Everything You Thought You Knew about the Jewish Enlightenment Was Wrong

The Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement centered in Berlin and informed by its European counterpart that criticized strict religious traditionalism and encouraged Jews to embrace secular education and play a greater role in the societies around them. At least, that’s the usual explanation. According to the historian Olga Litvak, it wasn’t any of those things. This Jewish version of Romanticism, Litvak argues, rejected Enlightenment confidence in progress and was characterized by a great deal of pessimism—and even conservatism. She explains her counterintuitive thesis with her characteristic persuasiveness in conversation with J.J. Kimche.