This book illuminates important issues faced by Orthodox Judaism in the modern era by relating the life and times of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (1859–1935). In presenting Yudel Rosenberg’s rabbinic activities, this book aims to show that Jewish Orthodoxy could serve as an agent of modernity no less than its opponents. Yudel Rosenberg’s considerable literary output will demonstrate that the line between “secular” and “traditional” literature was not always sharp and distinct. Rabbi Rosenberg’s kabbalistic works will shed light on the revival of kabbala study in the twentieth century. Yudel Rosenberg’s career in Canada will serve as a counter-example to the often-expressed idea that Hasidism exercised no significant influence on the development of American Judaism at the turn of the twentieth century.
Table of Content
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Preface
1. Introduction: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg and the Paradigms of Jewish Modernity
2. On a Spiderweb Foundation: Yudel Rosenberg’s Life in Small-Town Poland (1859–1889)
3. A Rabbi and Rebbe in Urban Poland (1890–1913)
4. “Allright! It’s America!”: A Rabbi in Toronto (1913–1918)
5. “The Rabbis Are for the Dollar”: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg and the Kosher Meat Wars of Montreal (1919–1935)
6. “Better to Be in Gehinnom”: Yudel Rosenberg’s Halakhic Voice
7. A “Folk Author”: Yudel Rosenberg as Storyteller
8. “Almost Alone”: Yudel Rosenberg as Preacher
9. Magic, Science, and Healing
10. “Those Who Understand Kabbala Are Extremely Rare in OIr Generation”: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg as Kabbalist
11. What Is Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Legacy?
A Chronological Bibliography of the Writings of Rabbi Yehuda Yudel Rosenberg
General Bibliography
Index
About the author
Ira Robinson is Chair in Quebec and Canadian Jewish Studies in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, where has taught since 1979. He has written, edited, and translated seventeen books, including Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, which won the Kenneth Smilen Award for Judaica non-fiction; Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century, which won a Toronto Jewish Book Award; Moses Cordovero’s Introduction to Kabbala: An Annotated Translation of His Or Ne’erav; Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896-1930, which won a J.I. Segal Prize; A History of Antisemitism in Canada; History, Memory, and Jewish Identity, and, most recently, Les Juifs Hassidiques de Montréal (2019). He is president of the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, and past president of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. He is the 2013 winner of the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.
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