Jewish life in Europe: Impending catastrophe, or imminent renaissance?

Europe holds a unique status in Jewish history. For centuries, it played host to the intellectual heart of Jewish life, and provided the backdrop for many of the greatest Jewish cultural developments in the realms of Jewish art, music and literature. It was the cradle of the Enlightenment, the continent which produced the philosophies of Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Descartes and Locke, and the region that, over the course of a century, emancipated the vast majority of Jews in its midst, thereby allowing them legal and political access to mainstream society. It witnessed the emergence of Hassidut, and gave birth to denominational Judaism – modern Orthodoxy, the Reform, Conservative, Liberal and Neolog movements – as well as a haredi reaction against all of these. And it provided the setting and motivation for Zionism, which set in motion one of the most significant developments in all of Jewish history – the establishment of the State of Israel.