Jewish Identity
Challenged and Redefined
Part I
Who am I? Why?
1)
Are there things on your partner’s list that you would
have added to your list if you could have written down
more than five things?
2)
What experiences/environments/people influenced your
identity today?
________________________________________
3)
If you were a Jew living in western Europe prior to
emancipation, what would you write?
How does acculturation and assimilation
effect Jewish identity?

Acculturation


Cultural modification of a group through
interaction involving intercultural exchange
and borrowing with a different culture.
Assimilation

The process of being absorbed into the cultural
tradition of population or group.
Jewish Identity I

Assimilationist Responses

Estrangement


Conversion


Feels like an outsider
Leave their religion, often for practical reasons
Jewish Self-Hatred

Loathe everything Jewish about themselves
Jewish Identity II

Affirmation Responses

Jewishness as a unique sensibility


Defiance of anti-Semites


Desire to keep anti-Semites from winning
Religious Faith


There is a unique Jewish character
Religious connection to being Jewish
Other Responses

“Holocaust Jew”
Estrangement I

Solomon Maimon (17531810)




Shlomo ben Joshua born
in Poland
Traditional Education but
wanted a secular
education
Changed his name
Wanted to convert to
Christianity
Estrangement II
 “My
Emergence from Talmudic
Darkness” (1793)
Describes his experience in a traditional
yeshiva
 Title conveys his view of his early life
 Juxtaposes darkness of Talmudic study
with lightness of secular education

Conversion I

Abraham Mendelssohn
(Bartholdy) (1776-1835)





Liberal Jewish Upbringing
German Banker
Changed his name to
Bartholdy – less Jewish
Didn’t have son circumcised
Converted to Christianity
Conversion II

“Why I Have Raised You as a Christian”
(1820)




On occasion of dauther’s confirmation
Religion was man made and changeable
Confirmation as a Christian meant world would
accept her
Conversion


Sometimes act of faith
Often way to assimilate
Next Class

Think About:


Do you know examples of assimilationist
and/or affirmationist Jews?
Preview:



Self-Hating Jew document study
Examples of Affirmation Identities
What it meant to be a Holocaust Jew