, how might Jewishness affect the struggle to sustain identity, and how might this struggle mark the contours of Diaspora history?

The Jewish Egyptian Revival

Passover marks the day on which God liberated the Israelites from Pharaoh’s rule.   But three millennia after the Exodus, emancipated Jews expressed their national identity by building synagogues in the Pharaonic style.

Leaving the Ghetto

"Was there any possibility," asks Jacob Katz in this 1996 Commentary essay, "that the Jews collectively might have been accepted in Europe on their own terms—that is, as a community, with a religion opposed to Christianity?" 

Antisemitism: Obsession or Logic?

Robert Wistrich’s new book, From Ambivalence to Betrayal:The Left, the Jews, and Israel, does much to demonstrate that anti-Semitism was and is a fixture of the Left—but stops short of that conclusion.

Where Does the Modern Period of Jewish History Begin?

In this classic 1975 Judaism article, Michael Meyer argues that there is no value in "setting a definite terminus for the beginning of modern Jewish history."

A Pillar with a Past

Gil S. Perl’s The Pillar of Volozhin sheds light on the Netziv, one of Lithuanian Jewry's greatest leaders, whose own intellectual development is reflected throughout the yeshiva world today.

The Turning of the Torah Tide

“Torah Judaism today retains more of its youth than at any time since the Haskalah.”  Historian Marc Shapiro recently made this remark.  Can he possibly be correct?

Reform of Tradition, Tradition of Reform

Max Lilienthal’s life provides a lens through which we watch American Judaism, Reform Judaism in particular, struggle with the consequences of its own idiosyncratic condition.

Out of the Well of the Past

Jewish history was once regularly portrayed as a march from pre-modern stasis to modern revolution and change. This picture held its attractions, offering clearly marked battle lines for later proponents on either side of the ongoing ideological struggles between traditionalists and modernizers. By now, however, we have been well instructed in the deceptive simplicity of all such efforts to impress order on the relentless flux of history, which so often dissolves the closer we look at it.