Description
Book SynopsisFollowing the Jewish Enlightenment, many eighteenth-century Jews chose not to observe the religious laws and customs that had earlier marked them as culturally different from their Christian peers. As the Jewish population became increasingly assimilated, an ultraorthodox movement also emerged, creating a discrete identity for a group within the Jewish community that opted not to move toward the mainstream but instead to embrace the traditional laws.
By tracing the evolution of the approach of the Orthodox to their nonpracticing brethren, Adam S. Ferziger sheds new light on the emergence of Orthodoxy as a specific movement within modern Jewish society. In the course of this process, German Orthodoxy in particular articulated a new hierarchical vision of Jewish identity and the structure of modern Jewish society. Viewing Orthodox Judaism as no less a nineteenth-century phenomenon than Reform Judaism or Zionism, Ferziger looks at the ways it defined itself by its relationship to
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"This book enhances our understanding of an essential feature in modern Orthodoxy that has heretofore been underemphasized. Ferziger's sociological approach to rabbinic responsa is rare in the English-language literature, and his theoretical framework is well thought out, clearly presented, and very useful." * Samuel Heilman *
"This very nuanced and informed study charts Orthodox responses to concrete cases of nonobservance and deviant behavior in nineteenth-centruy central Europe and thereby traces the emergence of modern Orthodoxy." * American Historical Review *
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction. The Emergence of Parallel Phenomena: Orthodox Judaism and the Modern Nonobservant Jew
PART I. TRADITION, EXCLUSION, INCLUSION, AND HIERARCHY
Introduction
1. A "Community of the Faithful": Hakham Zevi Hirsch Ashkenazi (1660-1718) and the Religious Pluralism of the Spanish-Portuguese Diaspora
2. The Forerunners of Orthodoxy
3. The Age of the Hatam Sofer: Early Nineteenth-Century Orthodoxy and the Emergence of Internal Boundaries
4. The Formulation of Hierarchical Judaism: Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger and the Nature of modern Jewish Identity
PART II. VARIATIONS OF HIERARCHICAL JUDAISM: GERMAN ORTHODOXY IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Introduction
5. The Hirschian Hierarchy: Communal Separation and the Nonobservant Jews
6. Bambergerian Unity and the Hierarchical Principle
7. The Conscious Hierarchy of Berlin Separatist Orthodoxy
Conclusion: The Hierarchical Model and Orthodox Centers Outside of Germany
Afterword
Appendix: Pre-Modern Rabbinic Sources Regarding Non-Observance
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
