How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought

by Leora Batnitzky

A new approach to understanding Jewish thought since the eighteenth centuryIs Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality—or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period—and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea.Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish thinkers have debated whether and how Judaism—largely a religion of practice and public adherence to law—can fit into a modern, Protestant conception of religion as an individual and private matter of belief or faith. Batnitzky makes the novel argument that it is this clash between the modern category of religion and Judaism that is responsible for much of the creative tension in modern Jewish thought. Tracing how the idea of Jewish religion has been defended and resisted from the eighteenth century to today, the book discusses many of the major Jewish thinkers of the past three centuries, including Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Theodor Herzl, and Mordecai Kaplan. At the same time, it tells the story of modern orthodoxy, the German-Jewish renaissance, Jewish religion after the Holocaust, the emergence of the Jewish individual, the birth of Jewish nationalism, and Jewish religion in America.More than an introduction, How Judaism Became a Religion presents a compelling new perspective on the history of modern Jewish thought.

Genres: Judaism, Religion, History, Nonfiction, Judaica, Jewish, Philosophy

215 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 22, 2011

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The material in the book was at times fascinating, at times a laborious examination of philosophical concepts probably aimed more at philosophers than readers like myself. I learned a great deal about how the concept of "religion" changed over time, and about the modern history of Judaism, in particular about Zionism.

Some aspects of the book made it difficult reading. As mentioned, I think it was aimed at people more schooled in philosophy, with brief mention and little explanation of classic philosophers and concepts. Also, the author has a tendency to refer to people by last name only, save for the very first reference, even if that first reference is merely incidental.

The discussions in the last parts of the book brought many good threads together, including: Judaism as a religion versus nation versus culture; ultra-orthodox and orthodox Judaism; Zionism; the state of Israel; and secularism. The New York case regarding setting aside a public school district for an isolationist Jewish community was of strong interest to me, a secularism advocate. I was somewhat disappointed not to see what would to me be a logical continuation of that issue: Israel's conflicts as a modern nation between the demands of the ultra-orthodox Jewish constituency and the secularist constituency. Regardless, there was much food for thought.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Is Judaism a religion? Is Jewishness a matter of culture? Are the Jews a nation?" (183)

I picked up this book partly because, online, I see people being confused about these very questions all the time. My answer has been, "All that and more, because Jews and Judaism pre-existed the invention of these terms, and we don't fit neatly into any of these little boxes." Leora Batnitzky provides the scholarly elaboration of my thesis...and a lot more.

She shows how in post-Enlightenment modern Germany, Protestant thinkers came up with "the category of religion, defined as a sphere of life separate from other spheres (such as politics, morality, and science, just to name a few)." Their definition opposed the private realm of religion to the public realm of the state. That worked for Protestants who could already be German citizens and members of their churches, but it didn't work for Jews, who at the time (1700's) were members of somewhat self-governing Jewish communities, not members of the German polity.

So, what to do about the Jews? Or, from a Jewish point of view, how could we make the case that we a) had the right to participate as citizens and b) could still be Jews, without c) challenging the Christian majority in ways that would bring persecution down on our heads?

The whole book goes to show that Reform, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, ultra-Orthodox, cultural and religious Zionist movements are all Jewish responses to the freedoms modernity offered AND the threats it posed. (See my extended comments in the reading activity section for details.)

I wish I could rate this book more highly. It is both fascinating and frustrating. It's fascinating because it shows the variety of responses Jews could come up with from the same analysis. It's frustrating because the author seems to have selected thinkers that she likes to talk about and shoehorned them into her pre-existing framework.

Partly, although the author strives to place ideas in historical context, it is still "An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought" and not to modern-day Judaism. She makes the error, common among intellectuals, of thinking it's the ideas that produce the social movements and not the other way around. The net gets cast a little wider as she takes in Eastern European Jewish life and recent Jewish trends in the U.S. It's still notable that she does not discuss a single Jewish woman among her list of thinkers, writers, philosophers, and historians, and (apart from her own work) Batnitzky hardly cites any women scholars, either.

I wish I could give it 3 1/2 stars, but I have to choose to round it down.

[Natan Oliff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Batnitzky's thesis is that with the enlightenment and creation of the modern nation-state, Judaism became a religion as defined by the Protestant definition of religion, which states that religion is individualistic and private to each individual. However, Judaism does not fit nicely into that definition. Batnizsky then goes on to survey an impressive amount of modern Jewish thinkers who struggle with this shift, most of whom, whether explicitly or implicitly, affirm this definition.

While I appreciate Batnitzky's breadth of knowledge regarding modern Jewish thinkers. I felt like she didn't go in the best direction with the book's content. I would be much more interested in a deep dive into the idea of Judaism as religion, to spend time on questions such as: What was Judaism before a religion? Is religion intrinsically private? What impact did the movement of Judaism into religion have? How do Zionism and the State of Israel affect this shift? What does this mean for the future of Judaism? Instead, I felt like the book was an extensive tour of modern Jewish thinkers. Except that, for each thinker, I would get a brief survey of the philosophy and then an addendum where Batnitzky would point out how that thinker either affirmed or rejected the idea of Judaism as a religion. In other words, I felt that this book did a very good job of proving to me that the concept of Judaism as a religion was a shift that was implicit or explicit in the thought of almost every modern Jewish thinker. However, this book didn't really explain to me why this shift was important or mattered at all.

Finally, just a note to readers. The book is written academically and is a bit dense. Nothing unreadable, but some sections can be more difficult to read based on the dense philosophy.

[Victoria]

Read around 80% or so for a coursework essay for my theology degree yay

[Mich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly intellectual historical analysis of what it took to emerge from an historical period in Western Europe where Jews used to be defined by others as Jews, living in their own community with their own laws, to where they could be accepted as citizens, like gentiles who selected their individual branches of Christianity as their religion. The influencer that started this movement was Moses Mendelssohn following the Napoleonic wars and the separation of church from state. He petitioned the German government to also allow Jews to enjoy German citizenship yet still retain the right to their own religion. From this process rose the three branches of Judaism. While this movement started and was mostly confined to Germany and France it is interesting that the Jews of Eastern Europe were still confined to their own society until the pogroms encouraged them to emigrate to the US. Others sought Zionism not from a religious ideal, but as a means to escape to a safe place. Unlike Europe, in the US, from the beginning, Jews self-identified as Jews and were able to both follow the laws and obtain the privileges of the American society while being able to choose a religion. Key figures in the movements over the next 150 years are identified and evaluated.

[Jean Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book that traces the idea of Judaism as a religion to the nation-state idea and goes through the various leading thinkers in this area from German Reform to the Ultra Orthodox of today.

[Orest Mercator · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leora Batnitzky’s wide-ranging book How Judaism Became A Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought is a sensational guide for those seeking to deepen their engagement with the study of Jewish history and philosophy. Readers benefit from one of the field’s most respected minds whose erudition shines through accessible and lively prose. Despite occasional shortcomings—which primarily stem from the author’s commendable ambitions of depth and scope—the book more than accomplishes its stated goals, offering a fascinating primer on both modern Jewish thought and the story of Judaism’s categorization as a religion.

How Judaism Became A Religion begins by unmasking and critiquing the 18th-century German Protestant origins of our modern concept of religion: “the view that religion denotes a sphere of life separate and distinct from all others, and that this sphere is largely private and not public, voluntary, or compulsory.” By locating the historical, geographic, and cultural roots of our understanding of religion (which often seems universal and ahistorical) Batnitzky persuasively challenges widely-held views about just what Judaism is. The book’s early pages bristle with the delicious excitement of an insider taking newcomers behind the curtain. Readers will particularly enjoy the early chapters’ discussion of Moses Mendelssohn, whose Jewish apologetical writings inadvertently reconfigured Judaism’s image while attempting to advocate for the emancipation of Prussian Jewry. By arguing the compossibility of Judaic and German allegiances for the country’s Jews, Mendelssohn’s foreswore the existence of political aspirations in his religion, stating instead that Jews are a politically distinct, but theologically-united people. This new conception of Judaism better aligned with the dominant, Protestant-inflected understanding of religion in Enlightenment Europe. Batnitzky explains that prior to modernity, however, conceiving of a neatly delineated Jewish religion—in contradistinction to a the nationality or culture of Jews—would have been very difficult indeed, as Jewish life was “defined by, though not limited to, Jewish law, which was simultaneously religious, political, and cultural in nature.”

The existential questions the Enlightenment provoked for religionists at large and for Jews in particular were only compounded by the day’s political events. For example, Batnitzky explains, in the way Prussia emancipated its Jews in 1812, the state effectively decriminalized Jews as people, but not Jewishness as an identity. In this conceptual and political milieu, the thinkers Batnitzky examines are those who asked: What now is the meaning of a Judaism that is only a religion—not a culture, not a nationality, not a jurisprudence (not one that can supervene on federal laws, anyway)—and which now lacks the unifying force of the wholesale civic exclusion of Jewish people? In taking readers through responses to this crisis of identity, How Judaism Became A Religion provides lucid coverage of the development of modern Judaism’s “three denominations”—reform, orthodox, and positive-historical/conservative—explaining how each predicates their validity on different interpretations of Jewish history.

After surveying these denominations, Batnitzky goes on to point out (quite compellingly) that by asserting Judaism’s status as a religion, the thinkers explored in the book’s first half evince a faith that the modern nation-state is capable of protecting the rights of Jews: that Judaism need not exceed religion by becoming a politics and/or a nation so as to safeguard the wellbeing of Jews and Judaism. The Holocaust, of course, forced new reckonings with that faith, provoking a deep sense of Zionism’s necessity in some, while reaffirming others in their conviction that Judaism must transcend the politics of nationhood and remain dedicated to the promise of a “redemptive world order.” Batnitzky examines these two key forms of response through case studies in French Jewish philosophy and religious Zionism, respectively. Her examination exemplifies the author’s ability to unify two disparate (ostensibly incompatible) streams of thought and, in so doing, bespeaks a mind that has lived reflectively and earnestly with these materials long enough to sense their natural affinities. It is from such a mind that the reader of this book will constantly benefit, a mind whose comprehensive survey through modern Jewish thought is unusually good at never losing the forest for the trees—giving, for each thinker, not just their argument but a contextualization of the approach and a sense for its place in the field’s intellectual history. An example: “While [Fackenheim, the Kooks, and Levinas] invert the relation between religion and the state, they do not change the terms of the conversation. That is, [they] still view modern Judaism in terms of the relation between religion, on one side, and the politics of sovereign nation-states, on the other.” Though it is difficult to grasp without the benefit of more context than this reviewer can provide, the quoted passage offers a glimpse of Batnitzky’s unusual ability to familiarize herself intimately with the fine details of an argument without losing sight of the contingency of the argument’s very terms of possibility. In this case, Batnitzky points out that Fackenheim’s, the Kooks’, and Levinas’s dissenting views nonetheless uphold—unskeptically—a crucial and dubious distinction employed by the predecessors from whose opinions they depart.

Ultimately, though most readers are likely to find the early chapters’ discussion of the Enlightenment’s impact on Judaism to be the book’s most scintillating and rewarding pages. Subsequent chapters, which primarily focus on the effects of Mendelssohn’s epoch on Jewish thought and identity since, may seem a bit textbook-ish for a work whose snappy title suggests that it will not place great demand on the reader’s powers of memory and attention. While Batnitzky’s writing is almost uniformly clear and user-friendly (admirably so, in fact), potential readers do well to remember that she is, first and foremost, an academic—not a journalist, not a pop-nonfiction writer. The sheer number of thinkers Batnitzky attempts to cover makes it nearly impossible to do each adequate justice in the book’s 200+ pages. Occasionally, she is guilty of presenting abstruse quotations without taking time to help readers work through them. For instance, she twice uses the following quote from Hermann Cohen without once offering explication: “If the unique God were not the creator, being and becoming would be the same; nature would itself be God. This, however, would mean: God is not. For nature is the becoming that needs being as its foundation.”

How Judaism Became A Religion also contains many names and terms that will be new to readers who lack extensive background, but for whom this book is clearly at least partially intended, given that it bills itself as an “introduction” and uses non-technical language to give the broad strokes of many core figures who shaped modern Judaisms. Nevertheless, these failures should neither be held against the book nor its author, who still provides readers with among the finest primers one could hope for on the subject. Simply put, at times comprehensibility must pay the price for Batnitzky’s commendable ambition, but few readers will begrudge her this. On the level of constructive criticism, the publisher might consider a glossary in the back of the book to ease the burden of recalling the myriad terms and names contained therein. That said, readers looking to go deeper should appreciate the thoughtfully-compiled “Suggested Reading” lists (with attendant synopses) that end each chapter.

One must also note that Batnitzky’s ambition is not without reward. While readers might be overwhelmed by her speedy treatment of Joseph Soloveitchik and Hermann Cohen, to name a few, it is a rare treat indeed to see such arcane thinkers as Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig receive exegesis so discerning and concise; the author’s expertise in the philosophy of religion truly is beyond reproach. Batnitzky masterfully glosses some of the most esoteric and difficult strains in modern Jewish thought without flattening their characteristic vibrancy and sense of spiritual urgency: like the best commentaries, hers pierces without obliterating—a virtue all the more important for these thinkers whose content is inseparable from the form they chose to express it.

In one of the book’s more touching passages, Batnitzky explains that the German theologian Franz Rosenzweig created the “Lehrhaus” (an adult education school in Berlin) “for modern Jews to encounter the Jewish textual tradition in its original languages and thereby [to] give well-educated but nevertheless Jewishly ignorant Jews the tools with which to return to Jewish life.” With How Judaism Became A Religion, Batnitzky accomplishes something very similar, but which addresses itself to a different kind of ignorance—teaching readers how oppressive discourses and politics have shaped modern conceptions of Judaism and Jewish self-understanding. In so doing, she helps readers decolonize their mind and reflect on what it means to be Jewish (indeed, to be religious at all) with an eye to the sordid history of a term that remains as important as it is difficult. And for readers who feel affinity to Jewish ancestry or elective identity, the book is, in short, the gift of better self-understanding.

[Roger Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a concise but densely notated coverage of major figures in Judaisms from the 18th century to the present. Batnitzky effectively argues that debates around secularization and religion that erupt in the early 21st century have long been argued within the thought of various Jewish intellectuals since Spinoza.

[versarbre · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book offers a very nice way of thinking about major thought momentums of Jewish thinkers in the 18th century.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most insightful academic studies I have read on the evolution of Jewish thought.

[B. Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thorough and revelatory alightens the development of Judaism in the modern world. A book that is interesting for any modern civilian, including atheists, christians and muslims.

[Noah Goodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Def a better academic than a writer but not a bad book by any means

[Spencer Szwalbenest · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Batnitzky surveys a number of Jewish thinkers concerning their views on the question of whether or not Judaism is a religion. While I appreciate this book as a survey of thought on this question in particular, I would not recommend it as in intro to the subject of Jewish Thought writ large. Because it focuses so much on this question, the book inevitably gives short shrift to issues of theology and religious ethics that I believe are essential pieces of the subject.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a tale of two stories about Judaism. Before the 18th-century Enlightenment, many European Jews lived in self-governing communities. Disputes between Jews were adjudicated by Jewish courts, who could punish Jews for violations of Jewish law (both ritual and ethical).

In the 18th and 19th centuries, as feudalism died, states began to monopolize the use of force. This left Jews with a question: if Judaism is no longer an all-encompassing religious/political system, what is it?

The leading German thinkers (including both Orthodox Jews like Samson Raphael Hirsch and more liberal Jews such as Franz Rosensweig) saw Judaism as primarily a religion: that is, as a dimension of life that is noncoercive, separate from politics, and totally compatible with life in a modern nation-state. She notes that many of these thinkers actually rejected the word "religion" in describing Judaism- but nevertheless, by the author's defintion they surely saw Judaism that way.

By contrast, Eastern European thinkers tended to see Judaism as more of a culture than a religion- a set of folkways independent of religious belief. Zionists saw Jews as not just a culture within a nation but as a nation itself, a nation that needed a homeland. Why the difference? In Western Europe, Jews were just integrated enough into the local culture that they could see themselves becoming part of it without sacrificing their religious beliefs. By contrast, in Eastern Europe Jews were more likely to see themselves as strangers in a strange land, at least partially because these nations were less likely (at least before 1933) to grant Jews political freedoms.

[Andrew Pessin · Rating 3 out of 5]

a useful book review of an overvew of a number of different thinkers from medieval to modern, much stress on 19th-20th century, around the question 'is judaism a religion?' maeaning could it be extracted from its role as the binding force of a well-defined public community and just become the private affairs of emancipated individuals, one small component of their lives separated from the political and civic lives -- i.e. can we be Jews in private while still be citizens of western liberal democracies in publice. No great insight is gleaned, no moving ideas, no real contribution from the author herself -- just a tour of thinkers who have something relevant to say on the topic.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The basic concept, that Judaism might not be a religion, is one that is difficult for the modern mind to grasp and this is where the book is weakest. Greater help in understanding what this means would have been helpful. Nonetheless, Batnitzky covers a remarkable range of philosophers, both Jewish and non, to explore the political and social reasons for relegating Judaism to the limited sphere of religion as well as its implications for the nature and future of Judaism. In the process, she also clarifies the development of various branches of Judaism and demonstrates that all forms of Judaism today are, in fact, a response to the enlightenment and development of the modern nation-state.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry to begin with and very dense throughout, this book is still a very interesting primer on modern Jewish thought regarding Judaism and the individual, which is really what Batnitzky means by "religion" (e.g. the private, as opposed to public, concern with belief and salvation). A background in Jewish history/theology/culture is necessary to understand what is being proffered. Otherwise, this might be a good book for a non-Jew to learn about why it's so hard to define Jewishness, being that it's not (and originally was not) just a religion as viewed by Protestantism and Enlightenment principles.

[Ashton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some interesting subject matter, such as what we consider to be "religion"-- in the Western Protestant sense. However, this book is horribly formatted and choppy. She says that this book arose from her class notes, but that doesn't mean her book should read that way.

[Josh W]

Couldn't get into this one now, but I hope to try again at some point.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read a few chapters. Densely written, & emphasis more on the "thought" (as in the title) than on the corresponding history, which I think I would have found more interesting.