Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966

by Marc B. Shapiro

Overview

The span of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's life (1884-1966) illuminates the religious and intellectual dilemmas that traditional Jewry has faced over the past century. Rabbi Weinberg became a central ideologue of modern Orthodoxy because of his positive attitude to secular studies and Zionism and his willingness to respond to social change in interpreting the halakhah, despite his traditional training in a Lithuanian yeshiva. But Weinberg was an unusual man: even at a time when he was defending the traditional yeshiva against all attempts at reform, he always maintained an interest in the wider world. He left Lithuania for Germany at the beginning of the First World War, attended the University of Giessen, and increasingly identified with the Berlin school of German Orthodoxy. Although initially an apologist for the Nazi regime, he was soon recognized as German Orthodoxy's most eminent halakhic authority in its efforts to maintain religious tradition in the face of Nazi persecution.

His approach, then and in his later halakhic writings, including the famous Seridei esh, derived from the conviction that the attempt to shore up Orthodoxy by increased religious stringency would only reduce its popular appeal. Using a great deal of unpublished material, including private correspondence, Marc Shapiro discusses many aspects of Weinberg's life. In doing so he elucidates many institutional and intellectual phenomena of the Jewish world, a number of which have so far received little scholarly attention: the yeshivas of Lithuania; the state of the Lithuanian rabbinate; the musar movement; the Jews of eastern Europe in Weimar Germany; the Torah im Derekh Eretz movement and its variants; Orthodox Jewish attitudes towards Wissenschaft des Judentums; and the special problems of Orthodox Jews in Nazi Germany. Throughout, he shows the complex nature of Weinberg's character and the inner struggles of a man being pulled in different directions. Compellingly and authoritatively written, his fascinating conclusions are quite different from those presented in earlier historical treatments of the period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781874774914
Publisher:	The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2002
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Marc B. Shapiro holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania. A graduate of Brandeis and Harvard universities, he is also the author of Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966 (1999); The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides' Thirteen Principles Reappraised (2003); and Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History (2015), all published by the Littman Library.

Table of Contents

	Note on Transliteration	x
	Note on Sources	xi
	List of Abbreviations	xi
1	Early Life (1884-1905)	1
2	Pilwishki (1906-1913)	18
3	The First World War and its Aftermath (1914-1920)	51
4	Giessen and Beyond (1920-1932)	76
5	Response to the New Nazi Government (1933-1934)	110
6	The Nazi Era (1933-1945)	135
7	Post-War Years (1946-1966)	172
	Afterword	222
	Appendices
I	Lebenslauf--Autobiographical Note	224
II	Letter to Hitler	225
III	Letter from Jacob Rosenheim	234
	Glossary	236
	Bibliography	239
	Index	275

Editorial Reviews

Using previously unpublished material, including private correspondence, Shapiro (Judaic Studies, U. of Scranton, Pennsylvania) discusses the many aspects of the life and thought of Rabbi Weinberg (1884-1966), an important ideologue of modern Orthodoxy. The author focuses on his evolving philosophical orientation, from his early years in Poland, his years in Germany, Lithuania, and Poland from WWI through the Nazi era, and his post-war years in Switzerland. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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