Abraham Shalom Yahuda's Contribution to Samaritan Studies as Wissenschaft des Judentums

Abraham Shalom Yahuda contributed significantly to Samaritan studies. This essay offers a first attempt to outline his activities in this field, relating particularly to the so-called Samaritan Book of Joshua "discovered" by Moses Gaster—the so-called Abisha-scroll of the Samaritan Pentateuch—and to Yahuda's important role in the trade of Samaritan manuscripts. Yahuda's interest in Samaritan studies is to be understood in the context of Wissenschaft des Judentums, in which the prominence of Samaritan studies is striking and likely finds its explanation in the German Jewish search for a Jewish identity that was different from and outside the traditional world of Ashkenazi Judaism.