Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration

Part I: Terms of Debate

1. Wrong Time, Wrong Place
2. Beyond the Enlightenment

Part II: State of the Question

3. Haskalah and History
4. Haskalah and Modern Jewish Thought

Part III: In a New Key

5. Exile
6. New Creation
7. Faith
8. Paradise
9. Fall
10. The End of Enlightenment

Notes
Index

Conventionally translated as the “Jewish Enlightenment,” the Haskalah propelled Jews into modern life. Based on imaginative and historically grounded readings of primary sources, Olga Litvak presents a compelling case for rethinking the relationship between the Haskalah and the experience of political and social emancipation. Litvak challenges the prevailing view that the Haskalah provided the philosophical mainspring for Jewish liberalism.