Sefer kise Shelomoh (Solomon’s Throne)

The famous and the obscure, women and men, in epitaphs and private letters, ethical wills, cookbooks, and religious reflections, all reflect aspects of Jewish life in a period of great transition.

Jewish writing in the period spanning 1750–1880 reflects the profound changes that confronted Jews in modernity. Some writers self-consciously broke with traditional and religious models; others definitely embraced it.

Hasidism, with its focus on pietism and spirituality, is one among the genuinely new forms of Jewish identity to develop in the period 1750–1880.