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Russian Revolutions of 1917
In the Russian Empire, the year 1917 brought two revolutions, one that ended hundreds of years of tsarist rule and the other that inaugurated nearly three-quarters of a century of Bolshevik or Communist rule. Almost all …
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Russian Theater (Theater)
Despite early governmental prohibitions against Jewish participation in the theater, the period of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century saw strong and even leading Jewish contributions to all aspects of theatri…
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Sabbath
The Sabbath was the focal point of the religious life of East European Jewry. Signs of its imminent approach were already evident in the frenetic activity that characterized Jewish households on Friday mornings and in th…
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Sabbath Rest
The question of Sabbath rest, also called Sunday rest, goes directly to the heart of two fundamental issues that confronted Jews in Eastern Europe as they entered the modern era: the question of relations with the non-Je…
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Sabbatianism in Eastern Europe
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Samizdat
(lit., self-publication), the publication and circulation of uncensored materials in the Soviet Union. Samizdat was not exclusively a Jewish phenomenon: Soviet dissidents of all nationalities had recourse to this mode of…
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Sandz Hasidic Dynasty
Led by the Halberstam family and including many dozens of tsadikim and subdynasties, the Sandz Hasidic dynasty was founded in the mid-nineteenth century in Nowy Sącz (Hasidim always refer to the place as Tsanz) in wester…
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Savran-Bendery Hasidic Dynasty
Hasidic dynasty active from the second decade of the nineteenth century until the Holocaust. The founder was Shim‘on Shelomoh (d. ca. 1802), a disciple of the Magid of Mezritsh, who was a preacher in Savran (Podolia). Sh…
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Schmelkes Family
Prominent rabbinic family. Several members of the Schmelkes family served as rabbis and community leaders in Galicia from the middle of the nineteenth century. Most prominent among them were the rabbis of Przemyśl: Yitsḥ…
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Scholarship in Times of Crisis
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Schul- und Erziehungswesen
Bis zur Aufklärung stand die religiös-traditionelle Bildung im Mittelpunkt jüdischer Erziehung und hatte als identitätsstiftendes Moment hohe Bedeutung. Mit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts begann eine weitreichende Verschi…
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Seminary
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were attempts to reform the training of rabbis and teachers in Europe. Such programs were conducted at seminaries that were modeled on elite state schools under Enlight…
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Senior Teixeira, Familie
Mitglieder der wohlhabenden Kaufmannsfamilie S. T. gehörten im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert zu den reichsten und einflussreichsten portugiesisch-jüdischen Familien in Hamburg und in Amsterdam ( Portugiesisch-Jüd. Gemeinde). A…
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Sephardim
Sephardic Jews were a marginal element in Eastern Europe with the exception of Romanian lands, where because of their relatively larger numbers, they played a somewhat more significant role. Jews expelled from the Iberia…
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Sermons and Sermonic Literature
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Servants
Jewish employment of Christians as servants was widespread in Eastern Europe by the Middle Ages. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, most Jewish-owned businesses and leaseholds hired such servants, as di…
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Settlement and Residential Clustering
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Sexuality
As an aspect of Jewish life, sexuality is considered to be a male religious obligation (concerning ‘onah [sexual relations], procreation, and sexual satisfaction of one’s wife) and source of human intimacy and pleasure; …
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Shapira Family
Hasidic leaders active in the field of publishing. Pinḥas ben Avraham Abba Shapira of Korets (Korzec; 1726/28–1790) was a charismatic Hasidic leader and a member of the Ba‘al Shem Tov’s (Besht’s) circle. Mosheh Shapira (…
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Shomer Yisra’el
(Guardian of Israel), political and ideological society founded in Lemberg (Lwów) at the end of 1868 following the granting of freedom of organization in the Austrian Constitution of 1867. Among its founders were Filip M…
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