Haskalah
History Series / Part 2

The haskala movement swept European Jewry, but it came in many varieties. Some haskalists believed in the creation of a Yiddish culture. Others embraced Marxist ideologies. But no matter what the flavor, there was one central goal: the abandonment of traditional Judaism. They made a fundamental mistake, though. They underestimated the strength of traditional Jews. Rabbi Wein describes the three movements that defeated the haskala: Chassidus, the yeshiva movement, and the mussar movement.

• Bialik and the birth of Yiddish literature
• "the new Jew" - a false solution to anti-Semitism
• Rabbi Yisrael Salanter - reforming Jews, not Judaism
• how Zionism gave the haskala new life