Jewish Heterodoxy and Christian Denominationalism

The parting of ways between progressive and traditionalist Judaism and the emergence of new forums of communication in the 1830s to 1840s led to increased Jewish political infighting and the formation of Jewish “parties” in Central Europe in Vormärz times (1815–1848). A rabbinic leader and ideologue of the local progressive Jewish movement, and also its first historian, Leopold Löw (1811–1875) was a protagonist of these struggles in Hungary. A correspondent of the progressive German Jewish press on Hungarian Jewish affairs—especially in the 1830s to 1850s, until he established his own German-language journal in 18581—he was not only conversant with all segments of Orthodox and progressive Jewry in Central Europe but was also well-informed about Austrian and Hungarian politics as well. He was a respected participant at the reform conferences in Leipzig (1869) and Augsburg (1871). In his writings, he often assessed developments in Hungarian Judaism in light of parallels from the political and religious history of German lands and the Habsburg Empire—sometimes lamenting the cultural backwardness of his country relative to them. On the flipside, he was confident about the superiority of Hungarian Judaism in one respect: Talmudic archaeology (a scholarly field he conceived), which was to be the key instrument of reconstructing Judaism, had more potential contributors in Hungary than in western countries (including Germany and Austria) where Talmudism had already declined.2

Ancient history · Archaeology · German · Ideology · Judaism · Political science · Politics · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Jewish Identity and Society · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious Studies

• The Lost Tribes, the Caraites and the English Millenarians

  Richard H Popkin•Journal of Jewish Studies•1986

  Add to list