“Krzemień’s book makes a significant contribution to Haskalah’s scholarship. She manages to construct a nuanced and coherent portrayal of a Jewish intellectual within Mendelssohn’s circle, yet underlining his individuality and consequently, the multidimensionality of the Haskalah.”

— Anna Zabraniak, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies

“Dubno is a relatively obscure figure, but the book makes a strong case that he is an interesting one. He was an Eastern European Jew of traditional religiosity and was widely recognized as a scholar of Hebrew grammar in his day. This study contributes to an understanding of the non-monolithic nature of the Jewish Enlightenment. It is a a fine work of scholarship that will mainly appeal to other scholars specializing in the Haskalah ( Jewish Enlightenment).”

— Shmuel Ben-Gad, AJL News & Reviews

“Kremzien… weaves a variety of sources together in order to create a rich tapestry of the connection between the Haskalah and Eastern European Jewish culture.”

— Tradition

“This wonderful and comprehensive study of one of the less known but prominent and moderate agents of Jewish modernity helps us understand the complexity of the modern Jewish cultural project in the eighteenth century. Dubno, committed to tradition, represents the multifarious phenomenon of the Jewish Diaspora in Europe which included individuals with heterogeneous views. The book is a major contribution to the new scholarship on the Jewish Enlightenment, justly emphasizing the East European origins of the Haskalah.”

— Shmuel Feiner, The Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany, Bar Ilan University

“This is a much, much needed and important book, impressively wide yet precise in source basis, innovative yet crystal-clear in analysis, and bold yet convincing in argumentation. Through the intellectual biography of a maskil, Talmudist, and Hebraist, Solomon Dubno, this impressive study helps us understand much more: the trajectories of the Jewish Enlightenment and the complex interrelation between East and Central European versions of the Haskalah in both their intellectual and social dimensions. A must-read for anybody interested in early modern and modern Jewish culture, both Western and Eastern.”

— Marcin Wodziński, Professor of Jewish history and literature, University of Wrocław

Zuzanna Krzemień (1987-2021) received her doctorate from the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department at University College London. She held fellowships from the Posen Foundation and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and served as the curator of East European collections in the British Library in London. 

Noëmie Duhaut is a research associate at the Institute of European History in Mainz, Germany. She is currently finishing a book manuscript on Jewish internationalism in the context of post-Ottoman state-building in the Balkans. Her second book project is a biography of the nineteenth-century French Jewish leader Adolphe Crémieux. Her work has appeared in French Historical Studies, European History Yearbook and Archives Juives.

Wojciech Tworek is assistant professor in the Taube Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław. He is the author of Eternity Now (SUNY, 2019) which examines the teachings of Shneur Zalman of Liady, the founder of Chabad Hasidism. Currently he is completing a book on the Chabad community in interwar Poland and – together with Marcin Wodziński – an anthology of Hasidic stories.

Monika Biesaga studied Information and Library Science, and Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In 2021 she received her PhD from the Jagiellonian University with a historical study on Jewish libraries in interwar Poland (1918-1939). Apart from the history of Jewish libraries, her research interests include also the fate of Jewish book collections after the Second World War.

A Note from the Editors

Preface: Zuzanna Krzemień at University College London

A Note on the Presentation of Source Materials

Introduction

   Eastern European participation in the Jewish Enlightenment: the lessons of one life

   A Jewish scholar's life between Volhynia, Berlin, and Amsterdam

   Re-orientations: the scope and limits of Jewish intellectual transformation in the Age of Enlightenment

   Dubno, Hebrew Literature, and the Haskalah

   Chapter outline

1. Solomon Dubno's Booklists

   Introduction

   Book collecting in early modern times

   The content of Solomon Dubno’s library

     General overview

     Methods of book collecting

     Maskilic works

     Non-Jewish books and works on Christianity

     Rabbinic literature

     Authors with the largest number of books in Dubno’s booklist

     Philosophy

     Poetry and belles lettres

     History and contemporary Jewish conflicts

     Grammar

     Science

     Dubno’s collex

Conclusion

2. Dubno and the Biur Project

   The publication of the Biur

   The conflict between Mendelssohn and Dubno

   Dubno’s role in the publication of the Biur

   The authorship of Alim li-terufah

   The Biur and the Jewish tradition of biblical textual criticism

   The Biur as a debate with Christianity

   The reaction to the publication of the Biur

   Speculations regarding Dubno’s withdrawal from the Biur project

   Dubno’s own Pentateuch edition

   Conclusion

3. Dubno and the Renewal of Hebrew Language

   The study of Hebrew grammar among Ashkenazi Jewry

   Dubno’s views on Hebrew grammar

   The status of the Hebrew language in the maskilic community

   Enlightenment thinkers’ views on language

   Dubno’s belief in the divine nature of Hebrew

   Dubno’s view of the German Pentateuch translation

   Conclusion

4. Dubno’s Poetry and Belles Lettres

   Introduction

   Maskilic Hebrew poetry in the eighteenth century

   “Yuval ve-Na’aman”

   Dubno’s poetry

   Works wrongly attributed to Dubno

   Conclusion

Conclusions

Bibliography

Appendix

Se’u enekhem

Shir kashur min me’ah yetedot

Shir na’eh al midat ha-ḥanupah