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Discovering the Harp of Zion

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Discovering the Harp of Zion Discovering the Harp of Zion Gustav Karpeles’ German Jewish apologetics in nineteenth-century literary history Ezra Engelsberg Dr. Yaniv Hagbi Thesis Middle Eastern Studies: Hebrew and Jewish Studies 07-18-2018 Content General introduction 3 Chapter 1: Heine as a Jewish writer in Gustav Karpeles' apologetic history The poet, the rabbi and antisemitism 6 Rehabilitating Heine 8 Heine as a Jewish poet and man 10 Heine as a German 13 Heine and Goethe 16 The Nibelungenlied and the Thora 17 Chapter 2: Nationalism and cultural transfer in literary history Two historians, two literary traditions 19 Different appreciations of the literary canon 21 Modes of explanation 23 Language: exclusive and inclusive 27 Nationalism compared 29 Chapter 3: Gustav Karpeles and the Wissenschaft des Judentums Changing landscapes in Judaism 31 The Wissenschaft des Judentums 33 Reforming the practice of Judaism 34 The Wissenschaft, romanticism and nationalism 37 Knowledge as apologetics 38 Towards modern German Judaism 40 Conclusion: of rivers and the sea 42 Literature 44 Newspaper articles 47 2 General introduction Bei den Wassern Babels saßen Wir und Weinten, unsre Harfen Wehnten an den Trauerweiden- Kennst du noch das alte Lied?1 When Heinrich Heine was gravely ill and confined to his Parisian bed he wrote these words in the Romanzero. Recalling the lamentation of Psalm 137 the poet asks us if we remember the song of old. The somber Romanzero deals with personal distress, but Babylon here may just as well refer to the Jewish exile en gros. After all, Heine had chosen life abroad on his own accord. In this collection of poems he turns his attention to the age-old tradition of Jewish literature. Marveling at Judah Halevi, his grand precursor, the poet praises the power of the Jewish canon, Haggadah, Talmud and of course the Thora. Das alte Lied is thus more than only Psalm 137. Heine asks his readers if they still recall all those centuries of creativity, from biblical times up to Medieval Spain. And sarcastic Heine would not be Heine had his question been a comfortable one. The nineteenth century well underway, Judaism had undergone significant changes since the poet’s birth. These can be expressed as twofold. The practice of Judaism had changed from within and Western society in which it was bedded had changed markedly. The Enlightenment had propagated reason and the centrality of man on earth, marginalizing traditional religion. Moreover, a new sense of equality ushered in new civic rights for Jews, threatening formerly natural cohesion within the Jewish community. Now that Jews were socially mobile, they need not stay within their traditional confines. Jewish religious observance was already somewhat shaky before the inception of the ‘Age of Reason,’ but now it seemed to plunge headfirst into crisis. Were the Jews to turn towards orthodoxy, or should they try to synthesize their heritage with the new current of modernity, finding a compromise? Heine himself belonged to the large group of German Jews who turned away from Judaism altogether, favoring baptism instead. Then again, this turning away was not so categorical, as the subject matter of the Romanzero shows. There were always ties with the tradition. These ties proved problematic in the light of greater societal shifts. With the rise of romantic nationalism, ones link with Blut und Boden became of paramount importance. Affiliation with a tradition that differed from this nationally bound one meant estrangement from society. Although Jews had lived in ghetto’s before, their otherness now took on new forms, supported by new theories of identity and nationhood. This is the tide Heine tried to turn by converting to Protestantism. Commitment to Jewish culture and religion was no longer obvious. This necessitated a thorough Jewish apologetics, lending the Jews a way to prove they could partake in the nationalist German project as good as their gentile compatriots. Thus, the verse above can be interpreted as a critical question. Have you payed due respect to your tradition? Indeed, tradition was now taking precedence over religion. All of the abovementioned factors contributed to the prevalence of culture over religion. The Wissenschaft des Judentums, originated to reform Judaism to the needs of the day, advocated this shift. Founding fathers such as Eduard Gans and Leopold Zunz foresaw a fluent Hegelian aufheben of Judaism, in which ‘the Jews can neither perish nor Judaism dissolve; but in the great movement of the whole it shall seem to have 1 H. Heine, Romanzero (Hamburg 1851) 223. ‘Hebrew Melodies,’ the section these verses come from, is almost a genre on itself. The most notable example of it is Byron’s book of songs of the same name first published in 1815. This book inspired the German violinist Joseph Joachim to compose his own ‘Hebrew Melodies’ four decades later. 3 perished and yet live on as the current lives on in the ocean.’2 The literary historian Gustav Karpeles would carry on the projects of the Wissenschaft, but he opposed integration into German society at the cost of religious observance. His extensive work testifies to contemporaneous polemics in Jewish circles and to the strenuous relationship between Jews and German gentiles. Born in Moravia three years prior to the publication of the Romanzero, he was the very first to write a systematic history of Jewish literature. Trained as a rabbi, he combined the scientific interest of the Wissenschaft with religious devotion. As such, he became editor of the weekly Jüdische Presse that represented a conservative religious stance, but also of the literary journal Auf der Höhe. After that he went on to edit several journals in both fields. He co-founded the Berlin Verein für Jüdische Geschichte und Literatur, an initiative that was soon to be copied in other German communities.3 He edited an anthology of Hebrew poetry translated into German4 and several overviews of Jewish literature.5 Karpeles’ special interest however was Heine. He published works on the poet time and again.6 Karpeles remained somewhat of an eclectic writer though, as can be illustrated by his writings on Napoleon III as translator of Goethe and his editing of the complete parliamentary speeches by Moltke the elder.7 These works attest to their author’s devotion to German history and culture. Although much of his work focuses on German literature, his books on Jewish literature found an international reading public. Karpeles’ grand, two-volume Geschichte der Jüdischen Literatur, his magnum opus, was translated into French in 1901, and collected essays on Jewish history were published in English by the Jewish Publication Society of America in 1911, two years after his death.8 Karpeles’ historiography of Jewish literature was thus an internationally known project. His activity in editorials and societies in Germany and the sheer size of his output make it safe to say his work was widely read at home as well. In between religion, nationalism and apologetics, Karpeles’ historiography is a showcase for the issues German Jews faced in the dynamic latter half of the nineteenth century. It displays the different attitudes of Jews towards these aspects of life and the reaction of Christian Jews. This research follows three distinct veins in Karpeles’ oeuvre, all addressing subjects mentioned already in this introduction. They cover Karpeles and Heine, Jewish literary history in comparison to nationalist literary history and the Wissenschaft des Judentums. The structure of the thesis follows these three, setting next to each other three distinct parts. Much the same as in Karpeles’ Geschichte, each part is preceded by an introduction and followed by concluding remarks. These culminate in a conclusion that draws from all, presenting coherently once more Karpeles’ voice in the debates around loyalty towards religion, tradition and one’s country. It sheds light on the strategies minorities deploy in trying to grapple with their marginality. We follow the search for acceptance and see how this search 2 Quoted in: L. Wieseltier, ‘Etwas Über Die Judische Historik: Leopold Zunz and the Inception of Modern Jewish Historiography’ History and Theory, Vol. 20 no. 2 (1981) 135-149, 148. 3 M. Berenbaum and F. Skolnik, ed., Encyclopedia Judaica Vol. 11 (Detroit 2007) 816. 4 G. Karpeles, ed., Die Zionsharfe: eine Anthologie der neuhebräischen Dichtung in deutschen Übertragungen (Leipzig 1889). 5 G. Karpeles, Ein Blick in die Jüdische Literatur (Prague 1895); G. Karpeles, Geschichte der Jüdischen Literatur (Berlin 1886) 2 volumes. 6 G. Karpeles, Heinrich Heine und das Judenthum (Breslau 1868); G. Karpeles. Heinich Heine: biographische Skizzen (Berlin 1869); G. Karpeles, Heinrich Heine und seine Zeitgenossen (Berlin 1888) G. Karpeles, Heinrich Heine: aus seinem Leben und aus seiner Zeit (Leipzig 1899). 7 G. Karpeles, ‘Napoleon III als Goethe-Uebersetzer’, in: L. Geiger, ed., Goethe-Jahrbuch vol. 21 (1900) 292; H.K.B. von Moltke and G. Karpeles, ed., Graf Moltke als Redner: vollständige Sammlung der parlamentarischen Reden Moltkes (Berlin 1889). 8 G. Karpeles, Histoire de la littérature juive d'après G. Karpeles; [avec une lettre de Zadoc Kahn] (Paris 1901); G. Karpeles, Jewish Literature, and other Essays (Philadelphia 1911). 4 questions the meaning of tradition and assimilation. It seems to the author that in this day and age such an enquiry holds relevance not only for those interested in history. To everyone who is concerned with contemporary developments, too, this research should hold some meaning. 5 The poet, the rabbi and antisemitism In Heine’s Der Rabbi von Bacherach [sic], published in 1840, the revered rabbi of the Rhine village Bacharach is forced to flee from his hometown together with his wife Sara on the first night of Passover. During a Seder celebration in the home of the rabbi, strangers appear at the rabbi’s door. In accordance to Jewish tradition, he promptly invites them to join the family.
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