Professor Olga Litvak argues that the commonly held belief that Haskalah is the “Jewish Enlightenment” is wrong. Based on copious research, she concludes that rather than being of eighteenth century Western origin, Haskalah is actually a product of nineteenth century Eastern European Romanticism.
To prove her case, she cites works of Kant, Rousseau, and other thinkers of the time as well as countless scholars, both historic and contemporary. As might be expected, she focuses considerable attention on Moses Mendelssohn and his life, providing some fascinating insights into both Jewish and gentile society in Berlin and other major north German cities and comparing these to the centers of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, specifically Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania. She also discusses a number of major movements which impacted on Jewish life including Hasidism, Zionism, and the concept of exile.
Because she considers the Haskalah primarily as a literary movement, Litvak not only examines traditional works of historical and philosophical scholarship, but also devotes an entire section of her book to “works of fiction that normally do not make it into histories of the Haskalah.”
Haskalah is one in a series of books designed for students and scholars of Jewish Studies. Professor Litvak, the Leffell Chair in Modern Jewish History at Clark University, has written a serious book for serious students of one of the most fascinating and controversial movements in modern Jewish history. Notes.
