Origins of Jewish Secularization in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Shmuel Feiner is Professor of Modern Jewish History at Bar-Ilan University and Chairman of the Jerusalem Leo Baeck Institute. Among his many books is The Jewish Enlightenment, winner of the Koret Jewish Book Award in History and also published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

• PrefaceIntroduction: Sins and Doubts-Suspicions Arise-Religion under Attack-Early Jewish Skepticism-Acculturation and Rebellion-Secularization TerminologyPART I. LIBERTY AND HERESY, 1700-17601 Pleasures and Liberation from Religious Supervision-Insulting the Angels of God-Physical Gratifications2 Temptations of Fashion and Passion-Life À la Mode: Temptations of the City-Temptations of Eros-Hedonism and Abandoning God3 The Mystical Sect: Subversive Sabbateans-A New Torah to Permit the Forbidden: From Hayon to EybeschÜtz-"I Will Trample on All the Laws": Antinomianism and Libertinism4 The Rationalist Sect: Neo-Karaites and Deists-Freethinkers and the Threat of Reason-The Fool Says in His Heart That There Is No God: Skepticism and Jewish IdentityPART II. A NEW WORLD, 1760-805 Providence Is Tested: Secularization on the Rise in the 1760s-Warning Bells Toll in Europe-To Remove the Shackles of the Commandments: Indifference and Laxity-Counterreaction: The Early Maskilim6 The Supremacy of Nature: Deists on the Margins-A Generation without Religion: The 1770s-From the Second Spinoza to the Biological Epicurean-Religious Skeptics: The "Primitive Ebrew" and the Blasphemer7 The Emergence of the New WorldFor We Are All Made of Flesh: Fashionable Jews in Amsterdam and Hamburg-The Autonomous Individual: Fanny's and Henriette's HairstylesPART III. THE OVERTURNED WORLD, 1780-908 Scandals and Rebellions-Religious Tolerance and Skepticism in Europe-The Sect of the Wicked Reveals Its Face-Trash Heap of the Ceremonial Laws: The Heterodox in Breslau and Berlin9 Replacing Mosaic Laws with Laws of Freedom-The Sect of Germans Grows Stronger in Prussia-A Peek into Jewish Life in London-How to Reply to an Epicurean: Fears of Conservatives from Virginia to LithuaniaPART IV. ANXIETIES AND CONFRONTATIONS, 1790-180010 On the Decline of Judaism: The Last Decade-Between Linitz and London: Irreligion and the Mysteries of Religion-Between Observance and Laxity: Rifts and Tensions-Epicureans on the Offensive: Provocations and Conflicts11 Soon Our Faith Will Be Lost: Deists and Believers-Falsifications of the Rabbis: Deistic Texts-Transgressions Have Become Permissible: The Counter-War of the Congregation of BelieversSummary: Free Jews and the Origins of SecularizationNotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgments

"A superb study. . . . Feiner lays out a more nuanced and persuasive case for locating the beginning of Jewish secularization in the second half of the 18th century, if not earlier." (Jewish Review of Books) "Feiner's contribution to the debate about the origins of Jewish modernity is profound. It is, in my view, the most significant contribution in recent decades to the literature on the decline of tradition prior to the age of political emancipation. Its great achievement is that it enlarges the stage of Jewish history, populating it with a wider cast of characters than has been the rule. It should be obligatory reading for all who wish to understand the forces that transformed European Jewish societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." (Shofar)