Social status and authority in 19th century Lithuanian-Jewish communities
ENThe historiography of the 19th century East European rabbinate was traditionally focused either on well known figures and heads of famous yeshivot, such as Rabbis Elijah of Vilna, Isaac Elchanan Spektor of Kaunas and Isaac of Volozhin, or on rabbis who were involved in ideological and political movements. This common tendency of describing an entire social stratum via analyzing different perspectives of its intellectual and political elites is prevalent also in orthodox historiography. Yet, we must keep in mind that while concentrating on those, who are famous and publicly involved nationwide, the historical picture depicted in these works does not represent, in any way, the typical life-cycle and professional careers of hundreds of contemporary communal rabbis. In fact, this stratum of “simple” nineteenth-century rabbis was hardly given any attention in historical research. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to examine one aspect of the subject under discussion, i.e., the actual status of the nineteenth-century Lithuanian communal rabbi by analyzing his relationships with the communal lay elite as well as with his congregants. [Extract, p. 174]
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