© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/18750214-12341252 Also available online – brill.com/zuto Zutot 10 (2012) 29-40 ZUTOT: Perspectives on Jewish Culture brill.com/zuto BETWEEN REFORM AND APOLOGETICS: THE PUBLIC LETTER BY ISAAK MARKUS JOST ON ‘LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR’ AND RABBI ZVI HIRSCH KALISCHER’S RESPONSE Asaf Yedidya* Bar Ilan University, Israel Abstract This article analyzes how, in a letter published in 1841, historian Isaak Markus Jost attempted to alter the Talmud’s attitude towards non-Jews so radically that neither Jews nor gentiles would have anything more to say, and the complex response of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer to this attempt. Keywords Reform Judaism; apologetic; religious tolerance; Isaak Markus Jost; Zvi Hirsch Kalischer In his book Exclusiveness and Tolerance Jacob Katz expounds on the halakhic-societal attitude of German rabbis towards Christians from the eleventh century to the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon convened the ‘Sanhedrin.’ He points out that initially the rabbis viewed Christians as idolaters, as ordained in the Talmud, with all that implies regarding the moral double standard towards Jews and towards Christians. At the same time, for practical reasons this attitude was tempered in certain cases, so that Jews could proft from trading with their Christian neighbors. 1 Katz also cites the unusual and relatively unknown stand taken by Rabbi Menachem Meiri, who lived and worked in Provence in the second half of the thirteenth century. According to him, Christians and Muslims were ‘nations fenced in by religion’ rather than idolaters, and therefore they should not to be * I would like to thank Prof. Michael Meyer, Dr. Maoz Kahana and Dr. Nathan Shifriss for reading previous drafts of this article and providing insightful comments. 1 J. Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (Oxford 1961) 24–36.