The Book in the Jewish World, 1700-1900
Zeev Gries and translated by Jeffrey M. Green
All this was happening at a time when Jews’ civil status and place in society was undergoing great change in Europe. In this seminal work, Zeev Gries shows that although the history of the book in the Jewish world has long been regarded as the province of librarians and bibliophiles, it is in fact the history of the Jewish intellect. He starts by tracing the awakening of a dormant Jewish intelligentsia—men, women, and children who were thirsty for knowledge. Books were the magic kiss that opened new doors to the modern world; within a century, Jews were making invaluable contributions to the advancement of science and of culture more generally. By surveying the literary output of those years, the author is able to discover what books were being published, where they were published and distributed, and who was reading them. He surveys the fields of halakhic literature, ethical literature, kabbalistic and mystical literature, literature for children and women, and more general literature. He talks about the role of libraries and of book reviews. Above all, he considers the role of books as agents of culture: were they guardians of hallowed sanctity or harbingers of secularization?
Gries shows how the types of books favoured by the Jewish reading public offer an insight into the changing nature of their ‘portable homeland’. He then goes on to discuss the Haskalah movement and the tensions between increasing secularization and the more traditional world-view, as well as how the resurrection of Hebrew as a secular literary language contributed to the awakening of Jewish nationalism. Nevertheless, he argues that the study of literary history of the period reveals that secular and Zionist leanings were not the only trends present; Jewish literature continued to be permeated with the spirit of religion.
Zeev Gries is Professor in the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva. He taught previously at the Hebrew University Jerusalem and Boston University, and has been a visiting scholar at the British Library, the University of Washington, Seattle, Harvard University, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He published numerous articles on Jewish ethical literature, hasidism and the history of the Jewish book. His other books are 'Conduct Literature' (Regiman Vitae) and 'The Book in Early Hasidism.'
Note on Transliteration
Part I The Awakening of the Dormant Intelligentsia
1 Readers of Books and the Reading of Books
2 Halakhic Literature and High-Level Commentary
3 Ethical Literature in Hebrew and Yiddish
4 What Can be Learned from a Single Private Library and Something about Public Libraries
5 Kabbalistic Literature in General and its Appearance in Hasidism in Particular
6 Literature for Children and Women, or Literature Intended for Everyone?
Part II The Book as Guardian of Sanctity or as Herald of Secularization
7 The New Hebrew Literature: Continuity or Revolution?
8 The Printing and Circulation of Jewish Books in the Nineteenth Century and the Identity of their Authors
9 Book Reviews in the Hebrew Press
10 A Bibliographer and Librarian as an Agent of Culture: The Contribution of Avraham Ya’ari to the Study of Jewish Printing in Eastern Europe
‘The Young Avraham Ya’ari’ by S. H. Bergman
Edition: New edition
Size: 235 x 155 x 18 mm
Publication: December 3, 2009
Series: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization