Historical Memory and the State of Jewish Studies in Germany: Editor's Introduction

Editor's Introduction Historical Memory and the State of Jewish Studies in Germany: Editor's Introduction Dean Phillip Bell Dean Bell studied medieval and early modem European History at the University of Chicago and the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. He has taught at Berkeley, the Hebrew Theological College, and the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. Currently he works and teaches at DePaul University. His research focuses on the late medieval and early modem history of the Jews in Germany. In his seminal work The Idea ofHistory, R. G. Collingwood argued that the value of history is that "it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is."l History, according to Collingwood, is concerned with both what he called an event's outside-that "which can be described in terms ofbodies and their movements"~and its inside-"that in the event which can only be described in terms of thought."2 Such a distinction between the outside and inside of an event seems particularly applicable to the recent event ofthe "renaissance of Jewish Studies in Germany." Externally, we might ask what is meant by "renaissance of Jewish Studies," what are the scope (subjects, methodologies) and agents (institutions, individuals) of Jewish Studies in Germany? Internally, we might question why it is that Jewish Studies has seemingly become so appealing in the land of the Shoah. A spate ofrecent studies has documented many facets of the history ofthe Jews in Germany since 1945,3 though not as frequently the state ofJewish Studies in Germany.4 lR. G. Collingwood, The Idea ofHistory (Oxford, 1956), here at pp. 9-10. 2Collingwood, The Idea ofHistory, p. 213. 3See, for example, though of vastly different scope and quality: Anson Rabinbach and Jack Zipes, editors, Germans and Jews since the Holocaust (New York, 1986); Dirk Blasius and Dan Diner, editors, Zerbrochene Geschichte: Leben und Selbstverstiindnis der Juden in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1991); Micha Brumlik, The Situation ofthe Jews in Germany Today (Bloomington, 1991); Sander L. Gilman and Karen Remmler, editors, Reemerging Jewish Culture in Germany: Life and Literature Since 1989 (New York, 1994); Michael Cohn, The Jews in Germany 1945-1993: The Building ofa Minority (London, 1994); Enzo Traverso, The Jews and Germany: From the "JudeoGerman Symbiosis" to the Memory of Auschwitz (Lincoln, 1995); Wolfgang Benz, editor, Antisemitismus in Deutschland: Zur Aktualitiit eines Vorurteils (Munich, 1995); Gunther B. Ginzel, editor, Der Anfang nach dem Ende: Jiidisches Leben in Deutschland 1945 bis heute (Dusseldorf, 1996); Julius H. Schoeps, editor, Ein Volk von Mordern? Die Dokumentation zur GoldhagenKontroverse um die Rolle der Deutschen im Holocaust (Hamburg, 1996); Y. Michal Bodemann, 2 SHOFAR Summer 1997 Vol. 15, No.4 A number of libraries, institutes, and museums, as detailed by Michael Brenner, have been founded to focus upon Jewish issues. Taken together these developments have comprised something ofa renaissance in Jewish Studies in Germany, or have they? The renaissance of Jewish Studies is indebted to the older Wissenschaft des Judentums, though as Margarete Schluter makes clear, it would be presumptuous to' claim that contemporary Jewish Studies in Germany is a direct heir to the flourishing academic study of Judaism in the last decades of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth centuries. Perhaps the greatest difference between these two academic endeavors-that of Wissenschaft des Judentums and the more recent Judaistik or Judische Studien-is that much of the recent scholarship of Judaism is conducted by non-Jews. Ofcourse the relatively small Jewish population in Germany today-ranging wildly between estimates of 40,000 (official) and 100,000 (unofficial) individuals-compounded by the general lack ofknowledge of things Jewish among both Jews and non-Jews, obviously contributes to this situation. The example of the Hochschule rur Jiidische Studien in Heidelberg is, in this light, revealing. The Hochschule was created originally to serve as a training institute for Jewish community professionals but has ended up educating a much more broadly non-Jewish clientele as well. Still, its very success begs a number ofimportant questions. What is the scope of Jewish Studies in Germany? What is the audience for Jewish Studies? How does the study ofJudaism in Germany defme itself and how...