Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism

Chapters in Literary Politics

Hannan Hever

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781512825077
• eBook ISBN: 9781512825084
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Jewish History
• Index: History

Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism reveals how political and literary dialogues and conflicts between the Hebrew literature of the Hasidism, the Jewish Enlightenment, and Zionism interacted with each other in the nineteenth century. Hannan Hever uses postcolonial theories and theories of nationality to analyze how Jews used literature to make sense of hostility directed toward Jews from their European "host" countries and to set forth their own ideas and preferences regarding their status, control, and treatment. In doing so, Hever theorizes the Enlightenment's intellectual aims and cultural influences, tracking how the models of integration crucial to Haskalah gave way to Jewish nationalism in the twentieth century.The readings in this book are theoretically informed, setting forward novel claims based on detailed textual analyses of hasidic tales, Haskalah satires, and Zionist narratives. Thus, this book tackles a major interpretative problem visible at the core of modern Hebrew literature—its radical difficulty in distinguishing between the theological components of modern Jewish discourse and its national identity.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav’s Journey to the Land of Israel
• Chapter 2. Isaac Erter’s Anti-Hasidic Satires and the Watchman for the House of Israel
• Chapter 3. Isaac Erter’s Anti-Hasidic Satire “Hasidut ve-Hokhmah”
• Chapter 4. The Politics of the Hasidic Story in the Russian Empire
• Chapter 5. The Politics of Sefer Hasidim by Micha Yosef Berdichevsky
• Appendix. Isaac Erter, “The Plan of the Watchman”
• Notes
• Index
• Acknowledgments