Wissenschaft des Judentums ("the science of
Judaism" in
German), refers to a
nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation
of
Jewish literature and culture, including
rabbinic literature, using
scientific methods to analyze the origins of Jewish
traditions.
The Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden
The first organized attempt at developing and disseminating
Wissenschaft des Judentums was the
Verein für Cultur
und Wissenschaft der Juden (
Society for Jewish Culture and
Knowledge), founded around 1819 by
Eduard Gans, (a pupil of
Hegel), and his associates . Other members included
Heinrich Heine,
Leopold Zunz and
Michael Beer, (youngest brother of
Meyerbeer). It was an explicit attempt to provide
a construct for the Jews as a
Volk or people in their own
right, independent of their religious traditions. As such it sought
to validate their secular cultural traditions as being on an equal
footing with those adduced by
Herder and his
followers for the
German people.
Immanuel Wolf’s influential essay
Über den Begriff einer Wissenschaft des Judentums (On the
Concept of a Jewish Science) of 1822, has such ideas in mind. The
failure of the Verein, attributable largely to the far greater
attraction, amongst German Jews, of identification with German
culture, was followed, significantly, by the conversion to
Christianity of many of its leading figures,
including Gans and Heine.
The Wissenschaft des Judentums movement
First edition from 1822
the lack of success of the
Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft
der Juden, its principles inspired many Jewish thinkers to
invest their efforts in a wider
Wissenschaft des Judentums
movement, and also provoked a conservative reaction (see
Opposition).
Goals
Proponents of
Wissenschaft des Judentums attempted to
place Jewish culture on par with
Western
European culture, and endeavored to have "
Jewish Studies" introduced into the
university curriculum as a respectable area of study, freeing the
field from the prevailing bias that regarded Judaism as an inferior
precursor to Christianity and studied it as such. They also
developed and advocated a style of scholarship which allowed
complete freedom in the interpretation of traditional texts, and
which might be pursued without concerns about the practical
ramifications such interpretations might have for religious
observance and religious life .
Leopold Zunz (1794–1886), one of the
movement's leading figures, devoted much of his work to rabbinic
literature. At the time,
Christian
thinkers maintained that the Jews' contribution ended with the
Bible, and Zunz began to publish in the area
of post-biblical
rabbinic
literature. His essays
Etwas uber die rabbinische
literature and
Zur Geschichte und Literatur addressed
this issue.
His biography of Rashi
of Troyes
was
pivotal. When the Prussian
government forbade preaching sermons in German
synagogues, on the grounds that the sermon
was an exclusively Christian institution, Zunz wrote ”History
of the Jewish Sermon” in 1832. This work has been
described as "the most important Jewish book published in the 19th
century." It lays down principles for the investigation of the
Rabbinic exegesis (
Midrash) and of the
siddur (prayer-book of the synagogue).
Attitude toward religion
Despite the outstanding scholarship of
Wissenschaft
personalities such as Zunz and
H. Graetz (most of whom pursued their scholarly
labors on their own time as
privatgelehrter), the
Wissenschaft movement as a whole had a tendency to present
Judaism as an historical relic with frequently apologetic overtones
, and often ignored matters of contemporary relevance. As puts
it:
Nevertheless, throughout most of its existence and despite certain
of its most prominent practitioners, such as
Steinschneider, being vocal opponents of
religion,
Wissenschaft des Judentums was very much a
religious movement—pursued largely by rabbis at Jewish
seminaries who were engaged in preparing their students for
rabbinical careers . Many of these
Wissenschaft scholars,
such as
Z. Frankel and
H. Graetz, while employing critical methods in their
investigations, still considered the Jewish religion and Jewish
history to be reflective of a divine revelation and guidance, while
some, such as
D. Hoffman, yet regarded even the Biblical
word to be the product of divine revelation. It was this
essentially religious nature of
Wissenschaft des Judentums
that made it even more dangerous in the eyes of its opponents
.
Attitude toward earlier scholarship
Indeed, one detects in the writings of many Wissenschaft scholars
not only an intense love of scholarship "for its own sake", but
also a genuine affinity for the rabbis and scholars of old, whose
works they find themselves documenting, editing, publishing,
analyzing, and critiquing. Indeed, far from disparaging or
despising the Jewish religion and its many generations of
rabbinical scholars, the majority of Wissenschaft practitioners are
very keen to take
ownership of the Jewish scholarly
tradition. They see themselves as the rightful heirs and successors
to
Saadia and
Rashi and
Hillel and
ibn Ezra,
and in those prior generations of scholars they see their own
Wissenschaft spirit and likeness.
In the Wissenschaft approach to scholarship, then, the earlier
generations of scholars become "de-sanctified" and "re-humanized".
Wissenschaft scholars feel completely free to pass judgment on the
intellectual and scholarly capacities of earlier scholars,
evaluating their originality, competence, and credibility, and
pointing out their failures and limitations. The Wissenschaft
scholars, while respectful of their predecessors, have no patience
for a concept such as
yeridat
ha-dorot. For them, the classical authorities are no more
beyond dispute and critique than are contemporary scholars; the
opinions of
ibn Ezra and
Steinschneider may be presented in the same
sentence without any sense of impropriety, and either one may then
be debunked with the same forwardness. No doubt this
de-sanctification of the Jewish luminaries provided further grist
for the opponents of the movement.
Legacy
Although the
Wissenschaft movement produced a vast number
of scholarly publications of lasting value, and its influence still
reverberates through
Jewish Studies
departments (and, indeed, some
yeshivas)
around the word, it is possible to regard the publication of the
Jewish Encyclopedia in
1901–1906 as the culmination and final flowering of this era in
Jewish studies . The choice of
English over
German as the language for this epochal work
is a further sign that an era of German scholarship was drawing to
a close.
In the early years of the new century the
Wissenschaft culture and style of scholarship was
transplanted to a certain extent to bodies such as the
Institute for Jewish Studies at Hebrew
University
(e.g.,
Gershom Scholem) and Jewish Studies
departments at American universities such as Brandeis
and Harvard
(e.g.,
Harry Austryn
Wolfson).
Opposition
The
Wissenschaft movement drew criticism from traditional
elements in the Jewish community, who regarded it as sterile at
best, and at worst damaging to the religious community. A key
opposition leader was
Samson
Raphael Hirsch. He and other traditional religious scholars
representing urban and sophisticated Orthodox constituencies
regarded the
Wissenschaft movement as draining traditional
Jewish knowledge of its "sacral power" , and utterly failing to
meet the needs of the living Jewish community. The Orthodox
orientation of
Wissenschaft figures such as
David Zvi Hoffmann did not spare them
from Hirsch's condemnation.
Guttmann and his Philosophie des Judentums
Julius Guttmann is best known for
Die Philosophie des Judentums (
Reinhardt, 1933), translations of which are
available in
Hebrew,
Spanish,
English,
Japanese, etc. The English title is
The Philosophy of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy
from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig (New York,
1964).
sees in this publication "the last product in the direct line of the authentic Judaeo-German 'Science of Judaism'" (more commonly known as Wissenschaft des Judentums). While the movement did not utterly expire with the publication Guttman's work—its spirit living on in the work of G. Scholem and H.A. Wolfson among many others—it is certainly the case that the Wissenschaft movement in Germany had by the 1930s already ceased to thrive.
The original German edition of Philosophie des Judentums ends with
Hermann Cohen, the primary influence
on Guttman's own philosophy, while the later Hebrew edition
includes
Franz Rosenzweig. It is
also notable that Guttman's work excludes major thinkers of the
Kabbalistic school, which reflects his
own attitude toward
Jewish
philosophy (Werblowsky 1964).
List of Wissenschaft des Judentums personalities
Image:Moritz Daniel Oppenheim Portrait Leopold
Zunz.jpeg|
Leopold Zunz
(1794-1886), a founder of the Verein für Wissenschaft des
Judentums.Image:Heinrich Graetz.jpg|
Heinrich Graetz, (1817-1891).
His magnum opus History of
the Jews was written in the spirit of Wissenschaft des
Judentums.
References
- Schorsch, Ismar From Text to
Context: The Turn to History in Modern Judaism (1994) ISBN
0-87451-664-1
See also
External links
- Goldestein Goren Intl. Center, e-lectures Wissenschaft des
Judentums [259671]
- Iancu, Carol From the "Science of Judaism" to the "New
Israeli historians" - landmarks for a history of Jewish
historiography [259672]
Wikis
Map
Search
