Key Terms from Enlightenment, Jewish Assimilation, and Modern Antisemitism

Vocabulary flashcards covering major concepts from the lecture: Enlightenment ideas, Jewish assimilation (Haskalah), key figures, reforms, and the emergence of antisemitism and Zionism.

Enlightenment

European intellectual movement valuing reason, liberty, and secular government; posits universal rights and questions power structures, but also enables both progress and new prejudices.

Reason

Human capacity for logical thought; central to Enlightenment belief in universal rights and progress.

Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment)

Jewish reform movement seeking integration into European society through secular education and gradual assimilation while negotiating Jewish identity.

Moses Mendelssohn

Leading Jewish philosopher of the Haskalah who argued for assimilation and civil equality; advocated distinguishing religion from state in Germany.

Jerusalem (Mendelssohn)

Mendelsohn’s influential work arguing for a civil, religiously tolerant German state and for Jews to be German citizens with Jewish faith.

Assimilation

Process by which a minority adopts the host culture’s norms and practices, often at the expense of its own distinct culture and traditions.

Melting Pot vs Mosaic

Metaphors for cultural integration: melting pot emphasizes uniform blending; mosaic preserves diverse identities within a shared society.

Ghetto Nuovo (New Ghetto)

Venice neighborhood near the Arsenal where Jews were confined; origin of the term ‘ghetto’ in Western Europe.

Shtetls

Small Jewish towns in Eastern Europe where Jews lived, often in traditional and rural communities.

Reform Judaism

Liberal branch of Judaism originating in 19th-century Germany (Hamburg, 1818) promoting services in vernacular languages and integration with broader society.

Deism

Belief in a non-interventionist Creator (God as a ‘clockmaker’) who wound the universe but does not actively govern it.

Clockmaker metaphor

The idea that God created the world and then ceased direct intervention, aligning faith with Enlightenment rationality.

Jewish Free School

Secular Western-style school founded around 1778 by Mendelssohn’s circle to provide modern education beyond Torah study.

Dreyfus Affair

Late 19th-century French political scandal revealing deep anti-Semitism and influencing Theodor Herzl’s Zionist activism.

Zionism

Jewish nationalist movement seeking a homeland in response to enduring antisemitism and exclusion in Europe.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

19th-century German-Jewish composer, grandson of Moses Mendelssohn; his family’s conversion exemplifies assimilation’s personal costs.

Auschwitz

Nazi concentration/extermination camp symbolizing the Holocaust and the deadly culmination of modern antisemitic ideology.

Invention of Race

Modern concept that categorizes humans by race; used to justify antisemitism and genocide, transforming prejudice into ‘scientific’ policy.