Medicine for the Jewish Nation

Abstract The article presented here aims to look at a discourse started by enlightened Jewish doctors in the late 18th century and that was taken up by the Haskalah. It is the collective discourse about the health of the Jews or, in the language of the time, of the “Jewish nation.” In the Prussian Haskalah and later in its Galician and Polish iterations, this enlightened, academic medical discourse about specific diseases of the Jewish people and their causes was adopted by maskilim to polemicize against the pre-modern way of life of traditional, ‘orthodox’ Jews using scientific reasoning. This was especially true in Eastern Europe, where maskilim demanded religious reform and a transformation of their orthodox way of life. Poverty, uncleanliness, lack of physical exercise and employment, a one-sided focus on religious studies as well as early marriage and having too many children were all identified as the causes of illness, weakness and poverty among Jews.