Research On Religion » Zionism

Shachar Pinsker on Jewish Coffee House Culture

tonygill — Sun, 25 Mar 2018 08:00:35 +0000

Major cultural movements have to begin and evolve somewhere, and what better place than in a coffee house? Prof. Shachar Pinsker, an associate professor of Hebrew Literature and Culture at the University of Michigan, joins us today to talk about the importance these cafés played in shaping Jewish modernity in the era from 1848 to 1939 (and a bit beyond). His new book – A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture — is about to be released from NYU Press and provides us with a vivid description of these essential urban gathering places at a time of great mobility amongst the European Jewish population.

We begin with a walk through Prof. Pinsker’s own intellectual history, discussing how he became enchanted with Jewish literature and how he came to write about coffee houses. His tale is instructive for all scholars. While working on his dissertation and first book, Shachar kept gathering information about European cafés where the literary figures and intellectuals he was studying all seemed to be assembling. Although not thinking a project about cafés would be all that interesting, he was encouraged by others to write about the topic and it eventually led to his fascinating new book. We discuss the history of coffee houses, noting that they originated several centuries ago in the Near East and were imported to Europe from the Ottoman Empire, first to England in the16th century where they were named “taverns without wine” or “penny universities.” These cafés were not only local gathering places for people in a community, but they also represented an important “other” place given the exotic nature of coffee and their transnational connections. We discuss why the period from roughly the mid-19th century until the mid-20th century represented the “Golden Age” of coffee houses and how it corresponded with the era of Jewish modernization. Cafés represented places where one could get a sense of community within the growing anonymous city, and was a place where people debated and shared ideas. Often these cafés became closely identified with different schools of thought, attracting certain artists and intellectuals, and fomenting spirited divisions that often led opposing schools of thought to take up residence in other cafés. Tony notes that many of the photographs in Shachar’s book were of individuals who were dressed up in fancy clothing, and this leads to some observations about how cafés represented places where people presented themselves publicly, but also served to reinforce class, gender, nationality, and ethnic status.

The coffee houses of Europe became important places for Jews during the late 19th and early 20th century as the Jewish population was on the move. Prof. Pinsker uses the travels of S.Y. Agnon to illustrate this point as he moved through many of the cities discussed in Shachar’s book including Warsaw, Odessa, Berlin, and Vienna. Networks of migration were set up in these cafés and travelers would know to go to coffee houses to find community. Shachar points out that cafés represent an important “thirdspace” in urban areas, occupying area between the public and private, as well as the objective and subjective. We then walk through the various cities he highlights in his book — Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, and Berlin — pointing out how the differed from one another, yet how the cafés in each city provided a sense of continuity, acculturation and integration. Jews became identified with café culture in many of these places and Shachar points out the tension in the phrase “Jew belong in the coffee house” often heard in Vienna; cafés were places where Jews did find belonging, but also became a focal point of anti-Semitism. We then discuss how coffee culture moved beyond Europe and into New York and Tel Aviv, along with how and why cafés seemed to lose their intellectual and cultural vibrancy in the last half of the 20th century. Jewish socio-economic mobility (e.g., to the Upper West Side of New York) as well as the growing presence of second and third generation Jews in Tel Aviv who lost a sense of their migratory culture are possible reasons why coffee houses have lost their cultural impact. Prof. Pinsker also speculates about the role that the Internet is having on community, noting that while people in coffee shops nowadays can often be seen interaction with their computers and phones (and not socializing directly), the world wide web may actually be crafting new spaces for community. Only time will tell. Recorded: March 14, 2018.

Prof. Shachar Pinsker’s personal website.

A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture, by Shachar Pinsker.

Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe, by Shachar Pinsker.

RELATED PODCASTS

Shari Rabin on Jews on the American Frontier.

David Fishman on Saving Jewish Documents During World War II.

Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of Being Jewish in America.

Other podcasts related to Judaism.

Mark David Hall on Religious Minorities in the U.S. Founding

tonygill — Sun, 29 Jun 2014 08:00:56 +0000

Most people have heard about the role that Congregationalists, Anglicans, and so-called Deists have played in the founding of the United States, but what about Jews, Quakers, and other religious minorities. Prof. Mark David Hall, the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University, returns for his fourth episode to document the important influence exercised by individuals affiliated with lesser-known denominations. This discussion is informed by the scholarship of various authors in a volume Mark co-edited with Daniel Dreisbach entitled Faith and the Founders of the American Republic (see below for link). For those not familiar with Prof. Hall’s work, we start off the interview with a quick summary of his interest in religion during the Founding Era and what importance that may have for our contemporary society.

The first religious minority we focus on are Jews. With only about 2,000 Jews present during the time of the Revolutionary War, one might not think this group would have much influence. Based upon the writings of Prof. David Dalin, Mark notes that Jews were tolerated fairly well throughout colonial history and that George Washington had a very favorable relations with Jews, including Haym Solomon who helped for fund the Continental Army. Mark cites from Washington’s letter to a Newport synagogue to show how Washington’s view on religious freedom reflected more than mere tolerance. He also covers Jewish influence on Alexander Hamilton (educated by Sephardic Jews) and John Adams (a Christian supporter of Zionism), as well as the direct action of Jonas Phillips to help end religious tests in America.

We next talk about the role of Islam, with Mark summarizing the chapter in his volume written by Tommy Kidd. The influence of Islam on the American Founding and subsequent development of the republic was very indirect. First, it was noted that many of the slaves who were exported to the Americas came from Islamic regions of Africa thus there were most likely some Muslim slaves, though the numbers are not certain. Islam was also used in revolutionary era rhetoric to set up the trope of despotism, sometimes used by the Anti-Federalists in their arguments pertaining to the constitutional structure of the new republic. The other important realm in which Islam comes to play in the formation of America’s identity is through the contact with Barbary pirates, one of the first major foreign policy conflicts that had to be managed by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Mark also addresses the controversial interpretation surrounding the Treaty of Tripoli, which is often as evidence that the U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation.

We then move to the topic of Deism, not necessarily a denomination, but nonetheless a real belief system that was floating around in late 18th century America. Most folks are probably more familiar with Deism given that it is often associated with major historical figures of the time such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Mark defines what Deism is, a “squishy definition” at best. He then discusses whether any of these folks fell solidly within the Deist camp using the notion of an “interventionist God” as a baseline. Mark notes that several of the Founders most people associate with Deism — such as Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington — did make reference to an deity who does intervene in human history, most notably George Washington who wrote quite a bit about the role of Providence. When it comes down to it, Mark says that maybe only one or two of the major historical Founders — Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine — would qualify as strictly Deist in their philosophy. Our conversation on Deism tends to focus on the writings of Paine with Mark pointing out that even despite Paine’s Deist bent, he cites Scripture quite liberally in writings such as Common Sense knowing that the American public was more in tune with an orthodox view of Christianity as compared to a more Enlightenment philosophical posture. Mark also uses the general repudiation of Paine’s “Age of Reason” by many of the intellectual leaders of the U.S. at the time to illustrate that Deism may not have been as deeply woven into American elite culture as is now commonly assumed. (It is also at this point in the interview where Mark compliments Tony’s social scientific acumen. Just sayin’.)

We then finish up talking about the use of The Bible in the writings of American Founders, making reference to the scholarship of Daniel Dreisbach, and a handful of other Christian denominations including the Quakers (the denominational affiliation of George Fox University) and the Baptists (the affiliation of Baylor). We spend some time on the thought and influence of John Dickinson and John Hancock, a flamboyant albeit philanthropic Calvinist. Mark also gives us a sneak preview of his current research, something that will probably be heard next year during the Fourth of July! Recorded: June 5, 2014.

Faith and the Founders of the American Republic, edited by Daniel Dreisbach and Mark David Hall.

Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic, by Mark David Hall.

America’s Forgotten Founders, edited by Gary Gregg and Mark David Hall.

RELATED PODCASTS

Mark David Hall on Roger Sherman, Puritan Patriot.

Mark David Hall on Religion and the Founding Fathers.

Should Christians Have Fought in the U.S. War of Independence?

Chris Beneke on Religion, Markets, and the Founding Era.

John Fea on Religion and the American Founding.

Evan Haefeli on the Dutch Origins of Religious Tolerance.

Jonathan Den Hartog on the Spiritual and Political Life of John Jay.

Gary Scott Smith on Presidential Faith.

Thomas Kidd on the Great Awakening.

Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of American Judaism

tonygill — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:45:30 +0000

Your host, Tony Gill, is still on a short sabbatical. In the meantime, enjoy one of his favorite interviews from two years ago. We will return with new interviews shortly.

How has American Judaism changed over the course of the past two centuries? Using an economic approach that focuses on the importance of wage rates and time costs, Prof. Carmel Chiswick — University of Illinois, Chicago and the George Washington University — examines how the socio-economic context of the 19th century had a major impact on how immigrant Jews practiced their religion in America. Prof. Chiswick explains that higher wage rates and the subsequent higher opportunity cost of time led to a shortening of Jewish services, less emphasis on traditional religious education, a preference for secular higher education, and the need to import rabbis, cantors and other religious specialists from Europe. We trace how this influenced the growth of Reform and Conservative Judaism. The conversation then turns attention to the role of education in Jewish progress. While there is some degree of trade-off between religious and secular education, we later examine how traditional religious education (especially study of the Talmud) can act as a complement to secular studies. Other topics explored include the issue of inter-marriage, the relaxation of dietary restrictions, Chabad, and how the creation of modern Israel had a big impact on American Jews. We finish by speculating about the future of American Jewry and its impact on Judaism worldwide. Recorded: April 26, 2011.

RELATED LINKS

Carmel Chiswick’s website at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Carmel Chiswisk’s website at the George Washington University.

The Economics of American Judaism by Carmel U. Chiswick.

The following links are not directly related to the content of the podcast, but were mentioned at the beginning of the episode. They represent folks who have helped direct traffic to our podcast series in recent months. A big thanks to them!

LDS Living.

The Western Tradition blog.

Michael McBride’s The Religious Marketplace.

Brad R.E. Wright’s blog.

Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion.

Internet Imagineering (Neil Luft and crew).