Modern Jewish History

This study explores an important Hasidic manuscript rediscovered among the papers of Abraham Joshua Heschel at Duke University. The text, first noted by Heschel in the 1950s, is a collection of sermons by the famed tzaddik Judah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger (d. 1905). These homilies are significant because they were transcribed by one of his disciples, in many cases capturing them in the original Yiddish. Comparing this alternative witness to Alter's own Hebrew version (called Sefat emet), printed shortly after his death, reveals substantive differences in the sermons' development, structure, and themes. But the manuscript's importance extends beyond a critical new perspective on Alter's teachings. It offers a snapshot of the processes behind the formation of Hasidic books, and calls for scholars to consider the unavoidable divergences between Hebrew and Yiddish, between orality and textuality, and the transmission of ideas from a teacher to his disciples, vectors of change that inhabit all Hasidic literature.

Scholars who study the Jews of the Southern United States often struggle to understand how Jewish identity affected the way in which Jews presented themselves, the way in which outsiders viewed them, and the extent to which they felt integrated into society. Many scholars believe that Jewish religious practice was not just adapted, but sacrificed, as part of the process of integration into Southern life and culture. Looking specifically at the region of the Lower Mississippi, this thesis offers a different approach to understanding Judaism in the context of adaptation and integration. This thesis begins with a historical review of the role of Jews as merchants in the United States and how social and economic factors in the early and mid-19th century encouraged their entry into American society as peddlers, creating the "typical peddler profile. More specifically, the thesis examines why the Lower Mississippi was a unique and advantageous setting during this time period for Jewish merchants. This thesis argues that in the Lower Mississippi during the early and mid-19th century, Jewish religious practices and spaces were not sacrificed, but rather reconceptualized. Judaism became integrated into the merchant profession, manifested through economic and familial networks that allowed Jews to practice their Judaism even in the most remote of locales. Judaism was also intertwined with the liminal position of Jews within Lower Mississippian society: not black, yet not seen as fully white, allowing Jews to sell to a customer base that was both black and white. With their economic and familial networks and adaptive Jewish practices, the Jews of the Lower Mississippi were able to become fully participating, though distinct, members of the larger society while maintaining a form of Judaism.

Published on Sept 15th, 2014 by The Jewish Daily Forward

Beyond the Wealth of Jewish South Carolina lies a Troubling History - a study of Mordecai and David Cohen of Charleston: Philanthropists and slave owners.  One of their slaves, Jim, escaped and survived to share his life experiences being tortured under their command.

החל מראשית המאה ה-19 נחוג בקרב הקהילה היהודית בעיר וידין אשר בצפון-מערב בולגריה, בכל ד' באדר חג פורים שני שכונה "פורים דה וידין". חג פורים שני זה נחגג לציון הינצלותם של בני הקהילה היהודית מפוגרום שתכננו לערוך בהם נאמניו של מושל וידין אוסמאן פאזוואנטאולו אשר מרד בעות'מאנים. רקע על הקהילה היהודית בווידין ועל מקורו של החג בהקשר הגאו-פוליטי והקהילתי, במאמר הבא

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum was born in 1887 to his father Rabbi Hanania Yom-Tov Lipa Teitelbaum, chief rabbi of Sighet, the capital of Maramureş County, Hungary. The father was a Rebbe to his Hasidim, headed the local yeshiva, and was one of the top leaders of Hungarian Orthodoxy. During his childhood, Rabbi Yoel was known as a prodigy but was not destined to continue the family’s Hasidic or rabbinic dynasty, as this role was reserved for his older brother - Rabbi Haim Tzvi. At seventeen, soon after his father’s death and the ordination of his older brother as his successor, the newlywed Rabbi Yoel and his wife were forced to leave Sighet.

They settled in nearby Satmar (Satu Mare) where Rabbi Yoel began gathering a small group of disciples. Several years later he was elected as chief rabbi of the remote village Orshiva, but during World War I he returned to Satmar and established a small yeshiva, dividing his time between Satmar and Orshiva. In 1926 he was elected as chief rabbi of Kroly (Carei) in Transylvania, Romania and two years later he was elected chief rabbi of Satmar. This appointment faced substantial public opposition and it took Rabbi Yoel six years of fierce and scandalous struggle until he eventually took office in 1934. During that waiting period he also tried to run for a rabbinate office in other communities, including that of the Edah Haredit (the ultra-Orthodox community) of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Yoel was known to have a stubborn, controversial and argumentative personality. Wherever he wanted to serve, public debates arose and the newspapers accused him in using improper means during the election process. At the same time, he was also known as a religious zealot, and several extremist Orthodox groups acknowledged him as their spiritual leader. Following his ordination as chief rabbi of Satmar, Rabbi Yoel gained an important leadership role among the extreme-Orthodox, and became known for his unwavering opposition to modernity, Zionism and even to the ultra-Orthodox party Agudat Israel. In the late 1930s, after a long public campaign, he was elected to the leadership of the Central Bureau of the Orthodox Jewish communities of Transylvania. In that position he was able to influence the lives of over one hundred and fifty thousand religious Jews in that region.

In his personal life, Rabbi Yoel suffered a series of tragedies. After losing his father at an early age, he was expelled from his hometown, Sighet. He and his wife could not give birth to a son, and two of their three daughters died young and childless. His chronically ill wife died soon thereafter, as well as Rabbi Yoel’s mother and brother. He married again, but although his wife was young and healthy, she too did not bear him any children. Following this second marriage, Rabbi Yoel and his only daughter became estranged and they hardly spoke until she died, also at a young age. This surviving daughter was also barren meaning that Rabbi Yoel had no grandchildren to succeed him.

During World War II Rabbi Yoel was involved in various rescue operations for refugees who fled Poland. As danger grew, he sought to get a certificate that will allow him and his close family to immigrate to Palestine. Failing that, he abandoned his community and escaped along with a small group of friends from Satmar, but was caught and sent to the ghetto of Cluj. He was spared from being sent to Auschwitz as he was included in the small group saved by Zionist activist Israel Kasztner’s rescue train. He and the rest of the passengers were taken to Bergen-Belsen, where they were detained for a few months. Later the group was released to Switzerland where Rabbi Yoel stayed for a few months. He did not return to lead and to comfort the survivors that returned to Satmar after the Holocaust, nor did he join the relief operations conducted by other rabbis in the refugee camps in Germany.

After his stay in Switzerland, Rabbi Yoel decided to settle in Jerusalem. The leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community, who were aware of his aggressive and argumentative personality, shunned away from him. As a result, the institutions he established failed and he was on the verge of bankruptcy. His only hope to repay his tremendous debt was by raising funds in the United States. Humiliated and destitute Rabbi Yoel was forced to travel to the land he always considered the most hostile and spiritually dangerous environment for Orthodox Jews.

After arriving in the United States, it became clear to Rabbi Yoel that he will never be able to raise enough funds to save his institutions in Jerusalem. Having no place to return to, he decided to settle in New York. Oddly enough, it was in this notorious “New World” that Rabbi Yoel was able not only to establish his own congregation, but also to significantly expand and develop it. Within a few years he attracted a large circle of supporters and devotees and created a congregation which, he claimed, resembled that of an East-European “Shtetel.”

However, in order to succeed in his mission, Rabbi Yoel had to apply significant un-traditional innovations that were inconceivable in the East-European “Shtetel.” He established a Hasidic education system, including one for girls, which introduced secular teachings and summer camps. He also encouraged his followers to go to work or to establish their own small businesses. His delegates cooperated with government and municipal officials who helped the poor Hasidim to get public housing, professional training and social benefits. That innovative spirit was one of the main reasons his Hasidic court grew rapidly and prospered economically. Rabbi Yoel used funds gathered by his adherents to support the Eda Haredit in Jerusalem, and in 1952, just a few years after he was forced to leave Jerusalem, he returned triumphant to be declared president of the Edah Haredit.

One of the reasons for Rabbi Yoel’s unparalleled success, beyond his personal charisma and leadership qualities, was his anti-Zionist and Extreme Orthodox ideology. His views were published in two major books, Va-Yoel Moshe – published in the late 1950s, and Al Ha-Geula Ve-Al Ha-Temura – published after the Six Days War. These books were re-printed numerous times, and new editions are still being printed to this day. The radical ideas expressed in these books still affect and guide the Satmar Hasidic court and some of the other Hungarian courts, as well as some marginal groups of zealots, also known as Neturei Karta.

At the time of his death, in 1979 and still today, Rabbi Yoel was undoubtedly one of the most recognized and influential Jewish leaders in the post-Holocaust era. His community had tens of thousands of Hasidim and the education system he established was amongst the largest in the Jewish world outside Israel. Ideas expressed by Rabbi Yoel have influenced the rest of Orthodox society and thus the Jewish society in general. Today, about forty years after his death, the “Satmar” trademark is still strong and still synonymous with religious zealotry. The spiritual and practical foundations laid by Rabbi Yoel continue to fuel the ever-growing expansion of the Satmar Hasidic court that today has more than a hundred thousand followers worldwide.

The following article is an excerpt from a chapter of our forthcoming book: The Shpoler Zeida – The Life, Legends, and Descendants of the Grandfather of Shpola. The chapter is entitled: "Mysteries of the Shpoler Zeida Family." This article focuses on the Beletsky family (including the Bell, Bruskin, Gellard, Goldberg, and Polis branches), who claims descent from the Shpoler Zeida. The mystery involves how their earliest known Beletsky ancestor, Leiba Biletsky (1782–1846), and his wife, Risya (1789–bef. 1848), are connected to the Shpoler Zeida.  We present what is known about the Beletsky family’s lineage and reconstruct their line of descent to the extent possible, in the hope that making this information more widely available will result in a key piece of evidence being discovered which will help bridge the gap in their line of descent from the Shpoler Zeida.

Jews in a number of disparate possessions at the end of the 17th century came in the course of the 18th century to form a loose Habsburg Jewry due to annexations and increasing state intervention. Covers the demographic, socio-economic, political and religious history of Jews in Bohemia, Moravia, Vienna, Hungary and Galicia-Bukowina during the long 18th century.

Monarchia della verità indaga una componente ideologica fondamentale della Controriforma: l’ossessione ecclesiastica per la 'veritas', concepita nella versione dogmatica di 'doctrina' e ortodossia in opposizione alla formulazione umanistica della 'veritas' come ricerca. Da Poggio Bracciolini a Montaigne, gli umanisti esprimono un concetto di 'religio' coincidente con la ricerca stessa della verità, rinunciando a definizioni esclusive o dogmatiche e astenendosi da difese di carattere polemico o controversistico. I teologi adottano invece il concetto dogmatico di 'doctrina', identificando la 'veritas' nell’ortodossia e favorendo il formarsi di un clima di oscurantismo clericale e di generale intolleranza nei confronti dell’autonomia umanistica, dell’individualismo religioso e del libero pensiero, con Valla, Erasmo e Machiavelli in testa.
In questo libro l’autore prende in esame il primato normativo della verità nella Chiesa del Cinquecento e del primo Seicento con lo scopo di illustrare modelli culturali e pedagogici della Controriforma e rilevarne i miti: cronotassi pontificia, agiografia e culto delle reliquie, concetto eroico del documento, didattica figurativa, giurisdizione curiale, temporalismo papale. Tuttavia, la sopravvivenza della tradizione umanistica e il suo confrontarsi dialetticamente con le culture dogmatiche di Riforma e Controriforma si evidenziano in momenti significativi della storia culturale e religiosa della prima età moderna: in particolare, nel dibattito europeo 'de puniendis haereticis' originato dal tragico rogo di Michele Serveto, nel ricorso all’elemento storico in sede di polemica confessionale, nei processi di Bruno e Galilei e nelle discussioni sulla 'libertas investigandi', nel nicodemismo di artisti, scienziati e anticlericali cristiani, infine nella ripresa – specialmente in Olanda e nelle aree della diaspora sociniana – del pacifismo erasmiano e dell’utopismo di Thomas More, associati alla critica del Valla e all’irenismo di Sebastiano Castellione. Un esempio insigne è la proposta irenica di Jakob Arminius, calvinista di cultura umanistica, formulata a Leida nel 1605 con l’intento di superare i contrasti tra cristiani e realizzare la pacificazione sociale e religiosa.

Cette thèse parle d’Hommes, d’art et de société. Elle traite de l’histoire d’un banquier Juif ashkénaze né à Bonn en 1804 et de ses descendants. À travers l’étude de douze demeures et de leurs collections, elle raconte l’histoire d’une dynastie d’entrepreneurs qui, de l’ancien Ghetto de Bonn – 821 rue des Juifs – rejoignit le sommet de la haute société européenne. Portraiturés par Léon Bonnat, Carolus-Duran et Renoir, Meyer Joseph Cahen d’Anvers et ses enfants Édouard, Emma, Louis, Raphaël et Albert vécurent les conséquences de l’Affaire Dreyfus, s’efforçant d’exprimer la plénitude de leurs droits civils à travers la sociabilité et le mécénat. Dans leurs salons, en ville et à la campagne, les lecteurs croiseront les pas de Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget, Marcel Proust et César Franck, ou encore de Gabriele D’Annunzio et Matilde Serao. Au château de Champs-sur-Marne, à Torre Alfina et dans les autres demeures de la famille les architectes Destailleur et Giuseppe Partini, ou encore les paysagistes Henri et Achille Duchêne, surent plier la « grammaire » du Moyen Âge, de la Renaissance et du XVIIIe siècle au goût et aux ambitions de leurs commanditaires.

https://www.lgdj.fr/les-cahen-d-anvers-en-france-et-en-italie-9782370323743.html

Researchers have long questioned how debunked myths such as the blood libel – the notion that Jews used Christian blood in their ceremonies – were able to persist for so long. This essay explains the social function of such myths in one context by presenting a public debate on Judaism carried out in the pages of the two leading Christian periodicals of the early eighteenth century in Germany. One journal put forth the orthodox Lutheran viewpoint, the other that of “Pietist” reformers. Through these journals, a battle took place for control of the Lutheran church, and thus for much of public life in Protestant Germany. Because Pietists believed Jews to hold a special place in God’s plan, they sought to rehabilitate Jews to their Christian readers and to argue for better conditions for Jewish communities. Orthodox Lutheran leaders quickly identified Pietists’ “Jew-friendly” policies as an Achilles’ heel. To attack Pietists, the orthodoxy dredged up and re-publicized centuries-old anti-Judaic propaganda, negative images that the orthodoxy linked to Pietists. Representatives of the Lutheran orthodoxy thus deployed anti-Judaic stereotypes in order to shore up their own church-political hegemony. Through this media manipulation, the Lutheran state church was able to seed fear among Christian readers and to argue that Pietist reformers and Jews were pollutants that needed to be cleansed from church and society.

This article investigates the spread of Zionism in the Jewish communities of Transylvania devoting special attention to the cultural mediation of the Jewish newspaper, Új Kelet (New East). Considering representative issues of the Jewish daily, Új Kelet, within 10 years of its inception (from the 1920s), will allow me to describe its key role as the foremost communications outlet for the promotion of Zionist ideas and activities in Transylvania. I will further trace the impact of this newspaper on the life and writings of Isaiah Tishby (1908–1992), one of the preeminent scholars of Kabbalah in the twentieth century, who was exposed to the Jewish daily in his youth and became indelibly transformed by it after its precipitous launch in 1918 on the heels of World War I.

In this study of over 101 pages, the author illustrates the new discoveries made on Isaac Lampronti (Ferrara 1679-1756) daily life, rabbi, physician and the first Jewish encyclopaedist of the Modern times. These new data emerged from the study of the register containing the minutes of the council meetings of the Scola Levantine in Ferrara, from which it emerges that Lampronti for forty years of his life, as well as having always been a massaro or officer in charge take turns, he was also the scribe of the minutes of council sessions. For example, we find out that, in a council the officers and the other members of the Wa‘ad defended Lampronti  against the accusation turned by three Jews of having sold to the Ferrara Municipality funeral steles of Jewish cemeteries to be reused for secondary purposes, such as strengthening river embankments of the river Po, and other needs. The defence claims that the decision was taken by the Council, but obviously, this sale was compulsory, that is, if the tombstones had not been sold, the city authorities would have expropriated them anyway. We learn that Lampronti finances the opening of kosher Butchers shop in the Ghetto of Ferrara and that he did prepare his coffin from the benches no longer used on which his disciples sat in the school. Of considerable interest is the long poem he composed in 1710, - here published for the first time with an Italian version and the biblical quotations - when Lampronti donated a new Aron and a Dukan, or pulpit, in precious stones and marbles to the Levantina Synagogue. This Aron, after being devastated by the Nazi-fascists in 1943, was transported from Ferrara to Livorno in the 1960s of 20th century and there reassembled in the Oratory Lampronti. The author also publishes some of Lampronti many unpublished letters, which he has copied and included in his great encyclopaedic work on Judaism the Pachad Yitzchak or “The Terror of Isaac”. These letters should be studied, because they constitute a precious source on the life of Lampronti not yet examined. The author also clarifies some discrepancies in the dates of Lampronti life, often erroneous and repeated from author to author, replicating the errors, such as the date of birth and of death. Moreover, the author offers an accurate study of the voice on the river Sambation, with a collation of the various editions in the three critical edition of the long voice included by Lampronti in his work. Perani points out some strange changes and deletions in the introduction of the voice present in the three handwritten editions of Pachad Yitzchak, getting the conclusion that the author of this encyclopaedia’s entry is not Lampronti but the Mantua rabbi and his friend Shimshon Kohen Modon.

This paper engages with the involvement of Jewish Diaspora organizations, and the ramifications of their role with regard to both the rebuilding plan of the burnt zone created by the big fire that devastated Salonika in August 1917  , and the rehabilitation of those left homeless by the fire. This study sheds further light on the subject, yielding a fascinating portrait of a broader issue, namely, the response of diasporas in general when one of their communities is in distress. Accordingly, this paper can serve as a case study of the motivations and actions of diasporas in such situations: At what point do they become involved on behalf of their injured kin? How far do they take this involvement? And does such intervention always prove worthwhile?

History in general and the study of religious fundamentalism in particular, as well as the ongoing conflicts between various Muslim groups in the Middle East, teach us not only the importance of religious identity but also about the lengths that those who seek to hold on to a specific identity are prepared to go. This article addresses one minor manifestation of this vast phenomenon.

From the mid-19th century onward, Hungarian Jews began to acquire a unique religious and social identity that set them apart from other European Jews. Its single most distinctive feature was the formal separation between Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Jews, almost as if they belonged to two different “Jewish churches.” For the first and only time in Jewish history, the Orthodox Jews were able to administer their own communities in accordance with halachic laws and were no longer forced to compromise with non-Orthodox Jews.

Following WWI, Transylvania, a former Hungarian district, was annexed to Romania. Consequently, its Jews were cut off from their Hungarian homeland, which had previously enabled them to establish their own Jewish identity. Reluctant to lose their distinct characteristics, they sought and received governmental permission to establish communities and institutions in accordance with their former lifestyle. This led to the establishment of a religiously and culturally autonomous enclave within which the Jews of Transylvania, many of whom were Orthodox, led their public life differently from all the other Romanian Jews.

This article focuses on the development of the separate Orthodox institutions and communities in Transylvania. It surveys the characteristics and inner conflicts of Transylvanian Orthodoxy. It then proceeds to demonstrate how the unique set of circumstances that evolved during the interwar period facilitated the strengthening of Orthodoxy’s radical wing, which I call Extreme Orthodoxy, which sought to establish itself as an enclave within an enclave.

This sector’s achievement, however, ended with catastrophic results. The uncompromising leaders of this ultra-conservative, anti-Zionist and separatist camp hampered the efforts of other Orthodox leaders to prepare for the impending Holocaust. This, consequently, led to the almost complete annihilation of North-Transylvanian Orthodox Jewry. Nevertheless, the radical ideas of Transylvania’s Extreme Orthodoxy endured, and after the Holocaust were disseminated throughout the Jewish world by the camp’s best known survivor and its prominent spokesman – Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe.

N.B. The interested reader is invited to turn to the expanded and more fully annotated Hebrew version of this article, to appear in the volume Ma'or va-Shemesh: History, Philosophy, Lore and Legacy, edited by Levi Cooper, Ariel Evan Mayse and Zvi Mark (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, forthcoming).