Jews in the Modern World- Mid(terms)
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jessielunde on April 1, 2012
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46 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Aleichem, Sholom | Yiddish author, contributed to the prestige of the language. He was known for his ability to capture the rhythm of spoken Yiddish in his writing. He also wrote social commentaries, especially on Jews adopting gentile habits. |
| Arrendators | Jewish lessee- the arenda system involved the leasing of large estates by Polish lords to a Jewish lessee who, in return for paying rent to the nobleman, was granted the monopoly on a host of commodities and a means of raising revenue |
| Assembly of Jewish Notables | A body of 112 distinguished lay and clerical Jewish leaders from France and French-controlled Italy that Napoleon assembled in 1806. He did this to learn more about the Jews and administer the first serious loyalty test to the Jews from a modern state. Napoleon was a favorable leader for the Jews at this time. |
| Ba'al Shem Tov | Born in Podolia in present-day Ukraine and the founding figure of Hasidim. Known as the Ba'al Shem Tov or BeShT, Israel Ben Eliezer was, as Hebrew name indicates, a Master of the Good NAme, meaning someone who could use the esoteric names of God for practical, magical effects such as healing or exorcism. His transformation into the founder of an incipient religious revival seems to date to Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) of 1746, when he had a vision of the Messiah |
| Cantonists | Underage Jewish recruits taken from their families between 1827 and 1855, on average at the age of 14, for a preparatory period before their 25 year service in the Russian army. 50,000 Jewish boys were forcibly recruited in this way. |
| Chmielnicki, Bogdan | led Chmielnicki massacres, slaughter of thousands of Jews during the course of a Cossack uprising against the Polish regime in the Ukraine in 1648. wave of violent attacks are referred to in Hebrew as the gezerot tah ve-tat, between 1595 and 1657 |
| Conversos | spanish for convert, Jews who had converted to catholicism in Spain and Portugal , specifically during the 14th and 15th centuries, some of whom assimilated into the majority society while others secretly continued practicing Judaism |
| Council of Four Lands | a central body that represented all the Jewish communities in Poland, first formed in 1580 and lasting until 1764, when it was dissolved by the Polish Parliament, the sejm- a similar body existed in Lithuania. The laws were written in Hebrew, which shows that the Jews had their own language. |
| Count Stanislas de Clermont Tonnerre | A French count who, in 1789, after the French Revolution, argued for an inclusive interpretation of the declaration of rights, but he rejected any separate or different legal status for Jewish communities. In his view, citizens were citizens as individuals, not as members of different social or ethnic groups. |
| Court Jews | beginning in the 1650s, wealthy Jewish individuals who provided essential services and goods to the rules of the numerous german estates |
| Dhimmis | a non-muslim but monotheistic person party to the Pact of Umar which offered protection in exchange for loyalty to the Muslim state |
| Enlightenment | intellectual revolution of the 18th century, This was significant for the Jews because they were beginning to learn about the outside world and thus assimilate into the cultures of their surroundings. In many cases, though, this caused Jews to let go of traditions in order to fit in. |
| Edict of Toleration | A document issued by Joseph II of Austria that gave the Jews many social benefits. For example, they were encouraged to attend non-Jewish primary and secondary schools and learn new crafts and trades. |
| Frank, Jacob | 1726-1791, the leader of a messianic religious movement in Poland who claimed to be a reincarnation of Shabatai Zvi, as well as King David. He advocated acceptance of the New Testament and a belief in purification through sin, including violations of sexual taboos. in 1795, he and 500 adherents converted to catholicism. |
| Frankel, Zacharias | dresden rabbi who founded positive historical judaism/conservative movement |
| Geiger, Abraham | frankfurt-born philologist and historian who became the spiritual leader of Reform Judaism, away from kosher laws |
| Halakhah | Jewish religious law, like its islamic equivalent, shari'ah, it encompasses both civil and religious commandments and prohibitions |
| Hasidism | from the jewish term hasid, pious man, used generally to designate especially scrupulous observers of the law, as well as ascetics. hasidism was the movement of religious revival based on charismatic leadership and stamped by mystical teachings and practices that originated in the southeastern Polish province of Podolia in the 1750s. in contrast to earlier generations of hasidim, the followers of what we call 'hasidism' today did not promote most ascetic practices |
| Haskalah | a movement that began in berlin in the 1740s, with the intention of promoting among jews enlightenment values, including philosophical rationalism, religious modernization, and the introduction of secular subject matter into the Jewish school curriculum. following its german phase, the haskalah evolved in a different direction taking after it took root in Galicia and Russia. The overall impact of the haskalah was to transform the jewish people as it lead down a path toward increased secularism and greater participation of jews in european culture and involvement in politics, informing those who crafted jewish political responses to the social condition of european jews. |
| Hep-Hep Riots | anti-jewish disturbances that began in wwurzburg and spread from southern and western germany northward to hamburg and copenhagen and even south to cracow, they seem to have broken out in response to debates about jewish emancipation. rioters shouted out hep-hep jud vereck, hep hep jews drop dead |
| Hirsch, Samson Raphael | german rabbi born in hamburg who founded modern orthodoxy/neo orthodoxy |
| Isserles, Moses | leading polish rabbi born in cracow and known by his hebrew acronym as reMA, he composed the work ha-mapah, the table cloth, a commentary on the shulhan arukh |
| Karo, Joseph | a mystic as well as a legal scholar, karo is renowned for his compendium of jewish law, the shelkhan arukh, first printed in venice in 1565, born in spain or portugal, he settled in the town of safed- the shulhan arukh was a digest of the much larger beit yosef. |
| Kehillah | semiautonomous body governing the jewish community, during a period when Jews lived under Christian rule. |
| Ladino | also judeo spanish, judezmo or spanyol- the language of sephardi jews, especially in the ottoman empire. |
| Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim | german playwright who developed a close friendship with moses mendelssohn, His play, The Jew, was the first of 50 German-language plays of the time (1750-1805) to portray Jews in a positive light. |
| Maskilim | jewish enlighteners, adherents of the haskalah |
| Mendelssohn, Moses | leading jewish and german luminary in 18th century berlin- a philosopher as well as biblical commentator, who became an icon of the haskalah, He was known as the Jewish Socrates and in 1763, the Berlin Jewish community exempted him from paying the Jewish communal taxes in order to honor him. |
| Mitnagdism | from the hebrew mintaged, opponent- a movement of direct opposition to hasidism. stressed the importance of torah study and sought to uphold traditional bases of rabbinic and thus communal authority (when reform movement started, became apparent that they were more like hasidism) |
| Neo-Orthodoxy | He sought to embrace modernity while still fully adhering to the laws of traditional Judaism. led by Samson Raphael Hirsch. |
| Pact of Umar | traditionally attributed to the caliph umar, the second caliph, though the earliest extant version of the text we have dates from the 10th century. the pact has the form of an apostle sent by the christian community to their new muslim rulers. in the letter, the christians promise to obey certain restrictions in exchange for living in peace under islam |
| Pale of Settlement | the western border region of imperial russia to which the state, beginning with catherine the great in 1791, tried to confine jews. by the end of the 19th century, it was home to more than five million jews and covered 386,100 square miles. the pale was abolished with the february revolution of 1917. |
| Partitions of Poland | in the second half to the 18th century, the polish-lithuanian commonwealth was truncated three time shy russia, prussia, and austria- in 1772, 1793, and 1795. the last partition placed all of polar under foreign control. the partitions divided the jewish population of poland-lithuania, creating different jewish societies with particular cultural and economic characteristics in each of the three states |
| Port Jews | former converso jews who settled in important port communities and engaged in international commerce, most notably, the portugese jews of amsterdam, hamburg, and london. some scholars have called them the first modern jews, as in establishing new communities they often had to reinvent traditions, especially since they had only recently returned to judaism |
| Positive-Historical Judaism | stream of judaism today identified with the conservative movement in the united states, founded by the german rabbi zacharias franked. it assumed a position between reform and neo-orthodoxy, franked arguing that judaism developed within history, but that its essence was positive or divinely revealed |
| Reform Judaism | A movement in Judaism that broke away from some traditional religious aspects in response to the assimilation of Jews into their cultures. The early movement began in 19th century Germany and introduced music into services, prayer books in the vernacular, women and men sitting together in synagogue, and did away with the need for kosher laws because they did not always fit into a modern lifestyle. |
| Shulkhan Arukh | the set table, the definitive compilation of jewish law, halakhah, in use to this day, written by joseph karo in the mid 16th century. it was a digest based on karo's earlier compendium, the beit yosef |
| Spinoza, Baruch | towering philosopher of the 17th century, who grew up in a portugese converso family who has returned to judaism in amsterdam. he was excommunicated for his critique of rabbinic law in 1656 and never sought a return to the jewish community, though he also never converted to christianity |
| Thirty Years War | 1618-1648, war fought mainly between catholic and protestant forces in german lands. it pitted the habsburgs of austria and spain against france, the netherlands, denmark and sweden. it left a swath of destruction, especially in germany |
| Tzaddik | a term that appeared frequently in jewish literature before the rise of hasidism to denote pious ascetics. under hasidism, the authority of the charismatic tzaddik replaced that of normative rabbinic leaders, "Righteous Man," in Hasidism who derives his authority from divine powers. He is an "emissary of god" and can do whatever God does. |
| Tzvi, Shabbtai | most popular messianic figure of the early modern period, born in the turkish port of izmir, shabbatai szvi attracted followers from across the jewish world, who believed him to be the messiah |
| Vilna Gaon | greatest talmud scholar of his generation and the leading opponent of hasidism, His title means "Sage of Vilna" and he was said to have cut himself off from people by studying in seclusion and was thus greatly respected. He was an inspiration to the Mitnagdim who opposed the Hasidic movement. He could even recite the Torah by heart. |
| Volozhin Yeshiva | The most prestigious institution of Lithuanian Jewry, also known as the Talmud Academy, which supported the Mitnagdim . This institution is also significant because it became a new type of educational institution which reshaped the religious culture of Eastern European Jews. |
| Voltaire | An Enlightenment Philosopher who argued the Jews were not naturally flawed but had to reform themselves to be like Christians. |
| Wissenschaft des Judentums | Literally, "the scientific study of Judaism." This movement in 1918 marked the beginning of Jewish Scholarship. Jews believed that writing objective history was the key to overcoming the cultural battle. |
| Yiddish | emerging around the year 1000, it was first the spoken language of the ashkenazi jews in northern france and the rhineland. like the spanish jews who took their judeo-spanish language with them when they moved to the ottoman empire, the ashkenazi jews preserved their yiddish language after they had moved to poland-lithuania, although it underwent significant changes. by the 20th century, yiddish had become the most widely spoken jewish language in history. on the eve of world war II there were between eleven and thirteen million yiddish speakers worldwide |
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