The Wissenschaft des Judentums and Protestant Theology: A Review Essay

Christian Wiese, Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestantische Theologie im wilhelminischen Deutschland—Ein Schrei ins Leere? (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), xxvi + 507 pages.

This highly interesting and original book is both sequel and supplement to Christians and Jews in Germany—Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914 (New York, 1971) by the late Professor Uriel Tal, one of the classics of modern Israeli historiography. At the same time, it is also an attempt to reply to the thesis formulated by Gerhard G. Scholem in his poignant 1962 article, "Wider den Mythos vom deutsch-jüdischen Gespräch" (Against the Myth of a German-Jewish Dialogue). The appended subtitle of Wiese's work, Ein Schrei ins Leere? (A cry into the void?), illustrates that no real dialogue or symbiosis has ever occurred between Germans and Jews and their cry for recognition has remained unanswered. Even though a large portion of the extensive historiography written about German-Jewish relations since the publication of that thesis seems overshadowed by its very impressive argumentation, Wiese has formulated one of the most brilliant and thorough attempts to answer the question hurled into the world by Scholem. Wiese has also managed to supply his answer with a surprising degree of self-assurance, thanks largely to the thematic and chronological conciseness and the intellectual depth of his analyses. This is indeed a thorough examination of the manner in which two communities of scholars—Jewish and Protestant theologians—who were members of the academic intelligentsia of pre-World War I Germany, both of which were relatively uniform—academically speaking—and characterized by both religious and national partisanship, reacted to each other. We are also offered a rare opportunity to get a close look at the intellectual entrails of our spiritual and professional forefathers, members of the second and third generations of Wissenschaft des Judentums in Germany, the Urvater of all contemporary academic Jewish Studies programs—some of whom were the mentors of our own learned teachers.

Wiese's leading question is: Did a dialogue take place between Wissenschaft des Judentums and Protestant theological research in a spirit of equality, respect, and mutual recognition, or was it merely a modern version of the traditional literature of Jewish-Christian dispute and controversy? This main question leads to a multitude of intriguing secondary ones, also answered poignantly. Here are some of these questions, in his own phrasing: "How did the emancipation of Jews in Germany—which materialized gradually, but not without obstacles and manifestations of unwillingness to accept it—affect the controversy between the faiths and the cultural encounter between their adherents?"; "What is the significance of the Wahrnehmung (German for "acceptance," "perception," and mainly "appreciation")—in this case relating to the attitude of Protestant theology towards Judaism and Jews—in a situation where this theology, enjoying a dominant position under governmental patronage, insisted on its own religious supremacy and stressed its uniqueness as distinct from both historical and contemporary Judaism?"; "Did Jewish apologetics, which accompanied the demand for the acceptance of the findings of Wissenschaft des Judentums scholarship, arouse any reaction or did they remain unanswered?"; "How did Protestant theology, as the dominant discipline, react to the attempts of the Jewish community—which, while undergoing a process of self emancipation, argued that it could provide scientifically sound findings to justify its claims—to take part in describing and evaluating its own history?"

The first chapter, "The Political and Social Situation of the Jewish Community in Wilhelmine Germany from 1890 to 1914," presents the dramatis personae of the pending drama: the disintegration of the ideological affinity and bond between Jews and political Liberalism during the Kulturkampf (the struggle between Imperial Germany and the Catholic Church) initiated by Bismarck, and the spread of modern anti-Semitism; the process of accepting the fact that despite the Jews' legislative and constitutional emancipation, some barriers and hurdlesremained insurmountable; the fact that simultaneously with the "assimilation crisis," various trends for reevaluatingng...