New Turns in Jewish Historiography?

JQR 104/2, 2014

History has always held an important place in the forming, inflection and reflection of Jewish identity. The emancipation movement and subsequent Jewish enlightenment in 19th-century Germany brought about a major crisis in Jewish identity regarding issues around integration to modern German society. From this emerged both an intellectual and a religious movement that sought different ways to negotiate Judaism within a Christian hegemony. But these movements were in conflict with one another, each vying to support the correct means of social participation and integration without assimilation. History, more precisely historiography, became the central element of delineating one form of modern Jewish identity upon which this conflict was waged. In this article, I will outline the important role historiography took in the rise of the scientific study of Judaism or Wissenschaft des Judentums in modern Germany, the emergence of the Jewish Reform movement and its impact on Jewish socio-religious identity, and conclude by delineating the second-generation of Wissenschaft des Judentums and its negation of the Reform movement. This essay underscores the connections between historiography and identity. Reform Judaism developed out of the 19th-century emancipation movement in Germany that allowed Jews, and other ethnic minorities, to participate openly in civil society as citizens. Within this inclusivist social thrust, the German Jewish community were offered new opportunities to engage modes of cultural production—i.e. academia, art, governance, economics and business. This, along with new secular-modernist definitions of citizenship and an identification with the nation-state, developed a need to reinterpret Judaism from its conceptions of the past to fit modern views. However, Jewish emancipation came with the price of assimilation to Christian society. Jewish scholars and liberal reformers aimed to negotiate Jewish identity within this modern social context without succumbing to assimilation. By mid-century, this caused an irreparable rift between liberal Jewish reformers and conservative Jewish scholars. History and historiography became the rhetorical tool in this polemic between social engagement and ethnic differentiation. I wish to discuss the relevancy and impact of 19th-century Jewish historiography on the Jewish Reform and counter-reform movements, and the forging of a modern Jewish identity. This thesis will be argued in three major sections. The first section will engage the definition, historical context and experience of Jewish emancipation and the Jewish Enlightenment within a German context. In so doing, we will understand the emergence of Wissenschaft des Judentums or the scientific study of Judaism. The second section will investigate the burgeoning Reform movement by underscoring its relationship to Wissenschaft and modernity, its founders, and its core values and concerns. In order to gain the clearest view of these developments, I will explore the work and worldview of Abraham Geiger, considered the progenitor of the modern Jewish Reform movement. This will lead to the third and final section that questions the impact the Reform movement had on Jewish historiography, or the writing of Jewish history, at the height of the 19th-century. This discussion is most concerned with the place of historiography in the counter-movement against Jewish Reform. I will discuss the second generation of Wissenschaft scholars focusing on the historian Heinrich Graetz. I will outline his conception of history and delineate how he used historiography to counter Geiger's Reform movement and make epistemological innovations. This, ultimately, will explain how this very influential religious movement impacted the writing of Jewish history and, moreover, the forging of a modern Jewish identity. 1 I would like to thank Dr. Ira Robinson for his guidance and mentorship in writing this article, Dr. Rebecca Margolis for her comments and editing, and David Walsh for his insight and patience in reviewing this material.

Shofar, 2019

Since the early 2000s, podcasts have grown into an important global article introduces the Jewish History Matters podcast and situates it in within this broader history of podcasting and the role of aural culture in academia and Jewish studies. It details the origins and aspirations of the project and the possibility of podcasting as a means of scholarly communication, service, and reaching a broader public. Alongside this general introduction to the podcast, the article presents an edited transcript of a conversation on the podcast between Jeffrey Blutinger, Mirjam Thulin, and Jason Lustig reflectign on two centuries of modern Jewish studies, from the emergence of Wissenschaft des Judentums in 1818 to the present. We discuss why studying Jewish history mattered to nineteenth-century scholars of Jewish studies, why it is still significant in the present moment, how the field of Jewish studies has changed over the generations, and why this history of history matters in terms of understanding the modern Jewish experience and the past, present, and future of Jewish studies.

The modernization of European Jewry was a gradual process that spread from individuals to communities and from one social class to another. It travelled from city to small town and from central and western Europe eastward. Among its component elements were economic redistribution, acculturation, secular edu cation, and religious reform. Scholars have examined each of these elements and their interrelation. They have also recognized the appearance of a new historical consciousness that began to play a crucial role in the formation of modern Jewish identity. Recently, the shifting relation of Jews to their history has received much attention, both in general surveys and in specific studies.' Yet the emergence of a fresh historical awareness, after centuries in which historical interest was at best limited, deserves further consideration, for the process was by no means simple and straightforward. As Jews began to attribute major significance to his tory in general and to Jewish history in particular, they faced issues that were not speedily or uniformly resolved: What was the purpose of historical study? What history should be learned? How was the study of history related to Jewish religion and its possible reform? And perhaps most important, should the study of Jewish history principally serve to liberate the Jew from tradition by historicizing it or create a new attachment to the past by reconceiving it as a model or anchorage for the present? These questions emerge especially among German Jews during the periods of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The answers given reflect both the intellectual milieu and the specific historical situation of the Jews. I. THE VALUE OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE Although Moses Mendelssohn, the first prominent and articulate modern Jew, on one occasion complained of his boredom with history, his first biographer, Isaac Euchel, felt constrained to point out, in 1788, that his subject's secular edu cation had begun with historical studies. That remark, in turn, served as a good l. The general works include

1974

This annotated bibliography is intended to help social studies teachers give students in grades 5-12 a better understanding of Jews from the Biblical times to the present. Its purposes are to supply information about the role of Jews in both world and Ame-ican history and to help teachers and students deveaop an informed perspective on intergroup relations. The bibliography lists works in Jewish history, culture, personalities, and contributions. The selections include fiction and nonfiction_books, historical texts and documents, biographies and autobiographies, and classic and modern literazy works. The listings_are arranged in two categories: books intended for young readers and those recommended for teenagers and adults. lnder each grouping the books are listed alphabetically by title within subsection of history, biography, and fiction. Tbe last section of the bibliography provides a list of basic reference works useful for teachers and researchers.

2014

The ‘Focus’ section of this edition of ‘Quest’ is composed of very diverse contributions, authored by both junior and senior scholars. The articles cover a wide range of topics, time periods and geographical areas. We open with the Greek Islands, considered from very different points of view: Cristina Pallini and Annalisa Scaccabarozzi offer us a study of urban history, analyzing Salonika’s lost synagogues, while Varvaritis presents the ‘Cronaca Israelitica’ – the first Jewish newspaper in the Ionian Islands – and the discussions of Jewish emancipation in the late XIXth century. Then we move on to Finland, with a contribution by Tarja Liisa Luukkanen that presents the 1897 discussion concerning the legal condition of the Jews that took place within the Finnish Diet, and in particular within the clergy, illustrating the role of antisemitism and the reception of Adolf Stoecker’s ideology. From the Baltic Sea we move back to Southern Europe, with an essay by Bojan Mitrović dedicated to the forms of social integration and of nationalization of Serbian Jewry as seen through a peculiar case study. Udi Manor’s article makes us leap to the North American continent, and to Jewish New York in particular, discussing Jewish 'identity politics' through the prism of the “Jewish Daily Forward” in the early XXth century. The last three articles concentrate on the second half of the XXth century. Rolf Steininger presents the figure of Karl Hartl, the first Austrian diplomat in Israel, and his perception of the country. Michele Sarfatti carefully reconstructs how foreign (non-Italian) historiography interpreted Fascist antisemitism between 1946 and 1986. Finally, the ‘Focus’ section is closed by Anna Baldini’s attentive depiction of Primo Levi’s role in shaping Italy’s memory of the Shoah.