Publishers cloth. 8vo. 200, XIII pages. 25 cm. First edition. In Hebrew with English summary. Added title page: The Crown Rabbinate in Russia; A Chapter in the Cultural Struggle Between Orthodox Jews and Maskilim. The Crown Rabbis of late imperial Russia held the government-mandated designation of rabbi, but their functions as record keepers, Russian administrative representatives, and sometimes Jewish communal (but secular) leaders belied the religious title.
the opening of government-sponsored rabbinical training seminaries in Vilna and Zhitomir in 1847
these schools reflected the practical ideals of the maskilim, who emphasized the need for religious leaders to have a strong secular education.
the crown rabbinate outlasted the crown rabbinical schools. On the one hand, the increasingly influential maskilim and other progressive Jews promoted the notion that a rabbi should embody worldly ideas and guide his community in the social, economic, and intellectual components of the Haskalah. Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, wanted only a traditional spiritual rabbinate. By the turn of the twentieth century, the question of who should be empowered with the religious representation of, and authority over, the Jewish communities in Russia had turned into a heated debate that played itself out in the Russian Jewish press and at various meetings of rabbis and the intelligentsia. The Russian Jewish journals Ha-Melits and Voskhod served as forums for this debate, which continued until World War I and aimed, ultimately, at solving the problem of the dual rabbinate. All the while, crown rabbis continued to function in their official capacities, even participating in various Russian rabbinic commissions as well as the Rabbinic Congress of 1910. (YIVO Encyclopedia) In the series: Mehkarim be-toldot `am-Yisrael ve-Erets-Yisrael : Sidrah monografit; kerekh 1 (Studies in the history of the Jewish people and the land of Israel; 1) Subjects: Crown Rabbinate. Haskalah - Russia. Jews - Europe, Eastern - Politics and government. Jews - Legal status, laws, etc. - Russia - History. Jews - Russia - Emancipation. Jews - Russia - Politics and government. Judaism - Russia. OCLC lists 15 copies. Light wear to cloth, otherwise fresh and clean. Very good + condition. (EE-5-39)
