Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook

 

Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2025), by Marc B. Shapiro 

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein

Professor Marc B. Shapiro’s Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook is not the intellectual biography that some readers may expect. Those who approach it hoping for a companion to Yehudah Mirsky’s Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution will instead find a different kind of study: an episodic, source-driven examination of recently published manuscript material, largely from the Shemonah Kevatzim and related notebooks, in which Rav Kook’s more radical, unpolished, and at times somewhat unsettling reflections are brought to light. Shapiro’s aim is both archival and constructive — to recover what has been omitted from the standard, sanitized Rav Kook corpus and to argue that these private notebooks expand, rather than distort, our understanding of one of modern Orthodoxy’s most complex thinkers.

Shapiro organizes the book into nine substantive chapters, each of which treats a distinct conceptual terrain. He devotes sustained attention to Rav Kook’s understanding of halakhah, especially the claim that the commandments are not uniformly beneficial for every individual and that excessive absorption in halakhic detail can diminish spiritual stature. This is connected to what Shapiro calls the “valorization of the masses”: Rav Kook’s conviction that the simple, unlearned Jew often preserves a purer natural morality (mussar tiv‘i) than the learned scholar, whose instincts may be distorted by legal and intellectual abstraction. Shapiro traces the halakhic implications of this view: a future Sanhedrin, in Kook’s vision, could rederive derashot, alter positive commandments, and even authorize women to testify in rabbinic courts — not as a modernizing capitulation, but as a legitimate theological mechanism for encoding moral progress into Torah Law.

A second cluster of themes concerns knowledge, science, and Biblical interpretation. Shapiro presents Rav Kook as holding that the Torah’s purpose is theological and moral rather than scientific or historical. Accordingly, the Six Days of Creation need not be read as literal twenty-four-hour periods, early Genesis narratives may be allegorical, and the story of Cain and Abel may be a moral paradigm rather than a historical report. In these sections, Rav Kook emerges as a thinker who regarded broad engagement with philosophy and the sciences as a religious necessity, warning that a narrow curriculum produces stringency born of ignorance and even diminishes the Divine image in those who refuse to study what their mental capacities allow.

Dr. Shapiro also foregrounds the redefinition of heresy. Rav Kook distinguishes between intellectual doubt and deliberate rejection, creating space for the “unintentional heretic” whose loss of belief is the product of inadequate formulations rather than malice (pace Rav Chaim Brisker). This pastoral leniency is complemented by a strikingly positive theology of other religions: Shapiro marshals passages in which Rav Kook entertains the possibility that Christianity and Islam contain genuine divine significance (taking Maimonides' famous comments about this to the nth level), that their founders may have been divinely assisted, and that righteous non-Jews need not abandon their inherited monotheistic traditions. Finally, the book’s closing chapter examines the eschatological status of animal sacrifice. Here, Rav Kook’s writings are internally tense: he can defend sacrifices as pedagogically appropriate (like Maimonides does in his Guide for the Perplexed), yet also envisions a Messianic future in which animal offerings are abolished and only vegetable offerings remain.

Marc B. Shapiro’s scholarly virtues are evident throughout. He treats the newly-available notebooks with philological care, situates individual passages within broader Kookian debates, and draws on earlier scholarship without simply repeating it. His comparative approach —sometimes bringing voices that agree, sometimes voices that disagree, sometimes setting Rav Kook against himself — is useful because it resists the reduction of these notebooks to a single coherent doctrine. Shapiro's study is a valuable resource for advanced students of modern Jewish thought and for anyone concerned with the relationship between halakhah, morality, and modernity.

Yet, the book also invites a more cautious response. Its architecture is closer to a collection of annotated excerpts and thematic reactions than to a systematic exposition, and readers seeking a unified intellectual portrait of Rav Kook may find the result episodic. More substantively, the very materials on which Shapiro relies raise a hermeneutical problem that the book acknowledges but does not fully resolve. Private notebooks are not finished works; they contain tentative formulations, contradictions, and experimental lines of thought. Some of the passages that Shapiro presents (such as the suggestion that mitzvot may be damaging to certain righteous individuals, or that the founders of Christianity and Islam may have been divinely inspired) read less like settled theological positions than like unguarded jottings or musings. One can appreciate Shapiro’s archival honesty while wondering whether their publication serves Rav Kook’s intellectual legacy or, as some traditional readers will conclude, detracts from it.

From a more Ultra-Orthodox perspective, these texts provide grist for the long-standing suspicion that Rav Kook was — God forbid — some sort of deviant or even antinomian figure. Within some Religious Zionist circles, the opposite danger arises: a kind of Dati Leumi daas Torah that accepts any statement simply because it bears Rav Kook’s name. Shapiro is aware of both dangers, but his own interpretive default is often to maximize the radicalism of a passage, rather than to quarantine it as an undeveloped thought.

At times, the book reads as a charitable attempt to make sense of material that may not have been intended for such close analysis. One might even raise the possibility, however diplomatically, that the sheer volume of Rav Kook’s writing — much of it unpublished and unedited — means that not every line can bear the weight of theological scrutiny. In other words, the possibility that Rav Kook’s nearly graphomaniacal output included thoughts that were never meant to be doctrinal is not seriously entertained. In fact, Shapiro’s project implicitly rejects that possibility, treating the notebooks as "revelatory" of Rav Kook’s true thought, but the evidence does not always force that conclusion.

All this makes Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New a fascinating curiosity, rather than a definitive interpretation. It is not the place to begin for a balanced introduction to Rav Kook, nor does it settle the question of which Rav Kook — mystic theologian or restless experimenter —should command authority. But it will certainly pique the interest of anyone interested in Rav Kook’s thought. Ultimately, as Shapiro wrote in his conclusion, we can just take from Rav Kook's writings whatever resonates with us and reject what clashes with our sensibilities. Shapiro has performed an important scholarly service by bringing difficult, inaccessible, and often deliberately suppressed texts into the light, and he has done so with erudition, candor, and a willingness to let Rav Kook be as uncomfortable as he actually was. For that reason, despite its unresolved problems, the book deserves a place alongside the best recent work on modern Jewish thought.

The Making of an Anglo-Jewish Scholar: The Unconventional Life and Thought of Solomon Yom Tov Bennett (1767-1838)

The Making of an Anglo-JewishScholar: The Unconventional Life and Thought of Solomon Yom Tov Bennett(1767-1838), by David B. Ruderman (De Gruyter, 2024)

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

David B. Ruderman’s compact biography of Solomon Yom Tov Bennett rescues an odd, compelling figure from the footnotes of Anglo-Jewish history and serves up a life that is as instructive as it is uncomfortable. If your interest is in Jewish tradition — its texts, its institutions, and the social pressures that shape how Jews live with their texts — this little book will give you everything you want: vivid episodes, plenty of primary material, and a portrait of a man who was at once learned, quarrelsome, charming to outsiders, and deeply estranged from much of his own community.

Solomon Yom Tov Bennett was born in 1767 in the region of Polotsk (Belarus/Poland) and spent his youth rooted in the traditional educational world of eastern Europe. Ruderman makes clear that Bennett’s early life was that of a serious student of Bible and Talmud: he had a strong yeshivah formation and displayed real facility in classical Jewish learning. But at a young age, he chose a very different path. In the 1790s, he left the traditional world of Eastern Europe for training as a copper-engraver (Copenhagen, then Berlin), and in November 1800 — at age thirty-three — he arrived in London, where he would make his life for nearly forty years.

That beginning explains much of the book’s fascination. Bennett is not a simple archetype. He spent his formative years within the traditional (read: Orthodox) Jewish society of Eastern Europe, yet he remade himself into a professional artisan and later an author who comfortably moved in Christian circles in Western Europe. He taught himself — or perhaps re-applied — the textual precision of his youth to the exacting work of engraving, producing plates for both Jewish and gentile clients. But age and failing eyesight in the 1820s forced him to cut back on his work and he shifted his focus to studying; this shift — from making images to making words — is when Bennett’s literary and polemical life becomes most visible.

Ruderman does not sugarcoat Bennett’s moral awkwardness. He left his first wife and children in Eastern Europe — a fact that his contemporaries repeatedly used to shame him. Bennett later remarried in London. In 1818, he married Elizabeth (known also by her Hebrew name Pesha), who was seventeen at the time while Bennett was fifty-one — a fact that the book records frankly and that only compounds the uneasy picture of his personal life. Ruderman also provides the human detail that the reader craves: Elizabeth outlived him and their household produced a number of children, though family relations remained a fraught feature of Bennett’s biography.

Socially, Bennett was singularly ill-fitted to the mechanisms of Anglo-Jewish communal life. Ruderman traces a long, bitter quarrel with the chief rabbinic leadership — in particular with Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell (1762–1842) — that ended in public rebukes and Bennet’s effective ostracism from the circles that governed synagogue life. One flashpoint, which Ruderman documents in detail, involved Bennett’s willingness to officiate in a marriage that many communal leaders regarded as forbidden: a Jewish man of priestly lineage (a Kohen) marrying a woman who had converted to Judaism as a child. Bennett argued from his reading of classical sources that the union could be legitimate (because the conversion occurred when the woman in question was less than three years old). On the other hand, Chief Rabbi Hirschell and the Mahamad (the lay leadership of the London Jewish community) responded with bans. The dispute reveals everything essential about Bennett: learned enough to argue complex halakhic points, yet politically tone-deaf and insufficiently deferential to communal authority.

And yet Bennett was not a mere provocateur. Ruderman’s close reading of his writings shows a man of genuine intellect and genuine contradictions. Bennett wrote polemics against Christian missionaries — a surprising move for someone who cultivated Christian patrons — and he deployed a robust, even staunchly traditional, defense of Hebrew as a sacred, original, and historically-singular language. He hated what he saw as the overly “academic” reduction of Hebrew to a mere subject of secular philology; he insisted on its sanctity and on the value of classical Jewish commentators as guides to meaning. In that respect, Bennett is an oddball blend of maskil and traditionalist: willing to engage modern intellectual currents and Christian readers, while insisting that the Hebrew text retain theological primacy and that old Jewish commentators remain the court of final appeal.

Ruderman’s archival work makes this double life vivid. He reconstructs Bennett’s network of Christian patrons — including unusual friendships and correspondences with evangelical and genteel women in England who provided him not only with money but with intellectual companionship. The letters and benefactions that Ruderman describes and cites from explain why Bennett, who so often alienated his Jewish brethren, nevertheless found acceptance among certain English elites.

Those documents also shed light on Bennett’s ambition: he wanted to produce an English translation and commentary on the Hebrew Bible that would correct what he saw as the linguistic, legal, and theological distortions of the Authorized (King James) Version. Ruderman shows that Bennett’s translation project was a major, clearly theological undertaking: a large working manuscript survives, an unfinished labor of several hundred (if not over a thousand) pages in which Bennett often leans on Targumic readings and classical Jewish commentators such as Rashi and Radak. His rendering of the Hebrew Bible in English was a decidedly Jewish work.

Ruderman is admirably careful where the record is silent. He cannot tell us precisely when — or if — Bennett ceased to be halakhically observant; the papers and the writings suggest that Bennett always regarded himself as Jewish in identity and in literary commitment even as he increasingly flouted communal norms. Ruderman’s refusal to draw hard lines here is judicious; as a reviewer coming from a strongly traditional viewpoint, however, I feel the urge to make a firmer ethical judgment: Bennet was an oysvorf.

The book is short, readable, and well supplied with primary quotations. Ruderman sprinkles the text with many of Bennett’s own sentences and with reproductions of letters and pamphlets that make Bennett speak for himself. The biography is a model of archival rescue: it gathers passports, engraved plates, pamphlets, and letters and uses them to tell a story that is both local (the petty politics of synagogue life) and transnational (the movement from the Eastern Europe yeshiva to Copenhagen atelier to Berlin printshop to London reading room and the libraries of the gentry).

If you go to Ruderman’s book expecting tidy answers about fidelity, apostasy, or heroic Jewish identity, you will be disappointed. Bennett resists tidy categories: he is part traditionalist, part assimilationist, both a defender of Hebrew’s sanctity and a man who sought the validation of English Christians. Ruderman does not lionize Bennett, nor does he condemn him without cause. He furnishes the documents and essentially invites the reader to weigh them.

For those of us who approach Jewish tradition seriously and who are fascinated by strange careers in Jewish letters, Ruderman’s study is a brisk, sympathetic, and ultimately troubling portrait. Solomon Yom Tov Bennett emerges as both an exemplar of Jewish erudition and a cautionary tale about the social cost of seeking acceptance beyond the communal frameworks that sustain Jewish life. The book is short, accessible, and rich with primary material — an excellent read for a popular audience interested in how Jewish learning migrates, adapts, and sometimes strays when it meets the modern world. 

The First Ten Letters: Secrets of the Universe Hiding in Plain Sight

The First Ten Letters: Secrets of the Universe Hiding in Plain Sight (Mosaica Press, 2022), by Rabbi Raffi Bilek

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

Rabbi Raffi Bilek’s captivating work, The First Ten Letters: Secrets of the Universe Hiding in Plain Sight, presents nothing short of a masterfully conceived and elegantly executed program for presenting the foundational tenets of classical Jewish Thought. With remarkable ingenuity, Rabbi Bilek harnesses the very building blocks of the sacred tongue itself – specifically, the first ten letters of the venerable Hebrew alphabet – employing them as a profound heuristic device to vividly illustrate and deeply explore a constellation of absolutely central philosophical and theological principles that lie at the very heart of our timeless tradition.

This is not a mere compilation of ideas; it is a work of profound synthesis and creative pedagogy. Rabbi Bilek adeptly and frequently deploys a rich arsenal of classical exegetical methodologies – including the venerable arts of gematria (numerical equivalence) and intricate orthographic analysis (scrutinizing the form and structure of the letters themselves) – weaving them together with impressive dexterity. Through these methods, he forges compelling and intricate connections, effectively tethering each of these first ten letters to a distinct, indispensable pillar of Jewish hashkafah (“worldview”). His exploration is consistently anchored in and illuminated by a wealth of relevant and authoritative sources, peppered with citations from the Biblical scripture and the profound depths of the Rabbinic tradition. This provides robust textual scaffolding and substantiation for the profound ideas he presents.

Although the core concepts themselves may indeed form the bedrock of discourse within contemporary Jewish educational and outreach (kiruv) circles, Rabbi Bilek’s truly significant and novel contribution resides precisely in the unique and remarkably cohesive framework he constructs. He doesn't merely present these ideas; he intimately roots them in the very essence of the Hebrew language – the sacred letters that constitute its divine DNA.

Consider, for instance: the letter aleph is masterfully linked to the absolute, unwavering concept of Divine Oneness (echad), thereby highlighting the supreme monotheistic creed that stands as the central, defining pillar of Judaism – the belief in a single, utterly unique, and transcendent God. The letter bet, with its inherent duality of form, becomes the perfect symbol for the profound concept of Bechirah Chofshit, “human free will.” Rabbi Bilek eloquently unpacks the Divine rationale behind endowing humanity with this critical choice between good and evil: it establishes human responsibility, making us accountable agents capable of meriting reward (to accrue blessing, brachah for ourselves) or facing consequences for our divinely significant decisions. Similarly, the letter gimmel finds its conceptual counterpart in the active bestowal of kindness (Gomel Chasadim), while the letter tet resonates deeply with the essential quality of inherent tov (“goodness”), and so forth.

Adding a significant layer of accessibility and engaging charm to this profound intellectual structure is one of the book's most distinctive features: its presentation as a continuous narrative. The entire exploration unfolds organically within the framework of a serendipitous encounter – a fictional dialogue between a learned professor and his inquisitive former student who chance upon one another during the course of an extended airplane journey.

This ingenious adoption of a conversational format places Rabbi Bilek firmly within a venerable and highly respected literary lineage within Jewish philosophical exposition. He consciously and effectively follows the illustrious precedent established by towering Torah giants such as Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (in his immortal Kuzari), Rabbi Yosef Irgas, the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto), and the late Rabbi Avigdor Miller, all of whom astutely utilized fictional dialogues as a powerful vehicle to convey complex theological and ethical truths. Indeed, this pedagogical genre boasts ancient and noble roots, stretching back to the seminal dialogues penned by philosopher Plato himself (of which all later philosophy is said to be mere footnotes).

Let it be unequivocally stated: discerning readers are not delving into this narrative anticipating intricate plot twists or character development; rather, they are drawn to its unparalleled efficacy as a remarkably clear, refreshingly straightforward, and effortlessly digestible vehicle for presenting the fundamental talking points, the core philosophical underpinnings, of contemporary Orthodox Jewish belief and practice. In this regard, Rabbi Bilek's chosen format is an unmitigated triumph of pedagogical clarity.

This book thus stands as a testament to creative scholarship and pedagogical brilliance. It successfully transforms the abstract shapes of the Aleph-Bet into luminous windows through which the profoundest secrets of the Jewish universe are revealed, truly hiding in plain sight. This work is an invaluable resource for both the newcomer seeking a structured entry point into Jewish thought and the seasoned individual desiring a fresh, letter-based perspective on timeless truths, as well as for educators looking for a new way of presenting the timeless tenets that Jews hold so dear.

Jewish Hungarian Orthodoxy: Piety and Zealotry

 

Jewish Hungarian Orthodoxy: Piety and Zealotry (Routledge, 2024) by Menachem Keren-Kratz

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

Like the terms Poland and Lithuania, Hungary in the Jewish historical consciousness is not coterminous with Hungary in the geo-political sense, but rather encompasses a much vaster area than is included in the country known as Hungary. The Hungarian Jewish community of modern times began in earnest in the 1700s, with Jews flocking to the Kingdom of Hungary from many different directions. But as they developed, the Jewish communities in the different parts of Greater Hungary had different flavors: Northwest Hungary (closer to the city of Pressburg, now known as Bratislava) comprised mostly of Jews from Germany. These non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews — whom the author calls “Ashkenazim” in line with the pre-Holocaust nomenclature — followed the lead of Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Chasam Sofer), who served as the Chief Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva at Mattersdorf (in modern-day Austria) before assuming the mantle in Pressburg. These Jews differed from the mostly Hasidic communities in the northeast, which were comprised of Jews who mainly came from Galicia. Finally, the Jews in Southern Hungary were more accultured, and that region served as the bastion of the Neolog Jewish community, but was also home to a relatively-small number of Orthodox Jews and communities.

Menachem Keren-Kratz’s Jewish Hungarian Orthodoxy: Piety and Zealotry tackles the complex make-up of Orthodox Judaism within the historical boundaries of "Greater Hungary.” To understand the topic of this book, one must be familiar with the kehillah system that dominated Europe, whereby Jews belonged to semi-autonomous communal organizations to which they paid dues and from whom they received religious and civil services. A crucial development occurred in the mid-19^th century, when Austro-Hungarian policy in Hungary allowed for multiple kehillot in one locale. In Neolog-dominated areas, Orthodox Jews often seceded from the official kehillah to form strictly traditional communities adhering to Halacha. Communities refusing alignment with either the Orthodox or Neolog were deemed "Status Quo," and were often ostracized by Extreme Orthodox groups.

This book thus explores the intricate, often fractious relationships and surprising alliances between these communities — Orthodox, Neolog, and Status Quo — both pre-WWI within Greater Hungary and post-WWI after Hungarian Jewry was fractured across new national borders. For example, following the first World War, Maramureș and the rest of Transylvania became part of Romania, Slovakia and the Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Czechoslovakia, the Burgenland became part of Austria, and other pieces of Greater Hungary were annexed to Italy and the newly-created Yugoslavia. Keren-Kratz also details the umbrella organizations representing these communities to the government and notes the frequent disconnect between a kehillah's official stance and the personal practices of its representatives. For example, he made note of the phenomenon of non-observant Jews serving as officials in the Orthodox community.

But more than that, Keren-Kratz focuses on intra-Orthodox conflicts: the friction between non-Hasidic "Ashkenazim" and Hasidim; disputes between Orthodox and Status Quo-affiliated Jews; and even Hasidic secessions forming "Sephardi" communities (called so because the Hasidim pray a kabbalistically-infused form of the Ashkenazi rite known as Nusach Sefard, which is somewhat similar to the Sephardic tradition).

Zionism was another major flashpoint. While Orthodox Jews obviously shunned secular Zionism, pragmatic arrangements with Mizrachi (Religious Zionists) sometimes occurred. Agudas Yisrael, originally non-Zionist but supportive of religious settlement in Palestine, held the mainstream anti-Zionist position pre-1948. Yet, Extreme Orthodox groups in Hungary even rejected Agudah itself as too accommodating. The book tracks how communities navigated this issue, with pragmatism sometimes overriding ideology and — as the author argues was the case regarding the Holocaust — ideology sometimes prevailing over practicality.

The difference between Orthodox Judaism and Neolog Judaism centered on whether one was willing to undertake to continue observing halacha as Jews had traditionally done since time immemorial. While there were always heretical Jews or deviants, Neolog was like a Reform Judaism in its rejection of halacha as an officially binding concept. That essentially made them a non-nomian, and sometimes even an antinomian, movement. The reviewer observes that while the author frames Orthodoxy's rejection of Neolog as innovative, the true novelty lies in a Jewish community officially abandoning traditional Jewish practice yet stubbornly claiming a Jewish identity. Orthodoxy, apart from its necessary response to this new phenomenon, simply maintained the age-old Jewish way of life.

Although one of the common requirements of Orthodox communities was affirming fealty to the dictates of Shulchan Aruch, this book overlooks the nuance that many individuals and rabbis within Neolog communities also remained personally observant (to varying degrees). Non-Hungarian parallels to this sort of traditional Jewish observance that was still in tune with secular (in this case, Hungarian) culture can be seen in German Neo-Orthodoxy (à la Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch) or contemporary Modern Orthodoxy, which are totally halachically observant but suffused with (German/American) culture. This stands in stark contrast with the contemporary Reform or Conservative movements that have essentially jettisoned the notion of halacha altogether.

In that vein, the author could have stressed how even in one family, brothers might have been affiliated with different communities, even if their personal level of religiosity were more or less the same. For example, Rabbi Yaakov Koppel Reich served as the Orthodox rabbi of Budapest, while his brother Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Reich was the rabbi of the Neolog community in Bonyhad. Similarly, Rabbi Moshe Blau was a leader of the Agudas Yisrael movement in Jerusalem, while his brother Rabbi Amram Blau was a co-founder of Neturei Karta in Jerusalem. [Speaking of Neturei Karta, this reviewer feels that the author gave too much prominence and weight to a group of organizations that at best represent a handful of families and individuals, most of whom suffer from mental illness. Moreover, that group is not necessary a Hungarian Jewish phenomenon, as Rabbi Amram Blau’s co-founder, Rabbi Aharon Katzenellenbogen, was actually of Litivsh extraction.]

The narrative presented by this book provides accounts of prominent Hungarian rabbis and their activities — for example, it talks about Rabbi Moshe Schick of Chust (who was an “Ashkenazi” Jew who served as the rabbi of a community in Northeast Hungary), Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky (rabbinic leader of the Orthodox community in Galanta, before he made aliyah and became the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem), and Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro of Munkács (an anti-Zionist rabbi who was an important Talmudic scholar and Hassidic Master). The book also gives special attention to the illustrious Teitelbaum dynasty from Sighet/Satmar. They came on to the scene in the late 1700s when Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum (author of Yismach Moshe) assumed the rabbinate of Ujhely, and reached their peak with their most famous descendant Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar in the late 1900s. In offering these accounts, the author analyzes the political dynamics governing inter-communal relations before and after the post-WWI territorial dismemberment and the rabbis’ roles in those dynamics.

The author presents this history by synthesizing information from many secondary (scholarly) sources, as well as original research from primary sources (through contemporaneous Hungarian Jewish press). These sources are copiously referenced in the endnotes after each chapter. The author focuses more on the political and polemic aspects of this history, but not so much about the ideas. Thus, the book's strength lies in its political and polemical history.

To that end, even though the author discusses the rabbis much, he rarely cites their own works and what they said about their own positions (although the book’s conclusion chapter is somewhat of an exception to this). This reviewer sees it as a significant methodological flaw to not engage with those primary sources written by the rabbis themselves. Engaging with the rabbinic writings themselves could have helped shed light on the nuances of the exact positions taken by those very rabbis it discusses (e.g., Rabbi Moshe Sofer, Rabbi Moshe Schick, Rabi Shaul Bruch, Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro, the Teitelbaums, Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam of Cluj, etc…). These sources, addressing issues like separation from Neolog communities, educational policies, and ideology, are crucial for understanding the rabbis' own positions and motivations. For example, Halachic responsa literature from Hungary deals with questions like to what extent Orthodox Jews ought to separate from Neolog (and Status Quo) Jews, inasmuch as whether, for example, they would need to build a separate mikveh. As this book makes clear, the question of general education was a flashpoint issue, but the author fails to notice that Rabbi Moshe Sofer — the hero of Hungarian Jewry — himself already wrote about when studying the maths and sciences (beyond what it is required for understanding Torah) is appropriate.

It is probably because of this oversight that Keren-Kratz sometimes oversimplifies ideological differences. For instance, he reduces the Orthodox-Neolog schism primarily to disputes over secular education and the knowledge of foreign languages, with the more hardline Orthodox rejecting such liberal educational policies and the Neolog pushing for such policies. While relevant, especially in certain regions, this characterization does not capture the full theological, cultural, and halachic depth of the divide. No doubt the author addresses these issues in greater details in his numerous other articles and books on the subject of Hungarian Orthodoxy, but these issues were not fully fleshed out in this work.

There are also minor historical inaccuracies or misstatements peppered throughout the book. For some quick examples, despite what the book records: Rabbi Bengis’ personal name was Zelig Reuven (not Reuven Zelig), Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman was not from Brisk, Gateshead is not a city, and an eiruv is not symbolic. The author also confuses rabbinic ordination with rabbinic appointment over a certain jurisdiction, but that is just a matter of semantics.

The author frequently speculates, particularly about the motives behind the actions of organizations and rabbis. These unsupported assertions, especially concerning Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum's supposed political maneuverings/machinations and the motivations behind his moves, are often identifiable by the absence of endnotes or references. Despite sometimes presenting the author’s own opinion as facts, in general, this book is otherwise a reliable work of historical research and should serve as an important resource for future research.

Most of the political moves and community-building detailed in his book was unfortunately rendered moot by the Holocaust, which quickly devastated Hungarian Jewry in a few months in 1944, destroying almost everything that was built. After the war, some Orthodox and Neolog communities were re-established in Hungary, but they never achieved the same glory as pre-war Hungarian Jews, which were but a shell of themselves.

The final chapters of this book discuss how some of what was found amongst Hungarian Jewry was transplanted abroad — mainly, to New York, Israel, England, and Belgium, but also to Montreal, Melbourne, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. The truth is that the discussion in the contemporary context is largely irrelevant because the kehillah structure has all but disappeared nowadays. To that end, contemporary Orthodox Jews tend, for example, to pray in whatever Orthodox synagogue happens to be most convenient for them, regardless of ideology. For instance, when the contemporary Satmar Rebbes vacation in Palm Springs, California, they have no qualms about praying in a Chabad synagogue, despite the wide ideological gaps between Satmar and Chabad.

This book is very personal to me because all four of my grandparents are from Greater Hungary and were native Hungarian speakers. My paternal grandfather was from Munkács in the northeast, my paternal grandmother was from Bonyhád in the south, and my mother’s parents were from the Galanta area near Pressburg. Despite my lifelong interest in Hungarian Orthodoxy, I gained significant new understandings of the complex political dynamics within and between Hungarian Orthodox Jewish communities. While the book provides valuable historical research, particularly on communal politics, its avoidance of primary rabbinic sources and occasional oversimplifications represent missed opportunities for a deeper exploration of the "Piety and Zealotry" promised in its title. Ultimately, Keren-Kratz provides a crucial, detailed map of Hungarian Orthodoxy's fractious political landscape, offering profound insights that helped me contextualize my own family's diverse roots within this complex world.