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The Beginning of a Secular Jewish Identity

By Diana Turetsky

Previous to the Haskalah, the Jews of Europe lived in fairly enclosed communities in which religion was the greatest authority in every part of their lives. Holidays and weddings were celebrated by the whole community and it was up to the rabbis to keep in touch with the other Jewish settlements. The Haskalah changed the Jewish communities of Europe. No longer living separated from the world around them, Jews got involved in the outside world not only on a professional scale, but politically and socially as well. Upon having left the Ghettos, Jews needed to create a new identity for themselves among their Christian neighbours. In this new society they were no longer guided in every aspect of their lives by religious authorities, and therefore the Jewish life had eventually become very secular - only the Orthodox Jews kept their religious authority and community intact. Religious practice was not the primary connection between Jewish people anymore, and Judaism developed into something more than just a religion as the Jews found new secular ways to define themselves, including culture, nationality and language. Jews like Stefan Zweig and Pauline Wengeroff and characters like Yekl are just a few examples of the many Jews who were redefining themselves. While the Jewish faith remained an integral part of being a Jew, the Jewish identity was no longer centred on religious traditions, but was now based on secular political and social attitudes.

The changes did not happen overnight. Jews started integrating slowly but surely. By the end of the 19th century, thousands of Jews moved into the cities of Europe and North America and became active members of society. They were involved in everything from arts to trade. We especially see examples of this in North America where the Jews were very much involved in the textile industry. The story of Yekl, by Abraham Cahan, is the story of a man who came to America to find a better life for himself and his family. Upon arrival, he is very conscious of his religion, choosing an occupation which would not require work on the Sabbath (Cahan, 11). However, after living in America for three years his attitude towards religion changed significantly. He was still very much involved with a Jewish community, reading Jewish newspapers, working in a Jewish business and showing a definite pride for the Jewish celebrities. But his earlier scruples about Sabbath were no longer an issue, “if he was still free from work on Saturdays he found many another way of ‘desecrating the Sabbath’” (Cahan, 12). His name as well as his marital loyalties went the way of the Sabbath. Yekl is typical of Jewish men who arrived in the land of opportunity in the late 19th century. He did not stray from his Jewish roots, nor did he try to escape them, but in trying to create the same opportunities for himself as were enjoyed by the Christians of the land, he did lose his religiosity. Pauline Wengeroff, in Rememberings, tells a similar story of her brother Ephraim Epstein who grew up in a religious environment but abandoned his religion after coming to America. Ephraim eventually came back to Europe and tried to live as an observant Jew for his mother’s sake but his love for his religion was never the same (Wengeroff, 115). There are many more examples of young Jews leaving their homes and starting to lead secular lives. For Yekl and others like him Judaism changed from something that they did, into something that they simply were, regardless of practice.

Stefan Zweig’s autobiography is discussed at length in Autobiographical Jews. Zweig was a Jewish writer who was involved in politics and Jewish society throughout his life. Despite the blatant anti-Semitism growing in Europe, he did not shy away from identifying himself as a Jew. And although he tried to avoid political opinions in his farewell autobiography, Stanislawski fills in the gaps of Zweig’s life and his politics which Zweig did not share with his readers at the end of his life. In his autobiography he talks about his Jewish background, but as with many Jews of his time, his Jewishness does not come from religion. He discusses his family history, his grandparents and his parents, and Zweig defines himself as a Jew simply because he was born as such. According to Stanislawski, his grandparents were the last generation of religions Jews. Zweig’s father was far less religious than his parents, and Zweig himself, despite admitting to being a Jew, shows a discontent towards religious orthodoxy (Stanislawski, 110-111). Zweig is quite possibly more integrated into Christian society than others of his generation. He was an example of what typical Jews would become just a generation or two later,

“I suggest, Stefan Zweig was emblematic of a type of Jew – and Jewish writer – even more common in our day than his: one who acknowledges his or her Jewish origins, never considers conversion, steadfastly opposes anti-Semitism, may or may not be married to a non-Jew, is sympathetic to the Zionist movement without identifying as a Zionist or a Jewish nationalist, and may indeed use Jewish themes and subject matter in creative or artistic work” (Stanislawski, 128)

Even though atypical for his own time, Zweig foreshadowed the Jewish future. Not religious anymore, Jews nonetheless remain united well into the 21st century. Fighting together against strife and defining an identity for themselves, if not as a nationality, at least as a people.

Just as the Jewish community was no longer centered on their religion, neither were Jewish politics. Previous to the Haskalah, the rabbis were the leaders of the Jewish communities and as such it was mostly them who were involved in any politics. Whether these were related to religious matters or matters of state, the rabbis were the ones to meet with other rabbis and with state authorities. The Haskalah brought an end to this because it allowed everyone to be involved in human right movements, Jewish nationality versus integration debates and even state politics that were not previously open to Jews. Jewish nationalism started to emerge in the late 19th and early 20th century. As Jews became a part of the nations they lived in, they began to demand the same freedoms and rights which were enjoyed by the Christian citizens of these countries. Nationalism became a question not only for those who thought that Jews should have a nation of their own, but also for the ones who wanted to be equal members of the nation they were in – the integrationists.

Jews across Europe and North America became artists, soldiers, lawyers, physicians and politicians. Leaving the Ghetto presented the Jews with a brand new problem: Where do we belong? “As in the case of Jewish Nationalism, Jewish Integrationism requires the existence of substantial number of Jews prepared to distance themselves from the spiritual Ghetto” (Mendelsohn, 48). As we’ve seen before, the Ghetto was a place of Jewish community and religion. Leaving the Ghetto was not only a geographical change but a spiritual one also, seeing how many Jews let go of their religion when they moved away from the enclosed safety of the Ghetto. They now had to define a new place for themselves in the world, one which would allow them to live as Jews no matter how religious or secular they would become because they were not ready to discard their Jewish identity as quickly as they would discard their religion. The nationalists believed that Jews should live in a new Jewish State while the integrationists wanted to make the best out of the nations that they were in. In reality, most Jews sympathised with both causes. They supported the idea of a Jewish nation, but in the meantime they made the most of the countries that the lived in. Most people had simply worked too hard to agree to abandon everything they had and fight for a non-existent state. Patriotism and integrationism had united Jews all across Europe and America. The more they moved away from each other, the more they had in common. Jews flocked toward places which displayed religious indifference. Places like New York and Paris,

“A truly ideal environment for Jewish integration was France . . . Its capital acted as a magnet for ambitious Jews from the provinces who usually discarded, soon after arrival, any vestiges of their old Yiddish language and their religious orthodoxy. The great majority of native Jews in this country did, indeed, define themselves as Frenchmen of the Mosaic faith and identified with the secular, pluralistic revolutionary tradition” (Mendelsohn, 49).

Upon integration, Jews also started using the language of the land. No longer only having two choices, Hebrew and Yiddish, language became a major part of the question of the Jewish identity. For nationalists, it was important to define one language for all Jews, since most other nations in Europe defined themselves with their language. Ironically the debate of Hebrew vs. Yiddish grew as Jews became more secular.

Previously, both Hebrew and Yiddish had their place in the Jewish society. Yiddish was the everyday spoken language, while Hebrew had the role of the holy language of religion. As Jews were moving to the Urban centres of Europe and America, both these languages were fighting for survival. Since they were starting to study and use the languages of their counties of residence, Yiddish lost its importance as the main language of communication. And when Jews became secular, Hebrew was not as important as the language of religion as it once was. Most educated Jews of the time spoke multiple languages, both Jewish languages as well as the language of the nation they were in. But as we see in Yekl’s story, many blue-collar Jews worked hard to simply fit in and therefore did not worry about Hebrew or Yiddish. The question of national language was one for politicians and wealthy dreamers, as was the question of nationalism. In reality, neither Hebrew nor Yiddish had a place in the secular world of ambition and opportunity which was opened to the Jews - later, after WWII the question of language will return and Hebrew would ultimately win out as the language in the State of Israel, but that it beyond the scope of this paper.

Language, nationality and culture all changed when Jews decided to leave their ghettos. Jews became part of the society around them and traded their religious identity for a new secular one. The period of secularization was not the end of Judaism, but rather the change of it. Judaism no longer relied on traditions and commandments. A person could be Jewish without following the Jewish practices, and Judaism was no longer a reason to give up freedoms or ambitions. The question of Jewish nationalism was not solved during this time of enlightenment, but regardless of the answer Jews started to identify with other nations as well as with each other. They did become secular, but they remained as Jewish as ever.

Sources Cited

Mendelsohn, Ezra. On Modern Jewish Politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1993.

Cahan, Abraham. Yekl and the Imported Bridegroom and Other Storied of Yiddish New York. Dover Publications Inc. New York, 1970.

Wengeroff, Pauline. Remembering. Trans. Henry Wenkart. University of Press of Maryland.