"The Revival of the Jewish-Christian Debate in the 19th Century: Missionaries, Meshummadim and Maskilim"
November 7, 2019
Professor David Ruderman, the Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History at the University of Pennsylvania, delivered the 2019 Manfred H. Vogel Memorial Lecture on November 7, 2019. Ruderman analyzed the fascinating career of Alexander McCaul, an influential and prolific Christian evangelical missionary who traveled to Warsaw in the nineteenth century to missionize among the Jews of eastern Europe. Ruderman discussed McCaul's polemical, but also admiring attitude toward Hebrew and rabbinic literature, traced the careers of those who converted (meshumadim) under his direction, and demonstrated the lasting impact McCaul had upon the "enlightened" Jews (maskilim) who responded to McCaul and his work.
Event Video: The Revival of the Jewish-Christian Debate in the 19th Century: Missionaries, Meshummadim, and Maskilim