The Age of Haskalah: Studies in Hebrew Literature of the Enlightenment in Germany/Struggle for change: Studies in the Hebrew enlightenment in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century/The circle of Hame'asef writers at the dawn of the Haskalah/Moses Mendelssohn: Chains of tradition/The gate to Haskalah: An annotated index to Hame'asef, the first Hebrew journal/Kinds of genre in Haskalah literature: Types and topics

The Eternal Maskil

Moshe Pelli. The Age of Haskalah: Studies in Hebrew Literature of the Enlightenment in Germany. Studies in Judaism in Modern Times, vol. 5. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979, 255 pp.

_____. Bema'avkei temurah: 'Iyunim bahaskalah ha'ivrit begermanyah beshilhei hame'ah hayud het [Struggle for change: Studies in the Hebrew enlightenment in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century]. Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1988, 194 pp.

_____. Dor hame'asfim beshahar hahaskalah [The circle of Hame'asef writers at the dawn of the Haskalah]. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001, 223 pp.

_____. Mosheh Mendelssohn: Bekhavlei masoret [Moses Mendelssohn: Chains of tradition]. Tel Aviv: Alef, 1972, 156 pp.

_____. Sha'ar lahaskalah: Mafteah mu'ar lehame'asef, ktav ha'et ha'ivri harishon [The gate to Haskalah: An annotated index to Hame'asef, the first Hebrew journal]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000, 221 pp.

_____. Sugot vesugyot besifrut hahaskalah ha'ivnt: Hag'aner hamaskih va'avizareihu [Kinds of genre in Haskalah literature: Types and topics]. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1999, 357 pp.

What is the literature of the Haskalah worth? Why should we read it? Granted that the period has high historical interest, representing a watershed moment in Jewish history-the point of rapid and startling transition from "traditional" to "modern" Jewish society-does Haskalah writing possess a literary, as opposed to merely a historical, value? These are some of the questions that in recent years have been engaging Moshe Pelli, the foremost scholar of the Haskalah in the United States and one of the most prominent worldwide. He is decidedly in the affirmative camp, and his answers to these questions, relying on recent scholarship of genre theory, provide some of the richest readings of this literature yet and strengthen the claim of Haskalah supporters that this body of writing is rewarding to read in and of itself. For Pelli, along with other senior Haskalah scholars, a defense of the literature that they teach and write about has particular urgency today. The number of classes devoted to this material continues to decline in Israel and elsewhere, a trend that threatens to render both Haskalah literature and its scholarly pursuit a dead, dustbound field of letters. Pelli's remarkably productive scholarship aims to impress upon contemporary Hebrew readers a sense of this material's liveliness and imaginative power.

Moshe Pelli's career...