"Wissenschaft des Judentums" (literally inGerman the expression means "Science of Judaism"; more recently in the United States it started to be rendered as "Jewish Studies" or "Judaic Studies", a wide academic field of inquiry in American universities) refers to a nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation ofJewish literature and culture, includingrabbinic literature, to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions.
The first organized attempt at developing and disseminatingWissenschaft des Judentums was theVerein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden (Society for Jewish Culture and Jewish Studies), founded around 1819 byEduard Gans, (a pupil ofHegel), and his associates. Other members includedHeinrich Heine,Leopold Zunz,Moses Moser, andMichael Beer, (youngest brother ofMeyerbeer). It was an attempt to provide a construct for the Jews as aVolk 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 byJohann Gottfried Herder and his followers for theGerman people. Immanuel Wolf's influential essayÜber den Begriff einer Wissenschaft des Judentums (On the Concept of Jewish Studies) of 1822, has such ideas in mind. Its principal objective, as it was then defined in theZeitschrift für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1822), was the study of Judaism by subjecting it to criticism and modern methods of research.[1]
The failure of the Verein, which was attributable largely to the far greater attraction amongst German Jews of identification with German culture, was followed by the conversion toChristianity of many of its leading figures, including Gans and Heine.[2]
Despite the lack of success of theVerein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden, its principles inspired many Jewish thinkers to invest their efforts in a widerWissenschaft des Judentums movement, and also provoked a conservative reaction (seeOpposition). The historianAmos Elon, in his bookThe Pity of It All, places the movement in the context ofanti-Semitic riots in Germany in 1819. The purpose, Elon writes, "was to bring ordinary Jews into the orbit of GermanKultur and at the same time reinforce their Jewish identity by bridging the gulf between secular and religious education"; the movement sought to explore Judaism as "both secular civilization and religion", and thereby "help young Jews to remain Jews", even as they moved to a more secular view.[3] According to Dr.Henry Abramson, the primary aim of the proponents of the movement was to articulate a modality of Jewish identity that was consonant with nineteenth century values, and where Jews had to demonstrate that they were patriotic members of their own societies, and at the same time express their Judaism proudly.[4] The movement took on slightly differing characteristics in different national contexts so that, for example, the nature of the Anglo-Jewish movement was affected by the more ambivalent, less overtly hostile, state of Jewish-Christian relations in England; historical critical approaches to Bible were unpopular; a strong interest in rabbinic theology, liturgy, and prayer; an emphasis upon eccentricity, marginality, and challenges to normative rabbinic Judaism; and a widening of the scholarly franchise in England to women and non-established scholars.[5]
Proponents ofWissenschaft des Judentums attempted to place Jewish culture on par withWestern European culture, as evinced inGoethe's ideas ofBildung, 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 (Glatzer 1964).
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 theBible, and Zunz began to publish in the area of post-biblicalrabbinic literature. His essays "Etwas über die rabbinische Literatur" and "Zur Geschichte und Literatur" addressed this issue. His biography ofRashi ofTroyes was pivotal. When thePrussian government forbade preaching sermons in German synagogues, on the grounds that thesermon was an exclusively Christian institution, Zunz wroteHistory 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 thesiddur (prayer-book of the synagogue).
Despite the outstanding scholarship ofWissenschaft personalities such as Zunz andHeinrich Graetz (most of whom pursued their scholarly labors on their own time asPrivatgelehrte), theWissenschaft movement as a whole had a tendency to present Judaism as an historical relic[6] with frequently apologetic overtones,[7] and often ignored matters of contemporary relevance:
Zunz felt obliged to assume that Judaism had come to an end, and that it was the task ofWissenschaft des Judentums to provide a judicious accounting of the varied and rich contributions which Judaism had made to civilization. In a similar spirit, Steinschneider is said to have once quipped thatWissenschaft des Judentums seeks to ensure that Judaism will receive a proper burial, in which scholarship amounts to an extended obituary properly eulogizing the deceased.[8]
Nevertheless, throughout most of its existence and despite certain of its most prominent practitioners, such asMoritz 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.[9] In a foreshadowing of the reform movement, Zunz often led services, which were accompanied by an organ, in the vernacular German, rather than Hebrew.[10]Wissenschaft scholars such as RabbiZacharias Frankel, the first head of theJewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, and his colleague at the seminary, historian Heinrich Graetz, considered Jewish history to be reflective of a divine revelation and guidance.[11]Wissenschaft des Judentums was not restricted to progressive Judaism. In 1873,Israel Hildesheimer founded the neo-orthodox modernRabbinerseminar in Berlin. One of its most prominent scholars,David Hoffmann, defended a literal reading of the Biblicalword which he understood to be the exact product of divine revelation.[citation needed] It was this essentially religious nature ofWissenschaft des Judentums that made it even more dangerous in the eyes of its opponents.[12] Christians even thought that a more liberal form of Judaism would attract converts, or would keep Jews from converting to Christianity, and so the government forced Zunz's synagogue to close.[13]
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 takeownership of the Jewish scholarly tradition. They see themselves as the rightful heirs and successors toSaadia Gaon andRashi andHillel the Elder andAbraham 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 asyeridat ha-dorot. For them, the classical authorities are no more beyond dispute and critique than are contemporary scholars; the opinions ofibn Ezra andSteinschneider 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.
Although theWissenschaft movement produced a vast number of scholarly publications of lasting value, and its influence still reverberates throughJewish Studies departments (and, indeed, someyeshivas) around the world, it is possible to regard the publication of theJewish Encyclopedia in 1901–1906 as the culmination and final flowering of this era in Jewish studies (Levy 2002). The choice ofEnglish overGerman 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 theWissenschaft culture and style of scholarship was transplanted to a certain extent to bodies such as theInstitute for Jewish Studies atHebrew University (e.g.,Gershom Scholem) and Jewish Studies departments at American universities such asBrandeis andHarvard (e.g.,Harry Austryn Wolfson).
TheWissenschaft 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 wasSamson Raphael Hirsch. He and other traditional religious scholars representing urban and sophisticated Orthodox constituencies regarded theWissenschaft movement as failing to meet the needs of the living Jewish community;Mendes-Flohr observes in this context that historians, by virtue of their craft, necessarily "transform traditional knowledge, draining it of its sacral power".[14] The Orthodox orientation ofWissenschaft figures such asDavid Zvi Hoffmann did not spare them from Hirsch's condemnation.
Julius Guttmann is best known forDie Philosophie des Judentums (Reinhardt, 1933), translations of which are available inHebrew,Spanish,English,Japanese, etc. The English title isThe Philosophy of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig (New York, 1964).
Roth 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).[15] While the movement did not utterly expire with the publication Guttman's work—its spirit living on in the work ofG. Scholem andH.A. Wolfson among many others—it is certainly the case that the Wissenschaft movement in Germany had by the 1930s already ceased to thrive.[16]
The original German edition of Philosophie des Judentums ends withHermann Cohen, the primary influence on Guttman's own philosophy, while the later Hebrew edition includesFranz Rosenzweig. It is also notable that Guttman's work excludes major thinkers of theKabbalistic school, which reflects his own attitude towardJewish philosophy.[17]
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