Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century (review)

The academy has historically been a place in which people reflected on themselves and the significance of what they were doing. Practitioners of what is generally called “Jewish Studies” are no exception to this rule. The appearance of this volume, as well as that of other articles and studies, examining the impact of Jewish studies or telling the parallel story of Jewish academics at American universities, bespeaks a sense of maturity which has come to the field in the last several years and which invites reflection on its origins.

Whether Jewish Studies as a part of the North American university scene is flourishing or floundering is a matter for academic debate. In its nineteenth century origins, however, the criteria for success were considerably different as was the subject matter encompassed in the words “Jewish learning.” As well, communal and university expectations of this learning have differed dramatically between the nineteenth century and our own.

Though Hebrew was an early component of American college education, it was present for specifically Christian theological purposes and is not really part of the story Ritterband and Wechsler tell. In the late nineteenth century, however, the rise of universities, like Johns Hopkins, which avidly pursued advanced studies on the model of contemporary German universities, gave “Jewish learning” an entree into the American academy.

This entree came about in the context of departments of Semitic studies, in which Hebrew and Hebraic/Judaic culture were legitimate, though not major parts. These studies were admissable into non-Jewish academic settings because they were viewed as part of a more universal context. This appealed to the leaders of the late nineteenth century American Jewish community and their desire for the retention of a Judaic identity within a more universalistic society and culture. Indeed, as the authors point out, it was expected that Jewish communities would support local university Semitics programs and in most cases this was the case.

One of the major points the authors make is that the Judaic/Hebraic element in university Semitics programs withered, or at least did not expand in the early twentieth century. One of the major reasons for this, to which the authors do not give enough attention, is the rise of institutions, such as Dropsie College, the Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College, which engaged in Judaic/Hebraic studies as their central focus. This alternative vision of a Jewish presence in the academy, fostered by Cyrus Adler, the first graduate of John’s Hopkins’ Semitics program, who was simultaneously president of Dropsie and the Jewish Theological Seminary had as its model the German Wissenschaftdes Judentums which subsisted in its native Germany outside the university context.

For most intents and purposes, the first half of the twentieth century saw Jewish learning in America pursued almost exclusively in American Jewish institutions. The major exceptions to this rule were Harry Wolfson at Harvard and Salo Baron at Columbia. This situation, like much else in American higher education, changed radically after War II. In the postwar era, Hebraic and Jewish studies began to take hold in many key American universities, particularly those located within cities with large Jewish communities and created a situation in which Jewish studies transferred its major base of operations from specifically Jewish institutions to secular universities. Symbolic of this process is the transformation of Dropsie College from an independent institution to the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. However this process, of the utmost importance to an understanding of present developments in the field, is analyzed much more sketchily than earlier developments. That the reason for this brevity is that mention (and possibly criticism) of people still alive and active in the field could be minimized is not unlikely.

In sum, this book contains somewhat less than one might have wished. It nonetheless is a thorough and stimulating account of the beginnings of a process of great significance in American Jewish history. It will be...