Breslau has been almost entirely forgotten in the Anglophone sphere as a place of Enlightenment. Moreover, in the context of the Jewish Enlightenment, Breslau has never been discussed as a place of intercultural exchange between German-speaking Jewish, Protestant and Catholic intellectuals. An intellectual biography of Moses Hirschel offers an excellent case-study to investigate the complex reciprocal relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish enlighteners in a prosperous and influential Central European city at the turn of the 18th century.
Author(s): David Heywood Jones
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 264
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Jewish Historiography
Why Is Typical European Jewish Historiography Problematic?
The Structural Problem
The Epistemological Problem
“Essentialist” Jewish Identity Versus Plurality in Jewish Communities in the Eighteenth Century
Jews and Their Identities
The Concept of Hybrid Identity
Jewish Identity in Central Europe
Hybridised Individuals and Agency
Theory of Agency
Moses Hirschel: Agency, Identity and Influence
Chapter 3: Socio-Ethnic History of Breslau
History of Breslau, 1740–1818
Breslau (1740–1786)
Breslau (1787–1818)
Breslau’s History and the Historiographical Problem
Chapter 4: Moses Hirschel: A Critical Biography
Hirschel’s Early Life
Hirschel’s Partnership with Joseph Kausch
Popular Enlightenment
Hirschel’s Popular Enlightenment Works
Hirschel on Chess
Early Marriage
Kuh Biography
Hirschel and Patriotism
Hirschel and Catholicism in Silesia
Hirschel’s Personal and Professional Life
Chapter 5: Hirschel and the Orthodoxy
Hirschel and the Class Question
The Connexion Between Religious Authority and Corporate Power
Rabbinic Abuse of Financial Authority in Breslau
The Rabbinical Elite and Jewish Emancipation
Despotic Discipline
Heterogeneity and Diaspora
The Ashkenazi Orthodoxy and Jewish Traditions
The Early Burial Controversies in Prussia
The Early Burial Controversy in Breslau
Halacha, Minhag and Jurisprudence
Chapter 6: Jewish Rights, Human Rights and Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism in Prussia
The 1790 Jewish Regulations for Breslau and Their Contexts
The Authors of the Regulations
The 1790s Regulations in Detail: The Preamble
“Corrupt Jews” and Their Moral Transformation: The New Regulations
Cultural Imposition or Beneficent Transformation?
Innovative Aspects of the 1790s Legislation in the Context of General Prussian Reform
Jews, Day Labourers and the Prussian Vagabond Crisis
The Transformation of Jews by Means of Occupational Transformation
Hirschel’s Response to Contemporary Anti-Semitism
Preface and Introduction
Hirschel and Human Rights
Chapter 7: Haskalah and Enlightenment in Silesia
Enlightenment in Central Europe
What Is Enlightenment?
How Did Enlightenment Work?
What Was the German Enlightenment?
The “Late Enlightenment” in the German-Speaking Lands
The Translated Enlightenment Becomes the German Enlightenment
What Is Haskalah and Who Were Maskilim?
Enlightenment as Modernisation or Secularisation for Jews?
Breslau: On the Periphery of Enlightenment but a Centre of Haskalah?
Enlightenment in Breslau
Enlightenment Institutions and Personalities in Breslau
School Reform in Silesia
Catholic School Reform in Silesia and Prussia
Jews and Protestants: The Maskilim and School Reform
The Jewish Wilhelm-Schule in Breslau
The Industrial School for Girls in Breslau
The Gesellschaft der Brüder
Jewish and “Christian” Maskilim in Breslau
Other Jewish Enlighteners
Chapter 8: Final Remarks
Bibliography
Archives
Berlin
Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin – GStA PK
Breslau
Biblioteka Uniwersytecka we Wroclawiu
Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu
Warsaw
Central Jewish Library
Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie
Weimar
Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, GSA
Moses Hirschel’s Works
General Works
Index
