Haskalah and History

Shmuel Feiner is Professor of Modern Jewish History at Bar- Ilan University and chairman of the Jerusalem Leo Baeck Institute. He is the author of The Jewish Enlightenment (2004), Moses Mendelssohn, Sage of Modernity (2010), and The Origins of Jewish Secularization in Eighteenth-Century Europe (2011).

• Note on transliteration and conventions used in the textIntroduction: ‘Haskalah’ and ‘History’1. From Traditional History to Maskilic History in Late Eighteenth-Century GermanyAn Enlightened Avant-Garde • The Legitimization of Traditional History • The ‘Judgement of Reason’: Legitimizations for a New History • Rationalistic, Realistic, and Moralistic History • The Modern Period in the Maskilic Picture of the Past • The Pantheon of Historical Heroes • The Dissemination of Maskilic History in the Early Nineteenth Century2. The Manipulation of History in Nineteenth-Century GaliciaThe Galician Maskilim • The Unfolding of Maskilic History • A Natural History of Hasidism • Nahman Krochmal: The Middle-f-the-Road Maskil • Wissenschaft des Judentums in Galicia • The Struggle for Freedom of Thought • Iconoclasm: Attitudes to Religious Reform3. Optimism under Oppression: Maskilic History in Russia, 1825–1855The Idea Yearned to be Realized • A universal History for a Modern Era • The Maskilic Chain of Tradition • The Use of History in Maskilic Propaganda • Political History and Moral History4. Reaching the Masses: The Dissemination of Maskilic HistoryThe Channels of Distribution • Optimistic and Patriotic History • Scientifc Knowledge of the Past • The Autobiography of the Haskalah Movement • Abraham Mapu and the Popularization of Maskilic History • Heroics and Sacred memories in Popular Historical Fiction • Improvement of the Masses: History in Yiddish • Kalman Schulman: The First Professional Popularizer5. Maskilic History in CrisisThe Radical Haskalah: A Loss of Optimism • The Anticlerical Struggle • The Historical Vindication of Hasidism • From ‘Maskilic History” to ‘National History’Conclusion: New DirectionsGlossaryBibliographyIndex

FOR HEBREW EDITION:'This excellent and learned book makes an important contribution to the on-going debate over the origins of modern historical thinking among the Jews [...] the first detailed analysis of the use and abuse of history in the Haskalah [...] It is Feiner's great merit that he is able to take a fresh and lively look at materials previously studied for their ideological and cultural content or literary style, dissecting their often disjointed and even parenthetical comments on and about history, and reassembling them into a coherent and compelling narrative about the ways in which Jews since the Enlightenment have thought or, more properly, written abut their past [...] wonderfully erudite book, at once impassioned and dispassionate.' - Michael Stanislawski, AJS Review 'Feiner's monumental work is undoubtedly one of the most important to be published in this area, and it will become a bench-mark in the research of modern Jewish history [...] a pleasure to read [...] essential for understanding the modernization of Jewish society in Europe and the emergence of Jewish nationalism, it also makes a significant contribution to the study of the nature of history and historiography and the uses to which they are put [...] the enormous breadth of this work, covering almost a century of the Jewish Enlightenment in Europe, the clarity of its conceptual framework, and its balance between fine detail and the broad overall picture combine to make it an outstanding example of innovative research and exemplary writing on historiography and the representation of the past.' - Zohar Shavit, Ha'aretz 'Insightful [...] Feiner's approach is highly ambitious in its scope [...] his account is always solidly based on little-know primary material, meticulously analysed; as a whole it adds up to a highly innovative picture of nineteenth-century Jewish historiography [...] This unpretentiously written study provides a wealth of new material and a fresh perspective on Jewish historiography. It will undoubtedly become a standard work on the desk of every serious Jewish historian.' - Michael Brenner, Journal of Jewish Studies'This excellent and learned book makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate over the origins of modern historical thinking among the Jews [...] the first detailed analysis of the use and abuse of history in the Haskalah [...] Feiner has performed a crucial service in retrieving, documenting, and explicating the reams of historical claims and commentary on the part of the maskilim from eighteenth-century Berlin to nineteenth-century Berdichev [...] wonderfully erudite book, at once impassioned and dispassionate.'- Michael Stanislawski, Polin