Yidish tsulib yidishkeyt: Religion, Language, and Ideology in the Life and Scholarship of Solomon A. Birnbaum

Abstract

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw an explosion of ideological activity and creativity in Europe. Naturally, this age of isms left its mark on the Jewish world as well, nurturing the growth of parallel movements among the newly-emancipated masses of both Western and Eastern European Jewry. Secularism, assimilationism, socialism, and nationalism in all its varieties (Zionist, Diasporist, Bundist, territorialist, linguistic, etc.) were just some of the new ideologies circulating among the members of a society that was changing rapidly, for whom “progress” was the word of the day.