Spiritualizing the Secular: The Origins of the Jewish National Movement

Lecture | April 15 | 12:30 p.m. | 223 Moses Hall

Speaker/Performer: Dr. Revital Amiran-Sappir, Jewish Studies, UCB

Sponsor: Religion, Politics and Globalization Program (RPGP))

Dr. Revital Amiran-Sappir, a visiting scholar in Jewish Studies at UC Berkeley, will explore how the Jewish national identity evolved out of an attempt to deal with modernity and to solve a cultural crisis in which many European Jews found themselves in the second half of the 19th century. Concomitant with that, the process of turning the Jewish identity into an identity that carries a political dimension was accompanied by an attempt to transform its religious aspects and reshape it through secular and historical expressions. However, this disburden of religious aspects was not associated with a negligence of spirituality, but rather with alternation of its manifestations. Thus, the evolution of the Jewish national revival was escorted by a search for a modern, national identity that will apply to and cope with the Romantic term Volksgeist.

Event Contact: 510-642-7747