Leopold Zunz and the Invention of Jewish Culture

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Leopold Zunz and the Invention of Jewish Culture SCHOLARSHIP OF LITERATURE AND LIFE: LEOPOLD ZUNZ AND THE INVENTION OF JEWISH CULTURE Irene Zwiep Around 1820, a group of Berlin students assembled to found Europe’s first Jewish historical society. The various stages in the society’s brief his- tory neatly mirror the turbulent intellectual Werdegang of its members. The studious, typically Humboldian Wissenschaftszirkel they established in 1816 was changed into the more political Verein zur Verbesserung des Zustandes der Juden im deutschen Bundesstaate in the wake of the HEP!HEP! pogroms of 1819, only to be relabelled the Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden two years later, in November 1821. In January 1824, in a session attended by a mere three members, the society’s meet- ings were again suspended. Thus, within less than five years, its ambitious attempts at building an alternative, modern scholarly infrastructure had come to a halt. The new Institut für die Wissenschaft des Judentums that was to serve as the Verein’s headquarters never materialized. Its relentless- ly academic Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1822/23) did not survive its first issue. And when trying to strengthen their position within German society, many of its supporters, including first president Eduard Gans (1797-1839) and the ever-ambivalent Heinrich Heine, seem to have preferred smooth conversion to Lutheranism to a prolonged ca- reer in Jewish activism.1 Yet if the Verein’s attempts at establishing a new, comprehensive in- frastructure remained without immediate success, its overall agenda had a lasting impact on modern Jewish discourse. In the early 1820s, Wis- senschaft des Judentums as a form of shared political activism had been doomed to fail; during the following decades, however, a whole genera- 1 For a short history of the Verein, see I. Schorsch, “Breakthrough into the Past. The Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden,” Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute 33 (1988): 3-28, and M. Graetz, “Renaissance des Judentums im 19. Jahrhundert. Der ‘Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden’, 1819-1824,”’ in M. Awerbuch and S. Jersch-Wen- zel, eds., Bild und Selbstbild der Juden Berlins zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik (Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1992), 211-227. On Gans, see esp. N. Waszek, ed., Eduard Gans (1797- 1839). Hegelianer – Jude – Europäer. Texte und Documente (Frankfurt a.M.: P. Lang, 1991). 166 irene zwiep tion of Wissenschaftler arose, who continued to put the historical scrutiny of Judaism at the service of joint emancipation, religious reform and, in- creasingly, private intellectual reorientation. By admitting Western codes and categories (most notably the apparatus of the German Altertumswis- senschaft and Idealismus) into Jewish thinking and applying them to the Jewish cultural heritage, they wrought a fundamental change in modern Jewish self-perception.2 In the hands of literary historian Leopold Zunz, social historian Isaac Marcus Jost and Reform rabbi Abraham Geiger, timeless Jewish tradition was transformed into time-bound national his- tory. Accumulative exegesis was traded for contextual research, hoary myth replaced by nineteenth-century fact and, perhaps the greatest achievement of all: the Jews now had the means to become the authors of their own history.3 No longer subject to Christian curiosity, they were now able to freely explore their past and, in doing so, to construct and articu- late their own essential Volkstümlichkeit. In their reliance on German historicism, the founders of the Wissen- schaft des Judentums are often said to have paved the way for the-much more diverse, though generally no less political-modern academic study of Judaism.4 As if to acknowledge this indebtedness, Jewish scholarship has produced a vast library of studies on the movement’s heroes and crit- ics, its journals and institutions, its adaptations in other national contexts, its scholarly models and monuments, its political implications and im- pact on Jewish identity. Yet despite this intense and wide-ranging interest, research into the Wissenschaft still has its blind spots. In this brief con- tribution, I wish to draw attention to one such hitherto neglected detail: the introduction, by the movement’s earliest exponents, of the concept of 2 For the Jewish appropriation of the tools of the contemporary Altertumswissen- schaft, see, e.g., G. Veltri, “Altertumswissenschaft und Wissenschaft des Judentums.Leo- Leo- pold Zunz und seine Lehrer F.A. Wolf und A. Böckh,” in R. Markner and G. Veltri, eds., Friedrich August Wolf. Studien, Dokumente, Biographie (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999), 32- 47. On the Wissenschaft’s dependence on German Idealism and Hegelian dialectics, see R. Schäffler, “Die Wissenschaft des Judentums in ihrer Beziehung zur allgemeinen Geistesge- schichte im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in J. Carlebach, ed., Wissenschaft des Juden- tums. Die Anfänge der Judaistik in Europa (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992), 113-131. 3 The process is best described in I. Schorsch,From Text to Context. The Turn to His- tory in Modern Judaism (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994), 151-76 (chapters 8-9, “Wissenschaft and Values” and “The Ethos of Modern Scholarship”). 4 Cf. N.N. Glatzer, “The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Studies,” in A. Altmann, ed., Studies in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Intellectual History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1964), 27-45, and, more recently, R. Livneh-Freudenthal, “Jewish Studies. The Paradigm and Initial Patrons,” in. M.F. Mach and Y. Jacobson, eds., Historiography and the Science of Judaism [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: University of Tel Aviv, 2005), 187-214..
Recommended publications
  • German Jews in the United States: a Guide to Archival Collections
    GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE,WASHINGTON,DC REFERENCE GUIDE 24 GERMAN JEWS IN THE UNITED STATES: AGUIDE TO ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS Contents INTRODUCTION &ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1 ABOUT THE EDITOR 6 ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS (arranged alphabetically by state and then city) ALABAMA Montgomery 1. Alabama Department of Archives and History ................................ 7 ARIZONA Phoenix 2. Arizona Jewish Historical Society ........................................................ 8 ARKANSAS Little Rock 3. Arkansas History Commission and State Archives .......................... 9 CALIFORNIA Berkeley 4. University of California, Berkeley: Bancroft Library, Archives .................................................................................................. 10 5. Judah L. Mages Museum: Western Jewish History Center ........... 14 Beverly Hills 6. Acad. of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Margaret Herrick Library, Special Coll. ............................................................................ 16 Davis 7. University of California at Davis: Shields Library, Special Collections and Archives ..................................................................... 16 Long Beach 8. California State Library, Long Beach: Special Collections ............. 17 Los Angeles 9. John F. Kennedy Memorial Library: Special Collections ...............18 10. UCLA Film and Television Archive .................................................. 18 11. USC: Doheny Memorial Library, Lion Feuchtwanger Archive ...................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • By Tamar Kadari* Abstract Julius Theodor (1849–1923)
    By Tamar Kadari* Abstract This article is a biography of the prominent scholar of Aggadic literature, Rabbi Dr Julius Theodor (1849–1923). It describes Theodor’s childhood and family and his formative years spent studying at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary. It explores the thirty one years he served as a rabbi in the town of Bojanowo, and his final years in Berlin. The article highlights The- odor’s research and includes a list of his publications. Specifically, it focuses on his monumental, pioneering work preparing a critical edition of Bereshit Rabbah (completed by Chanoch Albeck), a project which has left a deep imprint on Aggadic research to this day. Der folgende Artikel beinhaltet eine Biographie des bedeutenden Erforschers der aggadischen Literatur Rabbiner Dr. Julius Theodor (1849–1923). Er beschreibt Theodors Kindheit und Familie und die ihn prägenden Jahre des Studiums am Breslauer Rabbinerseminar. Er schil- dert die einunddreissig Jahre, die er als Rabbiner in der Stadt Bojanowo wirkte, und seine letzten Jahre in Berlin. Besonders eingegangen wird auf Theodors Forschungsleistung, die nicht zuletzt an der angefügten Liste seiner Veröffentlichungen ablesbar ist. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei seine präzedenzlose monumentale kritische Edition des Midrasch Bereshit Rabbah (die Chanoch Albeck weitergeführt und abgeschlossen hat), ein Werk, das in der Erforschung aggadischer Literatur bis heute nachwirkende Spuren hinterlassen hat. Julius Theodor (1849–1923) is one of the leading experts of the Aggadic literature. His major work, a scholarly edition of the Midrash Bereshit Rabbah (BerR), completed by Chanoch Albeck (1890–1972), is a milestone and foundation of Jewish studies research. His important articles deal with key topics still relevant to Midrashic research even today.
    [Show full text]
  • The Development of Marxist Thought in the Young Karl Marx Helenhund
    DOUGLAS L. BENDELL AWARD THE DEVELOPMENT OF MARXIST THOUGHT IN THE YOUNG KARL MARX HELENHUND Karl Marx was born a contradiction to the world of his time: from a Jewish family, he would become the world's foremost proponent of atheism; from a culture steeped in German romanticism and Hegelian idealist philosophy, he would become the foremost materialist philosopher; from a profligate son and later, profligate husband and father, he would become the economist who spent hours researching the topic of money for the world­ changing "Das Kapital;" and from this man noted for his culture, intelligence, and arrogance would come the destruction of the old order of privilege through the "Communist Manifesto." Karl Marx was a contradiction to his times, and a revolutionary with a burning desire to change the existing society. His thought, however, was not revolutionary in the sense of being original, but a monumental synthesis of influences in his life, which congealed and culminated in three early works: "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction," and the "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844." Marx was born May 5, 1818 in Trier, a city on the Mosel River • a region renowned for its wine, Roman history, Catholicism, and revolutionary French ideas. Trier, a beautiful city surrounded by vineyards and almost Mediterranean vegetation, had a reputation for wine production from Roman times: Treves (Trier) metropolis, most beautiful city, You, who cultivate the grape, are most pleasing to Bacchus. Give your inhabitants the wines strongest for sweetnessP Marx also had a life-long appreciation of wine; he drank it for medicine when sick, and for pleasure when he could afford it.
    [Show full text]
  • “Neusnerian Turn” in Method and the End of the Wissenschaft As We Knew It
    The “Neusnerian Turn” in Method and the End of the Wissenschaft as We Knew It Peter J. Haas Over the course of a career marked by extraordinary productivity and the training of virtually a generation of Judaic studies scholars, Jacob Neusner has almost singlehandedly altered the entire methodological orientation of the field of Jewish Studies. I take this occasion to look at this extraordinary Neusnerian turn in method for the field of Jewish Studies. Prior to Jacob Neusner’s work, the greatest paradigm shift in Jewish Studies since the emergence of the talmuds was probably the coalescence of the Wissenschaft des Judenthums movement in the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury. In a broad way, the Wissenschaft brought the methods of German phi- lology into Jewish Studies, or, to put matters the other way around, brought Jewish Studies into conversation with the German “scientific” university dis- course of the time. In a similar vein we can say that the second major shift, which took place over a hundred years later, in the late 1960s and early 1970s was when the methods of the North American academic world were brought to bear on classical rabbinic materials, or, again to restate matters, when Judaic Studies was brought into conversation with modern American higher educa- tion. This is what I referred to above as the “Neusnerian turn.” Before turning to the critical methodological shift in Neusner’s early scholar- ship, it will be helpful to review the older paradigm to which it was responding and which it ultimately overturned. The Wissenschaft des Judenthums had its roots in the Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft des Judenthums that was estab- lished in 1819 by Leopold Zunz, Eduard Gans, and Isaac Marcus Jost, among others.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789–1848 Review
    Book Reviews 417 semantic meaning (sometimes exceeding the precepts of the post-hermeneutic theo- retical approach). Given the strong connection between the readings and the specific qualities of the poems, Holzmu¨ller’s readings do not yield abstractly summarizable ‘results,’ per se, but it is worth mentioning a few particular strengths. First, her treat- ment of previous scholarship on the poems (and, in the next section, their settings) is thorough and effective, as for example when she reflects on the claims of a long line of scholars about the “Unantastbarkeit” of “Wandrers Nachtlied II” and lists the words whose removal each claims would destroy the poem (232–233) before explaining the phenomenon as a result of the work’s material-linguistic qualities (233ff.). Moreover, in contrast to many approaches focused on formal structuration, Holzmu¨ller keeps the historical-cultural development and connotations of various forms in view (for ex- ample in her analysis of the relation between lineation in “Wandrers Nachtlied I” and the “Abendlied-Strophe” [200–211]). Finally, her reading of the tensions and conflicts between various schemata for formal organization (in “Wandrers Nachtlied II”) pro- vides a model for readers striving to give non-reductive accounts of formal interac- tions and effects (259–261). The third section, which analyzes and compares settings of the two poems by Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Carl Loewe, Franz Schubert, and Hugo Wolf (“Wandrers Nachtlied I”) and Carl Friedrich Zelter, Schubert, and Robert Schumann (“Wandrers Nachtlied II”), is similarly impressive. Holzmu¨ller acknowledges Goethe’s virtuosic shaping of Sprachklang as a problem or challenge for musical setting (one attested to by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Johannes Brahms, among others [289]) and reflects on the rarity of music-theoretical analyses that take into account the fact that song settings always involve the interaction of two sound systems (linguistic and musical), not merely the fitting of a (musical) sound system to a thematic (linguistic) content.
    [Show full text]
  • Collegv“ IMR)»
    9/0 PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM 4 Recap Emancipation produced new type of Jew: No longer in Ghecto but open society; neighbours likely to be Xians Education no longer Bible & Talmud with Rashi, but general, even if Jewish school Knowledge of Hebrew relativéfly slight; no longer fluent Daily speech, outs}de home, no longer Yiddish but... Free to enter professions and participate in activities previously closed to him Therefore working life largely spent with non—Jews But ALSO FREE TO DISREGARD Judaism; no penalties except parental disapproval; rabbinic courts have no jurisdiction... Such a Jew unlikely to find old-style synagogue worship congenial Some choose apostasy Some apathy (least resistance) Some scholarship (non-committal) E.g. Leopold Zunz (1794-1886 ('Homilies', 1832) Some reform First phase (a) lay leadership'(Israe1 Jacobson 1768-1828, Eduard Kley 1789-1867) ' (b) worship reform. ‘ Jacobson: Seesen, Berlin Kley: Hamburg Controversy over Hamburg Temple; birth of Orthodoxy. Moses Sofer 1762—1839 Geiger & 19th century German Reform Follow Abraham Geiger lecture (as marked) and supplement from Reform Movement lecture (as marked). Postscript Geiger not only rabbi to champion Reform But several of greatest emigrated to USA & we shall deal with them there Of those who remained greatest contemporary Samuel Holdheim 1806—60. Frankfort an der Oder 1836—40, Mecklenburg-Schwerin 1840-A6, Berlin Reform 1847. Great scholar, great preacher, fearless radical. Ludwig Philippson 1811-89, prime mover of Brunswick Conf., founder (1837) and ed. of Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums. Magdeburg. Trsl. of Bible. Gradual decline: see RJ, p. 7 _Later leaders: Caesar Seligman 1860-1950. Hamburg 1889-1902, Frankfort 1902-1939, then London.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Historical Studies Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England
    Jewish Historical Studies Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England Schechter's indebtedness to Zunz Ismar Schorsch 1,* How to cite: Schorsch, I. ‘Schechter's indebtedness to Zunz.’ Jewish Historical Studies, 2017, 48(1), pp. 9-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.jhs.2016v48.022. Published: 01 May 2017 Peer Review: This article has been peer reviewed through the journal’s standard double blind peer-review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised during review. Copyright: © 2017, The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited • DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.jhs.2016v48.022 Open Access: Jewish Historical Studies is a peer-reviewed open access journal. *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Jewish Theological Seminary, USA https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.jhs.2016v48.022 Schechter’s indebtedness to Zunz ismar schorsch Jewish Theological Seminary, USA* While Wissenschaft des Judentums (the academic study of Judaism) was born in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century, by the second half it had definitely crossed the borders to the Dual Monarchy, Russia, France, and England, often in the guise of aspiring Jewish scholars trained at German universities in its tools and perspectives. A dramatic case in point was Solomon Schechter, who in 1882 accepted Claude G. Montefiore’s invitation to relocate from Berlin to London as his tutor.1 Still unpublished albeit thoroughly trained as a critical scholar after seven years of intensive study in Vienna and Berlin (though without a doctorate in hand), Schechter would soon emerge as an agent of cultural transfer, bringing to Albion’s shores the ethos of Wissenschaft des Jundentums that he had come to embody.
    [Show full text]
  • Judaism Organized Concepts of Life and Organicity in German-Jewish Scholarship During the Nineteenth Century
    UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Judaism Organized Concepts of Life and Organicity in German-Jewish Scholarship during the Nineteenth Century Student Diederik Broeks Student ID 10049444 Supervisor prof. dr. I.E. Zwiep Second reader dr. A.K. Mohnkern Word count 19456 MA-Thesis Hebrew and Jewish Studies (Middle Eastern Studies) TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction: Conceptions of life in Jewish scholarship .................................................. 5 General introduction ..................................................................................................... 5 Research question ......................................................................................................... 6 Structure ........................................................................................................................ 8 Romantic Trends and Imagery in Judaism ................................................................... 8 On the phrase ‘Wissenschaft des Judentums’ ............................................................. 11 Notes on translation .................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 1: Cultivation and Harvest ................................................................................ 14 1.1 Reproducing Judaism: Leopold Zunz ................................................................... 14 1.2 An Overgrown Garden:
    [Show full text]
  • Crusade Memories and Modern Jewish Martyrologies
    Jewish History . Volume 13, No. 2 . Fdl 1999 " Mehabevin et ha-tsarot" : Crusade Memories and Modern Jewish Martyrologies David N. Myers The Talmud records the following discussion: Our Rabbis taught: Who wrote Megilot Ta'anit (the scrolls of fasting containing lists of days on which fasting is proscribed)? They said: Hananiah b. Hezekiah and his companions, who cherished their troubles (she-hayu mehabevin et ha-tsarot). R. Shimon bar Gamliel observed: We too cherish our troubles, but what can we do? For if we come to write (them down), we are inadequate.l In tracing the echoes of the Crusades in Jewish historical writing and consciousness, one is anested by the phrase "they cherish their troubles." Does it not appear to be a poignant, even shocking, epigram for the Jewish historical experience, or at least for the "lach4mose conception" of that experience according to which suffering assumes pride of place? Here, as elsewhere in Jewish literature, the gates of interpretation were open to various and diverse travelers. Rashi, the great French commentator who was a contemporary of the first Crusaders and who lost relatives and friends to their anti-Jewish excesses, understood "they cherished their troubles" to mean that Jews cherished not their troubles, but rather their liberation from such troubles. Jews were compelled to recall their troubles, he claimed, so as to praise God for His miraculous intervention.2 Moreover, the sense of inadequacy in recording these travails stemmed, in part, from their sheer ubiquity. Persecutions were so regular a feature of Jewish history as to exhaust even the most practiced hand.
    [Show full text]
  • Inventing Tradition: on the Formation Of
    SHULAMIT VOLKOV INVENTING TRADITION On the Formation of Modern Jewish Culture I Tradition is such a self-evident element in our culture that it seems to require no special explanation. Nevertheless, it has recently become a sub- ject for a prolonged debate in a number of scholarly disciplines1. Repeated efforts to redefine and analyse its meaning led especially to some funda- mental rethinking especially in the field of Volkskunde, in Folklore-studies, in what Americans usually call Anthropology. 2 Interestingly enough, the matter has now invaded other domains, too. The problematising of the con- cept of tradition, together with some of its most common antipodes, such as innovation and modernity, brought about a fundamental rethinking in Kunst- and Literaturwissenschaft3 and, as could only be expected, its reeval- uation is now slowly becoming an issue for historians too. In an ever expanding and changing world, with continuously shifting perspectives, explaining what has always seemed only obvious is no mere luxury. The clearing-up of terminological mess becomes an absolute necessity if one wishes to avoid dogmatism and, worse still, the ever-present danger of provincialism. Terms like tradition must be repeatedly rethought and reconsidered and their meaning reconstructed again and again; they must, in fact, be deconstructed. 1 A shorter version of this study has been the basis of a lecture given in the framework of the Jewish Studies Public Lecture Series of the Central European University on 4 December 2001. 2 See the interesting discussion in D. Ben-Amos, ‘The Seven Strands of Tradition: Varieties in Its Meaning in American Foklore Studies’, Journal of Folklore Research 21 (1984), pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Uva-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)
    UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Links in a chain: Early modern Yiddish historiography in the northern Netherlands (1743-1812) Wallet, B.T. Publication date 2012 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Wallet, B. T. (2012). Links in a chain: Early modern Yiddish historiography in the northern Netherlands (1743-1812). General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:29 Sep 2021 LINKS IN A CHAIN A IN LINKS UITNODIGING tot het bijwonen van de LINKS IN A CHAIN publieke verdediging van mijn proefschrift Early modern Yiddish historiography from the northern Netherlands, 1743-1812 LINKS IN A CHAIN Early modern Yiddish historiography from the northern the northern Yiddish historiography from Early modern Early modern Yiddish historiography in the northern Netherlands, 1743-1812 op vrijdag 2 maart 2012 om 11.00 uur in de Aula van de Universiteit van Amsterdam, Singel 411.
    [Show full text]
  • The Making of the Encyclopaedia Judaica and the Jewish Encyclopedia
    THE MAKING OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA AND THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA David B. Levy, Ph. D., M.L.S. Description: The Jewish Encyclopedia and Encyclopaedia Judaica form a key place in most collections of Judaica. Both works state that they were brought into being to combat anti-Semitism. This presentation treats the reception history of both the JE and EJ by looking at the comments of their admirers and critics. It also assesses how both encyclopedias mark the application of social sciences and emphasis on Jewish history, as well as anthropology, archeology, and statistics. We will consider the differences between the JE and EJ, some of the controversies surrounding the making of the encyclopedias, and the particular political, ideological, and cultural perspectives of their contributing scholars. Introduction: David B. Levy (M.A., ’92; M.L.S., ’94; Ph. D., 2002) received a Ph. D. in Jewish studies with concentrations in Jewish philosophy, biblical The 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia and archeology, and rabbinics on May 23, 2002, from the 1972 Encyclopaedia Judaica form an Baltimore Hebrew University. David has worked in important place in collections of Judaica. the Humanities Department of the Enoch Pratt Public Library since 1994. He authored the Enoch Both works were brought into being to Pratt Library Humanities annotated subject guide combat anti-Semitism, to enlighten the web pages in philosophy (24 categories), ancient and public of new discoveries, and to modern languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, German), and religion. He is widely disseminate Jewish scholarship. Both published. encyclopedias seek to counter-act the lack of knowledge of their generations and wide spread assimilation.
    [Show full text]