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Jewish identity in the preemancipation period assumed essentially one of two forms—religion or communalism. Each in its own way was a break with tradition. Each was predicated on acceptance of the…
Assimilation, taken literally, means making things similar to each other, and in this concrete instance refers to a desire for the assimilation of Jews in terms of language, culture, and customs to…
Persecution because of a person’s religious observance is reprehensible, even despicable, though still somewhat understandable. What is understandable—I am not saying: justifiable—is that zealots who…
The outstanding feature of the religious situation in America today is the pervasiveness of religious self-identification along the tripartite scheme of Protestant, Catholic, Jew. From the “land of…
Rabbi Levi Yitskhok’s drayman—the one who wore
tales and tfiln as he smeared the wheels
of his wagon with tar—
turns up in the shape of a bunch of Jews
hanging around their houses,
washing the car
(w…
The way in which the Jewish world will merge into the European follows from the above-mentioned principle. To merge does not mean to perish [aufgehen ist nicht untergehen]. Only the obstinate, self…
During the days of Shavuot, quite a number of householders, accompanied by their sons, their wives and their infant children, would rise early each morning and walk outside the city, and outside the…
The belated adoption of the first law of Jewish emancipation has led to the assumption that it had no practical value. True as this statement may be technically, it nevertheless needs further…
In those days, but especially since the year 1740, when Frederick the Great ascended the throne, various social circles in Berlin began zealously to acquire intellectual knowledge. Even among…
At the Realschule fathers and mothers were lined up in single file in the director’s room. Parents who took the occasion very seriously appeared in couples with their young hopefuls. The director…