Cohen wrote The Natural and the Supernatural Jew (1962), tracing the history of Jewish theology from the late 15th century, through the German Jewish renaissance, and into what he saw as a hopeful yet troubled American Jewish scene.
When he was fourteen his father sent him to study at the Prague yeshivah, after exacting a promise from him "that he would not mingle with the Moderns" who were then gradually coming into prominence through the influence of Moses Mendelssohn.
As a young man, Bublick drifted away from traditional Jewish life for the Haskalah (Enlightenment) Movement, but becoming convinced of its falsehood, he returned to become a staunch advocate for Orthodox Judaism.
Although Hurwitz's stated intention in the book is to defend the theology and practice of traditional Judaism, he is often considered an early member of the Haskalah.
Revealer of Secrets, first published in 1819, is an epistolary novel by Joseph Perl, a proponent of Jewish emancipation and Haskalah.
Haskalah |
The Hebrew writers of the Haskalah, the Jewish expression of the Enlightenment, greatly admired Luzatto's secular writings and deemed him the founder of modern Hebrew literature.
He was raised a Hasidic Jew in Vinnytsia, Podolia (now in Ukraine), but revolted against his violent schoolteachers and cabalist father by aligning himself with the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment.