Jewish Literature - Modern Jewish Literature

Modern Jewish Literature

Modern Jews continued to write standard forms of rabbinic literature: Jewish philosophical literature, mystical (Kabbalistic) literature, musar (ethical) literature, halakhic literature, and commentaries on the Bible.

The modern era also saw the creation of what is generally known as "modern Jewish literature," discussed here. Modern Jewish literature emerged with the Hebrew literature of the Haskalah and broke with religious traditions about literature. Therefore, it can be distinguished from rabbinic literature which is distinctly religious in character. Modern Jewish literature was a unique Jewish literature which often also contributed to the national literatures of many of the countries in which Jews lived.

Read more about this topic:  Jewish Literature

Famous quotes containing the words modern, jewish and/or literature:

    Kindness is a virtue neither modern nor urban. One almost unlearns it in a city. Towns have their own beatitude; they are not unfriendly; they offer a vast and solacing anonymity or an equally vast and solacing gregariousness. But one needs a neighbor on whom to practice compassion.
    Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)

    Don: Why are they closed? They’re all closed, every one of them.
    Pawnbroker: Sure they are. It’s Yom Kippur.
    Don: It’s what?
    Pawnbroker: It’s Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.
    Don: It is? So what about Kelly’s and Gallagher’s?
    Pawnbroker: They’re closed, too. We’ve got an agreement. They keep closed on Yom Kippur and we don’t open on St. Patrick’s.
    Billy Wilder (b. 1906)

    The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.
    Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)