Jacques Gutwirth

HASKALAH AND HASSIDISM IN POLAND

MARCIN WODZINSKI , Haskalah and Hasidism in the Kingdom of Poland. A History of Conflict (translated by Sarah Cozens with the assistance of Agnieszka Mirowska), xiv 335 pp., The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford and Portland, OR, 2005, £39.50. This learned volume, competently translated here, was first published in Polish in 2003. The subject had been researched by Raphael Mahler, who published his pioneering study first in Hebrew in 1961; in 1985 the book appeared in English in a slightly modified version as Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. A comparison of the two volumes would not be easy because the authors approached the conflict (or confrontation) between the Haskalah (the specifically Jewish movement of the eighteenth-century ‘Enlightenment’) and hassidism from different perspectives. Mahler saw it from a Marxist socio-economic standpoint and interpreted the historical data accordingly. He considered the peculiarities of hassidic behaviour and beliefs — such as the cult of the rebbe or charismatic leader; the position of the tsadik; and the various aspects of hassidic practices. Wodzinski, however, is mainly concerned with the various opponents of hassidism and reports (with many valuable details) on the history of that opposition, on the principal personalities involved, the publications, and the methods of dealing with the Polish authorities. Thus, the reader will gain an understanding of the reality of Polish hassidism through the prism of the various (and often prejudiced) standpoints of the opponents of the movement.

From the Word to the Televisual Image: The Televangelists and Pope John Paul II

Until the beginning of the twentieth century Christianity, in order to proclaim its message, was based above all upon the word, the substance of prayer and preaching; certainly manuscripts, with the Scriptures and other fundamental texts, long secured the foundations of the faith, but before the advent of printing their diffusion and reception remained the prerogative of lettered dlites, most often clerics such as the Benedictines (remember Umberto Eco’s famous novel published in 1980, The Name of the Rose). Moreover, the Catholic Church made extensive use of the image in the Middle Ages, above all in the gothic period, and created remarkable visual splendour in its holy places. Stained glass windows and paintings and sculptures with subjects from the Old and New Testaments reinforced the devotion and faith of the illiterate. It was only after 1450, with Gutenberg’s invention of printing which, moreover, immediately disseminated bibles, missals and prayer-books that the text became a major means of transmitting the Christian message. From the sixteenth century onwards Protestant Calvinists (but not Lutherans

Construction médiatique du religieux. La dynamique de la télévision et la religion des télévangélistes

Les programmes des predicateurs de la television americaine – les “televangelistes” – sont tres influences par les apports, avec des avantages et des lacunes, du media televisuel. Ainsi, les televangelistes, dont l’objectif affiche est le salut de leur public, cherchent des interactions avec les telespectateurs, appeles a ecrire et a telephoner au ministere, pour demander des conseils, pour des prieres d’intercession, pour faire des dons qui assurent le financement de leurs activites. Par consequent, meme sans communaute cultuelle, on voit se constituer une sorte d’“eglise electronique”. Pour attirer les telespectateurs, les programmes sont realises avec professionalisme et ils comportent une part importante de spectacle (musique, chant). Comme ils veulent toucher un public aussi large que possible, les televangelistes evitent tout esprit doctrinaire et la plupart s’abstiennent d’admonester leurs “ouailles”. Certains televangelistes, avec l’achat de stations emettrices et la mise en place de chaines specialisees, s’engagent ainsi dans des business audio-visuels maintes fois tres profitables. Le televangelisme, avec ses traits specifiques, represente la rencontre de deux composantes essentielles – religion et television – du mode de vie des Etats-Unis.

Rapport de l'atelier : "Sociétés urbaines et industrielles"

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Sociétés urbaines et industrielles. Rapport de l’atelier Jacques Gutwirth

Piétistes juifs et protestants. Une analyse comparative / Jewish and Protestant Pietists. A Comparative Analysis

The comparison of contemporary Hasidic communities with a recently started Cevenol Church, discloses structural similarities, in spite of obvious dissimilarities. Both fundamentalist types combine high religiosity with strong socio-cultural roots, moral strictness, political conservatism, rather dynamic economic values and specific occupations. The congruence of these factors warrant the persistence of religions ways that are relatively similar to Jewish and Protestant {Cevenol) standards prior to the Industrial Revolution. In both cases the religious attitudes can not be disassociated front socio-cultural identity, be it Jewish or Cevenol : an identity which is certainly turned to the past but which has a strong ethnic style.