Haskalah and Modernity -- New Book Published by Prof. Moshe Pelli

Prof. Moshe Pelli has just published his new book titled Haskalah and Modernity. The book has been published in the Hillal ben Hayim Library of Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing in Israel which is devoted to publishing basic studies, research and thought in the general field of Jewish Studies. Prof. Pelli's 12th scholarly book is written in Hebrew with an English abstract.

The book deals with the beginning of Hebrew Haskalah (Enlightenment) literature in Germany in the last quarter of the 18th century. It further studies the introduction of modernism into Hebrew literature, and the reception of the early Haskalah during the 19th century.

The struggle of early Haskalah in the 18th century to ameliorate the cultural, educational, and religious condition of Jewish communities in Europe permeated the later literature in the 19th century. The later Maskilim's (Jewish Enlighteners) efforts to disseminate the Haskalah's ideology were affected by the early Haskalah. Motifs and topics that prevailed in the early literature were later transformed to belles lettres in the emerging forms of autobiography, the novel and the short story, which are discussed in the following chapters of the book.

Chapter 1 examines the beginning of Hebrew Haskalah literature and the question of modernism. The writer undertook to identify what he has referred to as mega-trends that epitomize the all-encompassing phenomena of modernism in the Haskalah. He cites attempts by several Maskilim to redefine Judaism and to revise some well-established Judaic values. To him, this is an indication of a trend toward modernity. The chapter explores the literary and linguistic manifestations of the perception of modernism and its awareness in the writings of the early Maskilim.

Chapter 2 deals with the self image of Haskalah authors as revivers of the Hebrew language and its literature, and with the reception of early Hasklah at the end of the Enlightenment period in the 19th century. The Haskalah literature in Germany manifested a new approach to Hebrew letters which revised its view of the literary heritage, rejecting, for example, the liturgy which did not follow their aesthetic and literary criteria.

Chapter 3 presents an unknown pamphlet which announced the renewed publication of the Hebrew journal Hame'asef in 1808/9. In it, the author describes the state of Hebrew Haskalah at the threshold of the 19th century and the reasons why the journal Hame'asef was folded in 1797 as a result of dwindling circulation and readership affected by the changing cultural climate among German Jewry.

Chapter 4 exposes an unknown manuscript found at Amsterdam's Rosenthaliana library. It was written in 1815 in Hebrew by a young, aspiring Hebraist in a small town in Holland. He attempted to emulate the journal Hame'asef but it was never published. The manuscript shows the impact of the German Haskalah even in Holland.

Chapter 5 discusses the use of poetical language in early Haskalah as the Hebrew writers initiated a new orientation toward the Hebrew Bible and exhibited a special interest in its poetry and its language. They examined the poetics of biblical poetry and probed biblical Hebrew in order to apply them to their own creative writing.

Chapter 6 anayzes the autobiography in the 19th century showing the life story of an individual Hebrew writer in his soul-searching and his quest for self-fulfillment. It is an authentic source for learning about the influence of the Haskalah on a young writer, Moshe Leib Lilienblum. He presented a personal testimony about the experience that he went through in his initiation into the Haskalah.

Chapter 7 explores Peretz Smolenskin's satiric novel and finds its origins in early Haskalah. Even though the satiric novel was a product of its time and place and did reflect the Jewish condition of its time, it was nurtured from the fountainhead of early Haskalah. The novel describes the rise and fall of a protagonist against the background of Jewish society and the Jewish Kehilah in the 19th century.

Chapter 8 addresses another novel, by Reuven Braudes, which is said to reflects the demands for religious reform since early Haskalah.

The last two chapters discuss the short story in the 19th century: Chapter 9 analyzes Mordechai Brandstaedter's short story which depicts a young Maskil who becomes an enlightened rabbi, and Chapter 10 focuses on the disappointment from the Haskalah in three maturity stories by Mordechai Feierberg at the Fin de siècle.

Research for the book was supported by The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation and The I. Edward Kiev Foundation, New York.