History 175B - Midterm I Study Guide

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering early modern heresy, anti-Jewish accusations, Haskalah, emancipation debates, Hasidism, Mitnagdism, and modern Jewish denominations for History 175B Midterm I.

Shabbatai Zvi (1626-1676)

Ottoman Jewish mystic who declared himself Messiah in 1665-66. His conversion to Islam under the Sultan's pressure shattered mass hopes, though Sabbatean belief survived underground.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

Amsterdam philosopher excommunicated by the Jewish community in 1656. His rationalist critique of revelation and biblical authority made him a symbol of secular Jewish thought.

Uriel da Costa (c. 1585-1640)

Former Portuguese converso who returned to Judaism in Amsterdam, then denied the Oral Law and the soul's immortality. He was excommunicated and publicly humiliated.

Blood libel

False accusation that Jews murdered Christians, especially children, to use their blood in rituals. It began in Norwich in 1144 and led to massacres for centuries.

Host desecration

False accusation that Jews stole and abused consecrated Eucharist wafers. It triggered violence against Jewish communities in medieval and early modern Europe.

Christian Wilhelm Dohm

Prussian official who wrote On the Civic Improvement of the Jews (1781). He argued that Jewish "defects" came from oppression and that Jews should gain civil rights gradually, alongside educational and economic reform.

On the Civic Improvement of the Jews (1781)

Dohm's treatise arguing that Jews were products of oppression and could become useful citizens if given civil rights and reformed through education and productive occupations.

Naftali Herz Wessely

Maskil and Hebrew poet who supported Joseph II's reforms. He urged Jews to adopt secular education alongside Torah, and traditionalist rabbis denounced him for it.

Edict of Toleration (1782)

Habsburg Emperor Joseph II's decree easing restrictions on Jews. It opened schools and trades but aimed to make Jews "useful" and more German, without granting full equality.

Words of Peace and Truth (1782, Divrei shalom ve-emet)

Wessely's pamphlet endorsing the Edict of Toleration and calling for Jewish adoption of secular education, sparking rabbinic backlash.

Abbe Gregoire

French priest and revolutionary who argued for Jewish "regeneration." He backed emancipation on the condition that Jews reform themselves.

Jewish Emancipation in France

The National Assembly granted Sephardic Jews citizenship in 1790 and Ashkenazic Jews in 1791. Rights went to Jews as individuals, not as a corporate community.

Assembly of Jewish Notables (1806)

Napoleon convened about 110 Jewish leaders and asked them questions about loyalty to France, intermarriage, and usury.

Grand Sanhedrin (1807)

Napoleon's revived 71-member rabbinic court, called to give religious authority to the Notables' answers.

Infamous Decrees (1808)

Napoleonic decrees restricting Jewish moneylending and trade, imposed for ten years. They showed the limits of French emancipation.

Hep Hep riots (1819)

Anti-Jewish riots across German lands, starting in Wurzburg. They were a backlash against emancipation and Jewish economic mobility.

Partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795)

Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided Poland, placing the largest Jewish population in the world under Russian rule.

Pale of Settlement

Region of the Russian Empire where Jews were legally allowed to live, from the late 18th century until 1917.

Arenda

System by which Polish nobles leased estates, mills, and taverns to Jews. Jews became intermediaries between nobles and peasants, which fueled peasant resentment.

Khappers

Jewish communal agents who seized Jewish boys for the long military conscription imposed under Nicholas I. Communities were forced to supply the quotas.

Hasidism

Pietistic revival movement that arose in 18th-century Podolia. It emphasized joy, prayer, mystical closeness to God, and charismatic leadership over elite Talmud study.

Israel ben Eliezer (Ba'al Shem Tov, c. 1700-1760)

Healer and mystic from Medzhybizh, regarded as Hasidism's founder.

Shivhei ha-BeShT (1815)

Collection of hagiographic tales about the Ba'al Shem Tov. A major source for his legend, though not reliable biography.

Dov Ber of Mezeritch (d. 1772)

The Ba'al Shem Tov's successor. He systematized the teachings and trained the disciples who spread Hasidism.

Tzaddik

The "righteous one," a Hasidic leader who acts as spiritual intermediary for his followers. The role often became hereditary in dynasties.

Devekut

"Cleaving" to God, the central Hasidic goal of constant spiritual attachment, including during everyday activities.

Tanya (1796)

Shneur Zalman's foundational Chabad text on the structure of the soul and the path to serving God.

Shneur Zalman of Lyady (1745-1812)

Founder of Chabad, the intellectual strand of Hasidism.

Beinoni

The "intermediate" person in the Tanya. He never sins in action, though his evil inclination remains; presented as an attainable ideal for ordinary people.

HaBaD

Acronym for Hokhmah, Binah, Da'at (wisdom, understanding, knowledge). Names the intellectual approach to Hasidism.

Mitnagdism

The "opposition" to Hasidism, centered in Lithuania. It feared Hasidic novelty and emphasized Talmud study over ecstatic devotion.

Vilna Gaon (1720-1797)

Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, Talmudic scholar and the most prominent leader of the Mitnagdim.

Volozhin Yeshiva

Founded in 1803, the model for the Lithuanian yeshiva. Russian authorities closed it in 1892 after it resisted curriculum demands.

Musar Movement

19th-century Lithuanian movement focused on ethical self-discipline and moral introspection.

Israel Salanter (1810-1883)

Founder of the Musar movement.

Jacob Frank (1726-1791) / Frankism

Sabbatean leader who claimed to be Shabbatai Zvi's successor. His antinomian movement culminated in mass conversions to Catholicism.

Haskalah

The Jewish Enlightenment, beginning in 1780s Berlin. It promoted secular education, Hebrew revival, and integration into European society.

Maskilim

The adherents of the Haskalah.

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)

Berlin philosopher and leading figure of the Haskalah. He produced a German translation of the Torah with commentary and became the model of a Jew in European culture.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

German Enlightenment writer and Mendelssohn's friend. His play Nathan the Wise promoted religious tolerance.

Jerusalem (1783)

Mendelssohn's work arguing for separation of church and state and presenting Judaism as revealed law rather than dogma.

Ha-Me'asef (The Gatherer)

First Hebrew periodical of the Haskalah, founded in 1784.

Jewish Free School

Berlin school founded in 1778 that taught secular subjects alongside Jewish education.

Bildung

German ideal of self-cultivation through education, central to how German Jews pursued integration.

Saul Ascher

Berlin writer who criticized Mendelssohn and argued Judaism needed rational reform.

Wissenschaft des Judentums (Scientific Study of Judaism)

Applied critical and historical methods to Jewish texts and history, starting in the 1810s-1820s.

Reform Judaism

Movement that modified liturgy and practice to fit modern European culture, treating Judaism as evolving.

Israel Jacobson

Banker and reformer who opened a reform school and temple in Seesen in the early 1800s.

Hamburg Temple (1818)

Early Reform congregation that used an organ, German sermons, and a revised prayerbook. Orthodox rabbis opposed it.

Abraham Geiger

Leading Reform rabbi and scholar who saw Judaism as a historically developing religion.

Samson Raphael Hirsch

Founder of German Neo-Orthodoxy, who combined strict observance with modern secular education.

Nineteen Letters on Judaism (1836)

Hirsch's defense of traditional Judaism in a modern idiom.

Zacharias Frankel

Advocate of "positive-historical Judaism," a middle path that accepted critical study but preserved tradition. Broke with the Reformers in 1845; precursor of Conservative Judaism.

Jewish Theological Seminary

Conservative rabbinical school. Descends from Frankel's Breslau seminary (1854) and the New York institution founded in 1886, which became central under Solomon Schechter.