Abstract
“Jewish colonialism” began in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Western European communities fought to instill values such as Haskala,
emancipation, and acculturation among Middle Eastern Jews, in order
to rescue them from what appeared as “inferiority” to European eyes.
The central objective was to transform Middle Eastern Jews into citizens
with equal rights who could contribute to the general society in their
countries.
The Alliance Israélite Universelle society, that was founded in
Paris in 1860, established a network of modern educational institutions
throughout Middle Eastern countries. Middle Eastern Torah scholars
from this region were in the position of responding to Haskala ideas and
especially to the question of modern education brought from abroad by
European Jews.
The present study deals with one of the greatest rabbis of the Middle
East in the modern period, Rabbi Isaac Aboulafia, Chief Rabbi of the
Damascus community between 1883 and 1895, in his role as educational
revolutionary. The study examines the relationship of Aboulafia to the
Alliance Israélite Universelle and to the issue of modern education as
it arose with the renewal of the society's activity in Damascus in 1880,
after a lapse of about ten years.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 5-27 |
| Journal | International Journal of Jewish Education Research |
| Volume | 4 |
| State | Published - 2013 |