Description
Excerpt from My First Eighty Years
European Jewry, up to a generation or so ago, was divided into two cultural groupings. Generally speaking, the Jews of Eastern Europe lived under the in?uence of the traditional Jewish culture and the Jews of Western Europe under the in?uence of the modern Western culture. The non/jewish environment in the towns and villages of Russia was at a far lower level than that of the Jews, whereas the general cultural and scientific level in Western Europe was higher than that of the Jews. This difference created a profound divergence in mood between Eastern Jews and Western Jews. The Jews of the East naturally concluded that their inherited Talmudic culture was vastly superior in content, mood and educative power to that of the world around them, and therefore, choosing the higher culture, they became intensely Jewish and lived on from generation to generation as if the outer world did not exist. They were quite right in their choice; they had selected the higher culture. The Jews of the West also chose what seemed to them to be the higher culture, which in their case was the culture of the environment. They abandoned the Talmud; they ?ocked to the universities and became authors of German, French, English literature. They soon grew to be more European than Jewish. The fault of the Eastern Jew was that he scorned modernity; the fault of the Western Jew was that he withdrew from history.
The finest mental and spiritual types in modern Jewish life came from a combination of both tendencies. The Jews of Galicia, for example, had the old East European Talmudic culture but being part of the Austrian Empire, assimilated, likewise, modern scientific thinking. So, too, many of the Jews from Russia and Poland moved into Western environments and the choicest spirits among them, without abandoning the inherited past, added to itthat which was best in the thought and mood of the modern world.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
European Jewry, up to a generation or so ago, was divided into two cultural groupings. Generally speaking, the Jews of Eastern Europe lived under the in?uence of the traditional Jewish culture and the Jews of Western Europe under the in?uence of the modern Western culture. The non/jewish environment in the towns and villages of Russia was at a far lower level than that of the Jews, whereas the general cultural and scientific level in Western Europe was higher than that of the Jews. This difference created a profound divergence in mood between Eastern Jews and Western Jews. The Jews of the East naturally concluded that their inherited Talmudic culture was vastly superior in content, mood and educative power to that of the world around them, and therefore, choosing the higher culture, they became intensely Jewish and lived on from generation to generation as if the outer world did not exist. They were quite right in their choice; they had selected the higher culture. The Jews of the West also chose what seemed to them to be the higher culture, which in their case was the culture of the environment. They abandoned the Talmud; they ?ocked to the universities and became authors of German, French, English literature. They soon grew to be more European than Jewish. The fault of the Eastern Jew was that he scorned modernity; the fault of the Western Jew was that he withdrew from history.
The finest mental and spiritual types in modern Jewish life came from a combination of both tendencies. The Jews of Galicia, for example, had the old East European Talmudic culture but being part of the Austrian Empire, assimilated, likewise, modern scientific thinking. So, too, many of the Jews from Russia and Poland moved into Western environments and the choicest spirits among them, without abandoning the inherited past, added to itthat which was best in the thought and mood of the modern world.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Details
Publisher - Forgotten Books
Language - English
Hardback
Contributors
Author
Bernard Horwich
Published Date -
ISBN - 9780331463118
Dimensions - 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Page Count - 466
Paperback
Contributors
Author
Bernard Horwich
Published Date -
ISBN - 9780259209522
Dimensions - 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Page Count - 468
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