Prof. Pelli Publishes Three Scholarly Books

UCF Judaic Studies director, Prof. Moshe Pelli, has published three scholarly books on Hebrew Enlightenment last month. It was a culmination of several years of research in rare-book collections at research libraries throughout the world. Previously Prof. Pelli published seven other books on the Hebrew Enlightenment and on Hebrew Culture in America.

In Search of Genre: Hebrew Enlightenment and Modernity

In Search of Genres: Hebrew Enlightenment and Modernism - An Analytical Study of Literary Genres in 18th- and 19th-Century Hebrew Enlightenment. Lanham. University Press of America: 2005, 362 pp., bibliography and index.

In Search of Genre is an innovative study of the beginning of modernity in Hebrew and Jewish letters, which reflected the emerging changes in Jewish society toward the end of the 18th century in Germany.

The author traces these changes to the activities and articulations of young intellectual Hebraists, known as Maskilim (enlighteners), who adopted the ideas and ideals of European Enlightenment ideology incorporating them into their revised and updated concept of Judaism, and actively aspired to apply them to Jewish society. These writers undertook a new and daring mission: to revitalize the Jewish people by reviving the Hebrew language and Jewish culture. As part of their program they established a modern center for Hebrew language and literature in Germany and a literary movement known as Haskalah (Enlightenment).

Thus, they began to disseminate 'modern' Hebrew and Jewish literature, promoting new and revised Jewish culture. Their activities were expressed in several new and adopted literary genres. This was indeed a cultural revolution which incorporated the new and the old, the modern and the traditional.

The author identifies and analyzes for the first time in Hebrew criticism the use of new and revised genres, styles and literary conventions, thus offering new criteria for a revised assessment of modern Hebrew literature. His study argues that these new and renewed literary genres mark the transition from traditional Hebrew letters to modern Hebrew literature. Modernity in Hebrew letters is thus defined as the endeavor to emulate the contemporary European literatures and their prevailing aesthetics and poetics. The study explores various criteria for Hebrew modernism exemplified by attempts to redefine Judaism, revise Judaic values, present new perception of Jewish history, calendar and times, and by the search for happiness and the disregard for the religious precepts

The Age of Haskalah

The Age of Haskalah: Studies in Hebrew Literature of the Enlightenment in Germany, Lanham, University Press of America: 2006, 280 pp., bibliography and index. [Updated, revised edition]

The Age of Haskalah is a seminal study of the beginnings of the Haskalah (Hebrew Enlightenment) in Germany in the last quarter of the 18th century. The Haskalah was a literary and cultural movement that reshaped and re-formed Judaism and the Jews in accordance with the needs of modern times, i.e. the European Enlightenment. Leaders of the movement were known as Maskilim and included the poet and grammarian, Naphtali Herz Wessely; the physician, Mordechai Gumpel Schnaber; the writer, Isaac Satanow; the rabbi, Saul Berlin; and the editor and writer Isaac Euchel. With detailed textual and historical evidence, author Moshe Pelli examines the backdrop of the Hebrew Enlightenment and the impact of the European Deism on the pundits of Haskalah. He further probes into early intimations of religious reform, the methodology of reform seen in the first reform temple controversy of 1818, and the attitude of the Maskilim toward the Talmud and the revival of the Hebrew language.

In this new edition of The Age of Haskalah, originally published in 1979, the author includes addenda that update the chapters and bibliography.

Bikurei Ha'itim

Bikurei Ha'itim: The 'First Fruits' of Haskalah - An Annotated Index to Bikurei Ha'itim, the Hebrew Journal of the Haskalah in Galicia (1820-1831). Jerusalem, Israel. The Hebrew University Magnes Press: 2005, 379 pp + English abstract, xix pp. + bibliography and index [Hebrew]

Bikurei Ha'itim: The 'First Fruits' of Haskalah is An Annotated Index to 'Bikurei Ha'itim,' the Hebrew Journal of the Haskalah in Galicia, that was published in Vienna from 1820 to 1831. It contains an introduction by one of the recognized authority of Hebrew Haskalah. It is in effect a monograph which examines the transition of Haskalah from Germany to Austria and to Galicia following the demise of the first Hebrew periodical, 'Hame'asef,' and explores the literary contribution of the Galician Haskalah.

Applying computer programming prepared for his indexing and monographs of Hebrew periodicals projects, Pelli produced an updated, sophisticated bibliographical tool and comprehensive monographs in his two books on the journal 'Bikurei Ha'itim' (1820-1831).

The background to the launching of the 'Bikurei Ha'itim' is being examined in the book, such as the phenomena of the German-Jewish periodicals ('Sulamith,' 1809; 'Jedidja,' 1817), the calendars and the almanachs published by Joseph Perl (1814-1816), and the Hebrew periodical in Holland ('Bikurei To'elet,' 1820) - which affected the planning of 'Bikurei Ha'itim' as a literary almanach.

ORDERING

The books may be ordered at the UCF bookstore by calling 407-823-2665, customer service. Assistance may be gotten by calling Jeffery Golub at 407-823-5129.

The Bikurei Ha'itim book may be ordered on line from Magnes press.