How did religious modernization in Europe differ from religious modernization among Sephardic Jews? What factors in Sephardic life in Muslim lands led to a different experience of modernization?
There were political-legal differences between Europe and the Middle East/North Africa in regards to modernity. In Europe during this time of religious modernization, the Jews experienced both enlightenment and secularization. The presence of intense internal social and ideological tensions was noted as well. In regards to Europe, many rabbis felt that this religious modernization was doing more harm than good by threatening the actual existence of traditional Judaism. The European rabbis developed a plan to attack the threat of modernization by introducing Orthodoxy. This strategy was created in order to oppose the radical movements that were being introduced by the modernists. The main concern of modernity in Europe was that it would eventually endanger the future of Judaism. Basically, they believed that the Jewish religion had absolutely no flexibility and needed to stay the way it is.
The reaction to modernity was quite different in North Africa and the Middle East than in Europe. Due to the absence of Islamic anticlericalism, many Muslims chose to view these changes as compliant with the norms and spirit of Islam. Unlike the rabbis in Europe creating Orthodoxy, Islamic religious leaders decided not to create new forms of the Islamic religious life. The Jews of North Africa and the Middle East chose a more civil path in regards to their reaction towards modernity.
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