ePub The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism; Heresy; and Philosophy by Abraham P. Socher in History

Description

Over the course of the nineteenth century; some 84;500 Jews in imperial Russia converted to Christianity. Confessions of the Shtetl explores the day-to-day world of these people; including the social; geographic; religious; and economic links among converts; Christians; and Jews. The book narrates converts' tales of love; desperation; and fear; tracing the uneasy contest between religious choice and collective Jewish identity in tsarist Russia. Rather than viewing the shtetl as the foundation myth for modern Jewish nationhood; this work reveals the shtetl's history of conversions and communal engagement with converts; which ultimately yielded a cultural hybridity that both challenged and fueled visions of Jewish separatism. Drawing on extensive research with conversion files in imperial Russian archives; in addition to the mass press; novels; and memoirs; Ellie R. Schainker offers a sociocultural history of religious toleration and Jewish life that sees baptism not as the fundamental departure from Jewishness or the Jewish community; but as a conversion that marked the start of a complicated experiment with new forms of identity and belonging. Ultimately; she argues that the Jewish encounter with imperial Russia did not revolve around coercion and ghettoization but was a genuinely religious drama with a diverse; attractive; and aggressive Christianity.