The Reverse Side of the Haskalah Movement

It was not a decline but an excess of religion that led to the emergence of the Jewish Enlightenment.

For over a century, there has been considerable controversy surrounding the emergence of the Jewish Enlightenment movement, known as Haskalah, which symbolises the beginnings of modern Judaism. According to popular theory, a process of secularisation led Judaism out of the early modern world defined by traditions and orthodoxy.
Gerhard Lauer argues differently - between 1680 and 1770, many people firmly believed that the coming of the Messiah was imminent and that a strict adherence to religious beliefs was therefore more vital than ever before. Thus it was the »reverse side of enlightenment« that drove the process of enlightenment within Judaism forwards.
Lauer compares the developments of Ashkenasi`s culture in German speaking territories with those in the Netherlands, England and Italy; based on religious moral writings, fables, missionary treatises, prayer books, philosophical works and heretic writings, he depicts the cultural history of an unknown world that existed at the outset of familiar modern Jewish history and culture.

The Author
Gerhard Lauer, born in 1962, is a professor of German Philology at the University of Göttingen. Co-editor of the »Journal of Literary Theory«.

Also published by Wallstein
Das Erdbeben von Lissabon und der Katastrophendiskurs im 18. Jahrhundert (The earthquake of Lisbon and the ensuing discourse on catastrophes in the 18th century), edited by Gerhard Lauer and Thorsten Unger (2008).