Alexander McCaul (1799-1863) was one of the most prominent figures in The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst Jews during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1837, he published a formidable attack against the Talmud entitled The Old Paths. His work engendered a series of long responses from Jewish intellectuals attempting to defend traditional Judaism from his stinging criticisms. Among the most significant of these responses were several written by Eastern European Maskilim who had previously condemned the rabbis and their restrictive Talmudic laws in calling for radical religious and educational reform. The irony of these same critics of Rabbinic Judaism feeling obliged to defend their hallowed traditions is at the heart of Prof. Ruderman’s study of McCaul’s critique and the Jewish response. Their treatises constitute invaluable Jewish self-reflections on the meaning of their newly constructed identities in the nineteenth century.
Prof. David B. Ruderman is Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and served as Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).
