What does haskalah mean?
Definitions for haskalah
hɑˈskɑ lɑ, ˌhɑ skɑˈlɑhaskalah
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Wikipedia
Haskalah
The Haskalah, often termed as the Jewish Enlightenment (Hebrew: השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Europe and the Muslim world. It arose as a defined ideological worldview during the 1770s, and its last stage ended around 1881, with the rise of Jewish nationalism. The Haskalah pursued two complementary aims. It sought to preserve the Jews as a separate, unique collective, and it pursued a set of projects of cultural and moral renewal, including a revival of Hebrew for use in secular life, which resulted in an increase in Hebrew found in print. Concurrently, it strove for an optimal integration in surrounding societies. Practitioners promoted the study of exogenous culture, style, and vernacular, and the adoption of modern values. At the same time, economic production, and the taking up of new occupations was pursued. The Haskalah promoted rationalism, liberalism, freedom of thought, and enquiry, and is largely perceived as the Jewish variant of the general Age of Enlightenment. The movement encompassed a wide spectrum ranging from moderates, who hoped for maximal compromise, to radicals, who sought sweeping changes. In its various changes, the Haskalah fulfilled an important, though limited, part in the modernization of Central and Eastern European Jews. Its activists, the Maskilim, exhorted and implemented communal, educational and cultural reforms in both the public and the private spheres. Owing to its dual policies, it collided both with the traditionalist rabbinic elite, which attempted to preserve old Jewish values and norms in their entirety, and with the radical assimilationists who wished to eliminate or minimize the existence of the Jews as a defined collective.
Wikidata
Haskalah
Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history. Haskalah in this sense marked the beginning of the wider engagement of European Jews with the secular world, ultimately resulting in the first Jewish political movements and the struggle for Jewish emancipation. The division of Ashkenazi Jewry into religious movements or denominations, especially in North America and anglophone countries, began historically as a reaction to Haskalah. Leaders of the Haskalah movement were called Maskilim. In a more restricted sense, haskalah can also denote the study of Biblical Hebrew and of the poetical, scientific, and critical parts of Hebrew literature. The term is sometimes used to describe modern critical study of Jewish religious books, such as the Mishnah and Talmud, when used to differentiate these modern modes of study from the methods used by Orthodox Jews. Haskalah differed from Deism of the European Enlightenment by seeking modernised philosophical and critical revision within Jewish belief, and lifestyle acceptable for emancipation rights. Rejectionist tendencies within it led to assimilation, motivating establishment of Reform and Neo-Orthodox denominations. Its outreach eastwards opposed resurgent mysticism and traditional scholarship. While early Jewish individuals such as Spinoza and Salomon Maimon advocated secular identity, it remained until the late 19th century for secular Jewish ideologies to replace Judaism. In the 20th century Gershom Scholem reestablished the historical significance of Jewish mysticism, dismissed by Haskalah historiography.
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology
The numerical value of haskalah in Chaldean Numerology is: 3
Pythagorean Numerology
The numerical value of haskalah in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7
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"haskalah." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 16 Feb. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/haskalah>.
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