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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31255 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Isn't the birth of Reform Judaism literally basically case of (non-American) liberal/enlightenment thought and trends originally formulated in progressive Protestant churches being adopted by various Jewish congregations and figures? At least Wikipedia says:

With the advent of Jewish emancipation and acculturation in Central Europe during the late 18th century, and the breakdown of traditional patterns and norms, the response Judaism should offer to the changed circumstances became a heated concern. Radical, second-generation Berlin maskilim (Enlightened), like Lazarus Bendavid and David Friedländer, proposed to reduce it to little above Deism or allow it to dissipate. A more palatable course was the reform of worship in synagogues, making it more attractive to a Jewish public whose aesthetic and moral taste became attuned to that of Christian surroundings.[39] The first considered to have implemented such a course was the Amsterdam Ashkenazi congregation, Adath Jessurun. In 1796, emulating the local Sephardic custom, it omitted the "Father of Mercy" prayer, beseeching God to take revenge upon the gentiles. The short-lived Adath Jessurun employed fully traditional argumentation to legitimize its actions, but is often regarded a harbinger by historians.[40]

A relatively thoroughgoing program was adopted by Israel Jacobson, a philanthropist from the Kingdom of Westphalia. Faith and dogma were eroded for decades both by Enlightenment criticism and apathy, but Jacobson himself did not bother with those. He was interested in decorum, believing its lack in services was driving the young away. Many of the aesthetic reforms he pioneered, like a regular vernacular sermon on moralistic themes, would be later adopted by the modernist Orthodox.[41] On 17 July 1810, he dedicated a synagogue in Seesen that employed an organ and a choir during prayer and introduced some German liturgy. While Jacobson was far from full-fledged Reform Judaism, this day was adopted by the movement worldwide as its foundation date. The Seesen temple – a designation quite common for prayerhouses at the time; "temple" would later become, somewhat misleadingly (and not exclusively), identified with Reform institutions via association with the elimination of prayers for the Jerusalem Temple[42] – closed in 1813. Jacobson moved to Berlin and established a similar one, which became a hub for like-minded individuals. Though the prayerbook used in Berlin did introduce several deviations from the received text, it did so without an organizing principle. In 1818, Jacobson's acquaintance Edward Kley founded the Hamburg Temple. Here, changes in the rite were eclectic no more and had severe dogmatic implications: prayers for the restoration of sacrifices by the Messiah and Return to Zion were quite systematically omitted. The Hamburg edition is considered the first comprehensive Reform liturgy.

and

In the 1820s and 1830s, philosophers like Solomon Steinheim imported German idealism into the Jewish religious discourse, attempting to draw from the means it employed to reconcile Christian faith and modern sensibilities. But it was the new scholarly, critical Science of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums) that became the focus of controversy. Its proponents vacillated whether and to what degree it should be applied against the contemporary plight. Opinions ranged from the strictly Orthodox Azriel Hildesheimer, who subjugated research to the predetermined sanctity of the texts and refused to allow it practical implication over received methods; via the Positive-Historical Zecharias Frankel, who did not deny Wissenschaft a role, but only in deference to tradition, and opposed analysis of the Pentateuch; and up to Abraham Geiger, who rejected any limitations on objective research or its application. He is considered the founding father of Reform Judaism.[46]

At the very least it would seem to be a process of reconciling Judaism with the modern society being borne all around them by the (post-)Christian reforming and progressive Europeans.

Also worth noting that probably the most famous (ethnically) Jewish radical of them all, Karl Marx, had grown up in a liberal Protestant convert family. One might at the very least take this background in account when considering that his co-partner, who had independently already formulated many of the most important "Marxist" points before meeting Marx - Friedrich Engels - came from a similarly liberal Protestant background, expect without being ethnically Jewish.

Yes, and what to make of "judaeo-bolsheviks" like Trotsky (born Lev Bronstein) who, yes, abolished the Pale of Settlement, but also were equally devoted to destroying the particularity of Judaism (alongside all other nationalisms and religions) as just another backwards false consciousness preventing people from becoming enlightened socialist deracinated "new men"?

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