KONFERENCJA 2006

Haskalah in Transition. Time, Place and People in the Jewish Enlighenment

8-9 May 2006, Wrocław, Poland

SPONSORS: Department of Jewish Studies, Wrocław University, The Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. LOCATION:, Oratorium Marianum, main building of the University, pl. Uniwersytecki 1

Monday, 8th May
  • Greetings from Professor Leszek Pacholski, the Rector of the University of Wroclaw
  • Greetings from Professor Israel Bartal, the academic chair of the Nevzlin Centre
  • Opening lecture: Shmuel Feiner (Bar Ilan University): Touching the Sensitive Nerve of Modernity: New Trends in the Study of Haskalah
  • Sabbateanism, Frankism, Enlightenment, Chair: Michael Silber (Hebrew Univesity)
  • Paweł Maciejko (Hebrew University): More about the Alleged Connection between Frankism and the Haskalah
  • Michael L. Miller (Central European University): A Nexus between Sabbateanism and Haskalah? Evaluating Scholem’s Thesis in Light of the Jewish Community in Prossnitz (Prostejov), Moravia
  • Enlightenment, Education and Herz Homberg in Galicia, Chair and Respondent: Israel Bartal (Hebrew University)
  • Michael Silber (Hebrew University): The Vanguard of the Haskalah? The Teachers of the Josephinian Jewish Normalschule, 1775-1810
  • Riety van Luit (Hebrew University): The teaching of good citizenship in the German Jewish Schools in Galicia: Free of religious values or religiously based?
  • Dirk Sadowski (Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture):Between Haskalah, Social Disciplining and „Schulwirklichkeit”: The Jewish German schools in Galicia, 1782-1806
  • Rachel Manekin (Hebrew University): Herz Homberg in Galicia Revisited
  • Women and Enlightenment: Visions and Divisions, Chair and Respondent: Lois Dubin (Smith College)
  • Tova Cohen (Bar-Ilan University): The Portrait of the Maskilah as a Young Woman
  • Louise Hecht (University of Vienna): „By what means do women acquire merit?” (Ber 17a) Women in the Jewish Public discourse in Central Europe around 1800
  • Community and Identity, Chair and Respondent: Nancy Sinkoff (Rutgers University)
  • François Guesnet (Potsdam University): Haskalah and Community: Social Distinction and the Spreading of the Jewish Enlightenment in Eastern Europe
  • Haim Gertner (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem): The East European Maskilic ‘Imagined Community’. A Reassessment
  • Lara Lempertiene (Vilnius University): ‘What actually is the essence of the Talmud?’ Is there a New Maskilic Identity?
  • Elchanan Reiner (Tel Aviv University): Beyond the Realm of the Haskalah: Changing Learning Patterns in the Jewish Traditional Society
  • Festive Dinner
Tuesday, 9th May
  • Centres and Peripheries: Jewish Enlightenment(s) in the Local Context, Chair: Elchanan Reiner (Tel Aviv University)
  • Yosef Salmon (Ben Gurion University): The Jewish Enlightenment Movement in the Land of Israel: Some Characteristics
  • Haim Cohen (Bar-Ilan University): Joshua Heschel Schorr, He-Halutz and the Forgotten “He-Halutz Circle”
  • Mordechai Zalkin (Ben Gurion University): „Hear the truth from whoever said it”: The Telšiai Yeshiva and the late impacts of the Lithuanian Haskalah educational undercurrents
  • Haskalah in Poland or Polish Haskalah?, Chair: François Guesnet (Potsdam University)
  • Marcin Wodziński (University of Wrocław): Two Enlightenments: Polish and Jewish Enlightenments look at each other
  • Agnieszka Jagodzińska (University of Wrocław): What happened with our Haskalah? Polish Positivism and Jewish Enlightenment in the Kingdom of Poland
  • Ela Bauer (University of Haifa): Pragmatism and Ideology: the Haskalah Programme and the Agenda of Hayim Zelig Słonimski
  • Controversies: Maskilim, Mitnagdim & Hasidim, Chair and Respondent: David Assaf (Tel Aviv University)
  • Uriel Gellman (Hebrew University): Mitnagdim & Maskilim: Continuity and Innovation in their Attitude towards Hasidism
  • Jonatan Meir (Hebrew University): The Influence of ‚Megale Temirin’: Imagination, Imitation and Reality
  • Yehuda Friedlander (Bar Ilan University): The Haskalah Period Olive Oil Controversy between Lithuanian Rabbis and Maskilim
  • Israel Bartal (Hebrew University): Closing Remarks: The Haskalah -Enlightenment Catch