Judaism’s historical openness to borrowing made modern Jews ideal for acculturation

Evidence

Rather than be a “nation within a nation” as a result of inheriting a closed-off Judaism, modern Jews—distinct from Orthodox ones—were primed for acculturation precisely because they were bearers of what had originally been an open religious tradition. In other words, Goldziher’s orientalism was deeply affected by his rejection of Orthodoxy. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 373 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The old Jew of the East, however, preserved his face. It looks at us from the tales of Mendele, this face: sincere and dreamy and of a purity that can be procured only at the cost of sacrificing one’s broader activities and the happiness of broader activity. To start a small trade, to eat bread and herring, to father and raise children, to say the daily prayers and the prayers over meals, and to read many pages of Gemara; to give a bit to the poor from the little that one earns, to provide for daughters’ marriage, to visit the sick, to bury the dead and to console the mourners—this is the pattern of his duties, and how effortlessly he bears it upon himself. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 415 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Jacob Katz (1961) has argued that the social exclusiveness of life in the Jewish ghetto led to Jewish indifference to conditions outside the ghetto that was reflected in a decline in Jewish polemics against Christianity. But one should beware overstating the case. The stability of the ghetto also allowed for contact between Jewish and Christian cultures. Jews had access to Christian learning as well as to developments in science. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2375 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Jewish intellectual assimilation shifted Jews from inter-European traders to national citizens seeking social admittance — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 183; Ghetto confinement simultaneously reduced and enabled Christian-Jewish cultural exchange — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2375; Purity-versus-acculturation tension predates and recurs wherever religious groups coexist — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 542 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Goldziher argued openness to acculturation was Judaism’s original nature. #corroborates (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 373
• Eastern Jewish piety preserved a purity that required renouncing broader ambition #complicates (0.75) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 415
• Ghetto confinement simultaneously reduced and enabled Christian-Jewish cultural exchange #complicates (0.74) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2375
• Jews prefigured Orientalized others as inside-yet-outside Western Christendom #complicates (0.72)
• Assimilating Jews learned to advance by playing the role of what they actually were #complicates (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 202