Miriam Gillis-Carlebach Fellowship

From Haskalah to Religious Reform: Eduard Kley (1789–1867) as a Transitional Figure

July – September 2023

One of the founders of the Hamburg Temple in 1818 and the principal of „Die Israelitische Freischule in Hamburg“ since 1817, Dr. Eduard Kley was a committed educator. His educational vision was, in his own words: „Der Hauptzweck und Mittelpunkt alles Bestrebens bei dieser Schulanstalt soll für immer bleiben: die Kinder zu sittlich- und religiös-guten Menschen zu bilden, sie zu brauchbaren Gliedern der Gesellschaft zu machen, damit sie in ihrem künftigen Berufe geschickt und fleissig seien in guten Werken“ (Jonas, 1859).
In the first decade of the 19th century, Kley lived in Berlin. Upon finishing his academic studies, he began to work as a private tutor for some local Jewish families. Following his appointment as a school principal in Hamburg, his ideology and pedagogic vision evolved and shifted from a Haskalah-centered outlook to Jewish religious reform.
The research project is dedicated to overviewing the persona, writings, and lifelong work of Eduard Kley as a key figure in the transition from the Haskalah to Jewish reform at the beginning of the 19th century in Germany. I believe that a scholarly focus on Kley will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the history of the Jewish Reform movement, especially in its early, pioneering stages. The study will thus focus on the crucial period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in order to trace the manifold connections between the Haskalah and the Reform movement in German Jewry.

Naama Jager-Fluss is a scholar of Jewish History with a special focus on 19th century Europe. She received her M.A. from Bar Ilan University in 2017 and her PhD from Bar Ilan University in 2022. Her articles on the Jewish Reform Movement and on Gotthold Salomon were published in the journals Tabur, Chidushim and Reshit.