Tuesday, April 09, 2013

On "Black Jews" i.e. Talmudists, and "White Jews" i.e. Rationalists

I don't believe I'd ever come across this. Has anyone else seen mid-19th century Orthodox or old-style traditional Jews in Germany referred to as Black Jews, and Reform Jews as White?

From The Missionary Chronicle December 1846.


4 comments:

  1. see R. Amnon Yitzhak's famous "seedless watermelon" comment on p. 25 of the PDF here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.davidlehmann.org%2Fdavid-docs-pdf%2FPub-pap%2FHoly%2520Pirates.pdf&ei=rVFkUfqpCoXb4APrg4H4DA&usg=AFQjCNFWTQhHnx_CrlOGcsvg3Mn6MamHWg&sig2=CF0cqHlW1Ya89oqZq4NWzA

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  2. I've never heard of this black and white classification in 19th century Germany. But you know that in Israeli Hebrew black hatters are referred to as שחורים.

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  4. Well, like shragi getzel said, the black /white nomenclature in Israel is common. [I always used to hear that Chevron was the whitest of the black yeshivas, and KBY was the blackest of the wite yeshivas.]

    Call it what you will, the basic difference has been around forever. I would even classify the differences of the tannaim R. Meir and R.Shimon in the same vein.

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