The secular enlightenment of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Jewish followers of the haskalah were known as the *maskilim and they were bitterly opposed by the *Orthodox *mitnaggedim. Moses *Mendelssohn is regarded as the forerunner of the Haskalah and enlightenment was brought about by educated *Jews increasingly wanting to experience secular culture. The first school influenced by the Haskalah was the Berlin Freischule opened in 1778.
The curriculum was taught in German rather than *Yiddish and included science, history, geography, French and mathematics. The maskilim were anxious to achieve emancipation from the civil disabilities imposed by the European governments against Jews and were extremely patriotic towards their host countries. The movement spread across Europe as far as Russia in the 19th Century. Increasingly Judaism came to be seen as a religious system rather than as a peoplehood and the community became more diverse. (See also *MASKILIM, *MENDELSSOHN, MOSES, *MITNAGGEDIM, *PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM, *REFORM JUDAISM).
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