Jewish Scholarship and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Germany: Between History and Faith

1. Between Theology and History

1 Between Theology and History In the second half of the eighteenth century, a new consciousness of discontinuity in German life emerged that manifested itself in terms such as “change” and “progress.” German Aufklärer transformed the political and social vocabulary, and embedded key concepts in historical time. These conceptual ideas were implicated in the formulation of a new vision of German society. Words from the Enlightenment political vocabulary such as Bürger (citizen), Bildung (self-formation), and Aufkl ärung (Enlightenment) did not reflect contemporary conditions of German society and culture but rather the expectations and hopes of what German society ought to become.1 In respect to Jewish history, these new visions transformed the providential view of the Jewish past that both Jews and Christians, albeit for different reasons, had shared. German historians, philosophers, and publicists of the Enlightenment replaced the Christian hope of Jews’ conversion with the anticipation of their social and cultural integration.2 With the study of the Jewish past becoming increasingly attached to debates over Jews’ social and legal status, members of the Jewish Enlightenment believed that historical investigations would aid their efforts to rejuvenate Jewish religion and culture. The contemporary relevance of the study of Jewish history rendered the nascent scholarship a divisive cultural force. This cast a long shadow on the virulent and contentious nature of Jewish historiography, 15 which continued to obstruct efforts to popularize the Jewish history up until the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus, far from representing only the prehistory to Jewish historiography, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century debates over Jewish history shaped the evolution of Wissenschaft des Judentums. Until the end of the eighteenth century for Christians and Jews alike, Jewish history was the realm of God’s action. Based on the Augustinian heritage, the degraded but protected status of the Jews validated for Christians the superiority of the new Gospel. Jews, on the other hand, understood life in exile as God’s punishment (Deuteronomy 28) that was, however, only temporary since the Covenant with God is eternal. In line with this providential view of Jewish history, Jews in the early modern period continued to deem their history an essential record of the particular relationship between God and his people. Accordingly , medieval and early modern Jewish chroniclers did not understand history as the outcome of a historical development, but rather saw themselves in continuity with ancient Jewry and expected the future at the end of days to be an eruption of transcendence.3 Within medieval and early modern Jewish culture, historical writings were exceptional and had to be legitimized as an appropriate intellectual occupation.4 In the aftermath of the Spanish expulsion, an unprecedented outburst of historiographical productivity occurred, and several Sephardic Jewish historians attempted to discern signs of redemption in the recent calamitous events.5 Against this trend, Azariah de Rossi critically examined Jewish chronology in his Me’or ‘Einayim (Light for the eyes), printed in Mantua between 1574 and 1575, and diminished messianic speculations, which he contended were based on faulty chronology.6 Solomon ibn Verga likewise refrained in his Shevet Yehuda (The staff of Yehuda) from messianic speculation and utilized natural causes to explain the Spanish expulsion without, however, replacing the providential view of Jewish history.7 Within the Ashkenazic world, only one major new historiographical work appeared during the sixteenth century that distanced itself critically from Azariah de Rossi. David Gans in his Zemach David (The offspring of David), whose study of Jewish and world history was likewise an exegesis in the divine plan for redemption, upbraided de Rossi for his critical approach to Jewish sources.8 Both Zemach David and ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehuda achieved certain popularity in Ashkenaz that was rivaled only by the tenth-century Sefer Yosippon (Book of Yosippon), which detailed the events leading up to the destruction of the Second 16 historicizing judaism Temple. In the Ashkenazic cultural orbit, these chronicles functioned as a reminder of the heroic steadfastness of Jews in the past and offered a divinely ordained history of suffering.9 They were reprinted several times and translated into Yiddish up until the end of the eighteenth century, while the rabbinic luminary Jacob Emden regarded Jewish chronicles like Zemach David as “true holy books.”10 The first comprehensive history of the Jews, by the French Huguenot Jacques Basnage titled Histoire du people Juif depuis Jésus Christ jusqu’ ˛a present (History of...