22 Facts About Haskalah

Haskalah, often termed Jewish Enlightenment, was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with certain influence on those in Western Europe and the Muslim world.

The Haskalah promoted rationalism, liberalism, freedom of thought, and enquiry, and is largely perceived as the Jewish variant of the general Age of Enlightenment.

Haskalah was multifaceted, with many loci which rose and dwindled at different times and across vast territories.

The name Haskalah became a standard self-appellation in 1860, when it was taken as the motto of the Odessa-based newspaper Ha-Melitz, but derivatives and the title Maskil for activists were already common in the first edition of Ha-Meassef from 1 October 1783: its publishers described themselves as Maskilim.

Haskalah'storians described the movement largely as a Republic of Letters, an intellectual community based on printing houses and reading societies.

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Joseph ha-Efrati Troplowitz was the Haskalah's pioneering playwright, best known for his 1794 epic drama Melukhat Sha'ul "Reign of Saul", which was printed in twelve editions by 1888.

Haskalah's career marked the end of the Maskilic period in Hebrew literature and the beginning of the Era of Renaissance.

Haskalah called upon the Jews to introduce general subjects, like science and vernacular language, into their children's curriculum; this "Teaching of Man" was necessarily linked with the "Teaching of God", and the latter, though superior, could not be pursued and was useless without the former.

Haskalah therefore contested the authority of the rabbinical establishment, which stemmed from its function as interpreters of the holy teachings and their status as the only truly worthy field of study.

Haskalah ideals were converted into practical steps via numerous reform programs initiated locally and independently by its activists, acting in small groups or even alone at every time and area.

Rather than complex allegorical exegesis, the Haskalah sought a literal understanding of scripture and sacred literature.

Haskalah was mainly a movement of transformation, straddling both the declining traditional Jewish society of autonomous community and cultural seclusion and the beginnings of a modern Jewish public.

The Haskalah sought to introduce a different bilingualism: renovated, refined Hebrew for internal matters, while Yiddish was to be eliminated; and national vernaculars, to be taught to all Jews, for external ones.

Term Haskalah became synonymous, among friends and foes alike and in much of early Jewish historiography, with the sweeping changes that engulfed Jewish society from the late 18th century to the late 19th century.

Later research greatly narrowed the scope of the phenomenon and limited its importance: while Haskalah undoubtedly played a part, the contemporary historical consensus portrays it as much humbler.

Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of the ghetto", not just physically but mentally and spiritually, in order to assimilate among gentile nations.

Reference to Berlin in relation to the Haskalah movement is necessary because it provides context for this episode of Jewish history.

Subsequently, having left Germany and spreading across Eastern Europe, the Berlin Haskalah influenced multiple Jewish communities who were interested in non-religious scholarly texts and insight to worlds beyond their Jewish enclaves.

Haskalah did not stay restricted to Germany and the movement quickly spread throughout Europe.

Haskalah resulted in the creation of a secular Jewish culture, with an emphasis on Jewish history and Jewish identity, rather than on religion.

One facet of the Haskalah was a widespread cultural adaptation, as those Jews who participated in the enlightenment began, in varying degrees, to participate in the cultural practices of the surrounding gentile population.

The effect of Haskalah was that it gave a voice to plurality of views, while the orthodoxy preserved the tradition, even to the point of insisting on dividing between sects.