SHMUEL FEINER
„Wohl euch, die ihr eurer Gedanken wegen verfolgt seid!“ – Die gegenwärtige Erforschung der Haskala: Kultur der jüdischen Aufklärung in historischer Perspektive

So far, the Haskala has been considered as an important historical heritage in Judaism, which often would leave the quest for its present significance unresolved. When compared to the diversity, challenge and change in modern research of the Enlightenment, the established Haskalah-research seems to be fairly consistent and mainly directed at three different issues: the literary analysis and edition of historical texts, the biographical study of eminent personalities like Moses Mendelssohn and the discussion of the Haskalah in the framework of the Germano-centric narrative of Emancipation. Especially the last one has affected the most prominent historians like Marcus Jost, Heinrich Graetz and even Jacob Katz. Only recently, the Haskalah-research has faced significant changes by shifting the focus to its cultural and geographical diversity within the European context. In this perspective, one could understand the Haskalah as a model for the process of an ongoing intellectual modernization which could still have an impact in Israel today when it comes to the discussion of such issues as civil rights, tolerance and nation building.

EDWARD BREUER
Polemics in a New Key: Judaism and Christianity in Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem

Historians of European Jewry in general, and the Jewish Enlightenment in particular, have to a large degree portrayed the Haskalah as the Jewish internalization of the values of the various European Enlightenments. Although there is truth to this assertion, what is often lost in the general discourse about the eighteenth-century Enlightenments is the significant friction between the German Aufklärung and the German-Jewish Haskalah, a friction that centered specifically on the contemporary relevance and meaningfulness of Jewish traditions. In this essay, I wish to demonstrate this point with regard to Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem by examining its polemical attack on the systemic shortcomings of Christianity and the concomitant defense of the religious and cultural perspicacity of Judaism.

MOSHE PELLI
Das Zentrum der Haskala in Deutschland schlägt einen neuen Zugang zur hebräischen Literatur vor

The author argues that the newly established center of Haskalah in Germany in the 1780s, “Chevrat Dorshei Leshon Ever,” which was later changed to “Chevrat Shocharei Hatov Vehatushiyah,” was intended to create a new kind of Hebrew literature and to revive the Hebrew language for the purpose of disseminating the ideology of the Haskalah, revive Hebrew culture, and resuscitate the Jewish people, in accordance with the ideas and ideals of the European Enlightenment and the modern times.
The aim of the Maskilim was attested to in their writings and actions: the Me’asfim, the writers who participated in the journal of the Haskalah, Hame’asef, developed a new, modern aesthetics and a new theory of poetry. They fostered new or revived, and revised, literary genres, and cultivated a new style of creative writing in Hebrew, based on biblical Hebrew. It deviated from the existing rabbinic style, which they thought to be corrupt and ungrammatical. Concurrently, they re-assessed past forms of literature of Hebrew heritage, such as the piyutim, the medieval liturgical poetry, which they rejected.

UTA LOHMANN
„Ein ganz neues Feld der Erkenntniß“ – David Friedländer zur Bedeutung der Ästhetik für die Bibelexegese der Haskala

David Friedländer (1750-1834) commented on aesthetic issues regarding the annotated translation of the Bible initiated by Moses Mendelssohn and continued by several other Maskilim. Friedländer regarded Jewish tradition as opposed and alien to aesthetics which he considered to be the most important improvement of the Enlightenment. The genius of biblical Hebrew poetry was to be proven within the Enlightenment’s discourse of literary aesthetics using new poetical categories. On the other hand, the science of aesthetics itself became instrumental in revealing the truth for the exegetical hermeneutics of the Haskalah. This new approach was modelled on the writings of Lowth, Herder and Eichhorn as well as some traditional Jewish works. The Maskilim understood Mendelssohn’s aesthetic-philosophical method of Bible translation and interpretation as an ‘educational mission’ which they carried out in different ways, not least including public instruction.

DIRK SADOWSKI
„Aus der Schule gehet schon der künftige Heuchler hervor“ – Herz Homberg zwischen Berlin und Lemberg und die Reform der jüdischen Erziehung im Geiste der Nützlichkeit (1782-1787)

In the year 1783, while staying in Habsburg Görz (Gorizia), Herz Homberg (1749–1841), a former associate of Mendelssohn, published a brochure in which he presented his thoughts about traditional Jewish education and about how this education should be reformed. Three years later, he further developed these thoughts in a report to the Austrian Court Education Commission. The article tries to show how Homberg pioneered in transforming Maskilic ideals of a reformed Hebrew curriculum into a system of education oriented towards the disciplining and productivizing goals of the reform absolutist state by referring to concepts of social utility that are dominant in the cameral and police sciences of this period.

LOUISE HECHT
Das Phänomen Rachel Luzzatto / Morpurgo (1790-1871). Die erste moderne Dichterin hebäischer Sprache oder Die Grenzen des Erfolgs

The paper traces the life story of Rachel Morpurgo, born into the illustrious Luzzatto family in Trieste, who managed to penetrate the exclusively male domain of Hebrew letters and to establish herself as a Hebrew poetess, in the middle of the 19th century. It seeks to contextualize her remarkable familiarity with traditional Jewish literature, her swift success after the publication of her first poem in 1847 and the phenomenon of her sudden disappearance, less than 15 years later. The first and the third part outline Rachel Luzzatto/Morpurgo’s biography according to archival material and literary sources, specially emphasizing the role of her literary mentor Samuel David Luzzatto and her publisher Mendel Stern. The second part, on the other hand, analyzes the narrative of the contemporary biographical sketches that sought to tally Rachel Luzzatto/Morpurgo’s life story with the author’s idea of women’s role in Judaism.

YEHUDA FRIEDLANDER
Instandsetzung der Halacha oder Abriss des Judentums? Eine Polemik zwischen Mose Leib Lilienblum, Jechiel Michal Pines und Josef Secharja Stern

The controversy between Lithuanian rabbis and maskilim was based mainly on different interpretations of halakhic issues from the disparate viewpoints of the Hebrew Enlightenment and traditional and scholastic methodology. Among the main figures who took part in this Kulturkampf were the writers Moshe Leib Lilienblum (1843-1910), Jechiel Michal Pines (1843-1913) and Rabbi Joseph Zekhriah Stern (1831-1903), who served as the rabbi of Shavli. The publication of Lilienblum's essays 'The Ways of the Talmud' ['Orhot ha-talmud – 1868] and 'Additions to "The Ways of the Talmud"' [Nosafot le-'orhot ha-talmud' – 1869] caused a furious response of the Lithuanian Orthodox rabbis. Lilienblum's analysis of Rabinic interpretation of Judaism became a main target of the bitter, sharp and even cruel satirical attack of the rabbis against Haskalah in general and 19th century maskilim in particular.

Außerhalb des Schwerpunkts
MORDECHAI ERAN / YAACOV SHAVIT
Chanukka und „die verlockenden Sirenen“. Der Diskurs über die kulturellen Grenzen in der jüdischen Presse Deutschlands im 19. Jahrhundert

The article reviews the problems concerning the feasible cultural boundaries between Jews and Germans and to what extent should German Jews cross those boundaries. The review is based upon an extensive reading of about 15 Jewish periodicals and newspapers published in Germany and Austria in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, in which the major attributes of `Judaism` vs. `Hellenism` were discussed. The feast of Chanukkah offered an appropriate opportunity for such a discussion. Major differences concerning the desired approach were found between the adherents of different Weltanschauungen, namely, Neo-Orthodox, Liberal and Nationalistic points of view.

ALEXANDER DUBRAU
Die Überlieferungsform lo nehlequ ... al ma nehlequ? al ... in den Kontroversen der Tannaiten in Tosefta und Mishna

The essay focuses on a Tannaitic pattern that is not yet reflected as a specific form of expression in contemporary research. The presented argumentational form is mainly used in the Tosefta and occasionally in the Mishna. Additional the original form lo nehlequ (= modim)... al ma nehlequ? al ....; (N.N. and N.N. did not disagree concerning the halakhic case X [= N.N. and N.N. agree concerning the case X] What did they disagree about? They disagree about the case Y) several slightly modified variations exist. Examining these forms, the essay analyzes the phenomena of the emergence and development of a specific halakhic tradition. This tradition is based on the diverging statements of different rabbinic authorities, scholarly traditions, or groups. As a hermeneutic method, it was developed in the Talmud and was called Oqimta in the late Amoraic period. Following the introduction and the description of the hermeneutic pattern in Tannaitic texts, the essay develops a critical comparison of the pattern’s transformation within parallel traditions in Mishna (mPea 6,2-3), Tosefta (tPea 3,2) and Yerushalmi (yPea 6,2 19b).