GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION
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Haskalah Literature: Secularization and Sexuality
The Haskalah in Eastern Europe: In the decades after Moses
Mendelssohn inaugurated what has become known as the Berlin Haskalah
[Jewish Enlightenment], a new and more variegated maskilic movement
arose in Galicia, Poland and Russia that flourished throughout the
nineteenth century. While the Berlin Haskalah generated a philosophical
corpus, the Eastern European maskilim tended toward literary production
- satire, romance, poetry and autobiography. The Eastern European
maskilim, moreover, spanned a wider ideological framework, from
conservative and “rationalist” reforms of traditional Judaism to a
spectrum of radical secularisms. It is important to note that the
history of the Haskalah in Eastern Europe overlaps with that of the
urbanizing, modernizing and secularizing trends of the nineteenth
century but it cannot be reduced to them. Maskilim both expressed and
attempted to shape the course of Jewish history, providing both models
of and models for Jewish modernity.
This course will focus on the literature of the Eastern European
Haskalah in two of its major dimensions: the first of these is
secularization, the motivation and shaping force of this literature
throughout the nineteenth century; the second is gender and sexuality,
as they impelled the break with Jewish tradition and were themselves
transformed in the waves of Jewish modernization. In particular, we
will explore the function played by marital and educational practices
and gender roles in the Haskalah critique of the Jewish tradition, as
expressed in maskilic manifestoes, autobiographies, novels and poetry.
Among the principle effects of modernization was a revolution in the
distinctive contours of Jewish femininity and masculinity: it is this
revolution that we will also track in the literature of the Haskalah.
After setting the historical background for the rise of the Eastern
European Haskalah, we will survey the geographical centers of the
Haskalah and present its major genres - satire, poetry, autobiography
and romance, each of which played a distinctive role in the Haskalah
project. Among the questions we will explore are: How did the maskilim
respond to the historical upheavals that characterized
nineteenth-century Jewish life in Eastern Europe? In what ways did they
view modernization as an opportunity for reformulating conceptions of
Jewish identity? What in Jewish tradition did they consider worth
salvaging and what did they jettison? How did they conceptualize Jewish
and non-Jewish languages and literature (e.g. the Bible, the Talmud)?
What were the new models of Jewish identity - particularly in its
gendered and sexual dimensions - proposed by the maskilim?
Texts:
Joseph Perl, Revealer of Secrets: The First Hebrew Novel
Joachim Neugroschel, ed., The Shtetl: A Creative Anthology of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe
Course Schedule:
1. The Eastern European Haskalah
Lucy Davidowicz, “Introduction,” “Hasidism and Haskalah,”
“Education Reform and Assimilation,” and “New Religions: Science,
Progress and Humanity,” in The Golden Tradition
Zvi Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present, ch. one.
David Biale, “A Journey between Worlds: Eastern European Jewish Cultures from the Partitions of Poland to the Holocaust,” in Cultures of the Jews
Michael Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews chs. 1 & 2
Eli Lederhandler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics, 58-157
Paula Hyman, “Two Models of Modernization: Jewish Women in the German and the Russian Empires,” in Jews and Gender: The Challenge to Hierarchy
(Hebrew session: selections from Nahman Krochmal, More nevuhei hazman)
2. The Origins of Maskilic Autobiography and the Bridge between Berlin and Eastern Europe
Maimon, Autobiography
David Biale, “Eros and Enlightenment,” in Eros and the Jews
Bluma Goldstein, “Modernity and Abandonment: The Agunah in Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte”
(Hebrew session: selections from Isaac-Ber Levinson, Te’udah beyisrael)
3. The Origin of Modern Hebrew Satire in the Polemic against Hasidism
Joseph Perl, Revealer of Secrets
Dov Taylor, “Introduction,” Joseph Perl’s Revealer of Secrets: The First Hebrew Novel
(Hebrew session: selections from Perl, Megale temirim)
4. Women, Piety, and the Maskilic Critique of the Traditional Jewish Economy
Yisroel Aksenfeld, “The Headband,” in The Shtetl
(Yiddish session: from Aksenfeld, Dos shterntikhl)
5. Sexuality, Corruption and the Hasidic Court
Isaac-Joel Linetski, The Polish Lad, chs. 1-14
Milton Hindus, “Introduction,” The Polish Lad
(Yiddish session: from Dos poylishe yingl)
6. Tradition and Jewish Masculinity: Hebrew Romance
Abraham Mapu, The Love of Zion (selections)
David Patterson, “Introduction,” Abraham Mapu
(Hebrew session: Mapu, Ahavat tsi’on)
7. Gutmann: The Berliner as Maskilic Hero
S.Y. Abramovitsch (Mendele Mokher Seforim), The Little Man
Dan Miron, “Language as Caliban,” from A Traveler Disguised: The Rise of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century
(Yiddish session: Dos kleyne mentshele)
8. Tradition, the Shrew and Wounded Jewish Masculinity: Yiddish satire
S.Y. Abramovitsh (Mendele Mokher Sforim), The Travels of Benjamin the Third, in The Shtetl
David Aberbach, “Mendele and Abramowitz: Anatomy of Self-Caricature,” in Realism, Caricature and Bias: The Fiction of Mendele Mocher Seforim
Naomi Seidman, “Theorizing Jewish Patriarchy in extremis”
(Yiddish session: Mendele, Maso’es Binyomin hashlishi)
9. Jewish Men, Women, and the Quest for Education
Max Lilienthal, “My Educational Mission in Russia”
Lev Mandelstamm, “From Shtetl to the Capital”
Iris Parush, “Women Readers as Agents of Social Change among Eastern European Jews in the Late Nineteenth Century”
10. Loss of Faith and the Search for New Sexual Identities: Haskalah Autobiography
Alan Mintz, “The Turn toward Autobiography in Hebrew Literature,”
and “The Haskalah Background: In the Toils of Authenticity,” from Banished from My Father’s Table: Loss of Faith and Hebrew Autobiography
Moses Leib Lilienblum, “The Sins of My Youth,”
S.Y. Ansky, “The Sins of Youth” and “Behind a Mask,” in Ansky, The Dybbuk and Other Writings
(Hebrew session: Readings from Abraham-Ber Gotlober, Zikhronot, and M.L. Lilienblum, Hat’ot ne’urim)
11. Modernization and Jewish Women
Paula Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: Roles and Representations of Women, ch. 1.
Pauline Wengeroff, “First Changes” and “The Haskalah in Our Home and Beyond,” in Rememberings: The World of a Russian-Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century
12. Maskilic Hebrew Poetry and the Jewish National Revival
Michael Stanislawski, “Awake, My People!” and “Religious Reform,” For Whom Do I Toil? Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry
Rachel Morpurgo, selected poems in The Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poems
(Hebrew session: Gordon, Hakitsah ami, and Kotso shel yod)
13. 1881 and After: The Transvaluation of the Jewish Tradition
I.L. Peretz, “If Not Higher”
Ansky, The Dybbuk
Kadya Molodowsky, “Women Songs”
Katherine Hellerstein, “Introduction,” A Paper Bridge
Naomi Seidman, “S.Y. Ansky and the Sexual Transformation of Ashkenaz,” in Queer Theory and the Jewish Question
David Roskies, from The Jewish Search for a Usable Past
(Yiddish session: Readings from Peretz, Ansky, and Molodowsky)
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