Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands

In following the lives of Mendel Lefin and his disciple Joseph Perl, Sinkoff (Jewish studies and history, Rutgers U.) unfolds the cultural and intellectual history of Polish Jews' encounter with the West, the European Enlightenment and the Jewish Enlightenment in 18th century Berlin. Using published and archival literary sources, she focuses on Lefin's cultural program for Polish Jews. With this study, Sinkoff seeks to recover the forgotten history of intellectual vitality among Polish Jews and …