The idealized eastern Jew embodied duty and purity purchased through renounced ambition

Evidence

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Eastern Jewish piety preserved a purity that required renouncing broader ambition — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 415; Zweig channeled orientalist discourse toward Eastern Jews within his own community — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 443

Broader Connections

• Eastern Jewish piety preserved a purity that required renouncing broader ambition #expands (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 415