The
Journals of the Haskalah from 1820 to 1845 includes monographs and annotated
indices to eight Hebrew periodicals in Holland, Galicia, Germany and Lithuania,
published in the first half of the nineteenth century.
The monographs
analyze the phenomena of the Hebrew Haskalah press, addressing major
developments in the history of the Haskalah, such as the emergence of ‘Hochmat
Israel’ (The scholarly study of Judaism) in Hebrew, and the emerging centers of
Haskalah in Holland, Galicia, and Lithuania.
The monographs study
the journals and their editors, contributing authors, and the subject matters
included in them, and examine their scholarly and literary output.
Some of the luminary
scholars of the Haskalah contributed to these journals: Shmuel David Luzzatto,
Shlomo Yehuda Rapoport, Nachman Krochmal, and Marcus Jost, as well as authors
and poets, such as Yitzhak Erter, Shmuel Mulder, Meir Halevi Letteris and Adam
Hacohen Lebenson.
‘Hevrat To’elet’ (To’elet Society),
established in 1815, published three of the journals: Bikurei To’elet (First
Fruits of To’elet, 1820), Pri To’elet (Fruit of To’elet, 1825), both edited by
Shmuel Mulder, and Bikurei Hashanah (First Fruits of the Year, 1844), edited by
Gabriel Pollak. in 1823/4, the author and editor Meir Halevi Letteris issued
the journal Hatzfirah (Dawn).
In the early 1840s,
two scholars of the German school of the Study of Judaism, Marcus Jost and
Michael Creizenach, launched a Hebrew monthly publication in Frankfurt titled
Zion (1841–1842). In 1842 and 1844, two Vilna Maskilim, Shmuel Yoseph Fünn and
Eliezer Lipman Horowitz, published the journal Pirhei Tzafon (The Northern
Flowers).
In 1844, Mendel
Stern published one issue of Sefer Bikurei Ha’itim (The Book of The First
Fruits of the Times), and a year later, in 1845/6, Yitzhak Shmuel Reggio and
Israel Busch issued a one-time periodical titled Bikurei Ha’itim Hahadashim
(The New First Fruits of the Times).
This book is the
fourth volume in the series of monographs and annotated indices of Hebrew
Haskalah periodicals. It follows the publication of the monographs and
annotated indices on Kerem Hemed, titled Kerem Hemed: ‘Hochmat Israel’ [The
Scholarly Study of Judaism] As the ‘New Yavneh,’ the Hebrew Journal of the
Haskalah in Galicia and Italy (1833–1856), in 2009, and previously on Bikurei
Ha’itim, titled Bikurei Ha’itim – Bikurei Hahaskalah [The First Fruits of
Haskalah], the Hebrew Journal of the Haskalah in Galicia (in 2005), and the
publication of Hame’asef Index and monograph – Sha’ar Lahaskalah [The Gate to
Haskalah]: An Annotated Index to Hame’asef, the First Hebrew Periodical
(1783–1811), in 2000, by Magnes Press.
The annotated indices should serve as a reliable reference tool for viewing and reviewing the major topics and issues that occupied the minds of the editors and the writers of these journals. Readers may now examine the scope and the character of the material published in these eight journals. Likewise, it is now convenient to assess the contribution of participating scholars, authors, and poets, to the Haskalah literature, and to explore their ideological stand on various scholarly or Haskalah-related matters.
Association of Jewish Libraries’ Judaica Bibliography Award 2014