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Judaism Organized Concepts of Life and Organicity in German-Jewish Scholarship During the Nineteenth Century

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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: Immanuel Wolf .............................................................. 19 Chapter 2: Organism and Decomposition ...................................................................... 24 2.1 The Amphibious Jew: Moritz Steinschneider ....................................................... 24 2.2 Life’s Decomposing Forces: Abraham Geiger ..................................................... 29 Chapter 3: Preservation and Rejuvenation ..................................................................... 34 3.1 Sowing the Teaching: Zecharias Frankel and Wolf Landau ................................. 34 3.2 In the Valley of Bones: Heinrich Graetz............................................................... 37 Chapter 4: Life and Death .............................................................................................. 42 4.1 The Neglected Tree of Life: Samson Raphael Hirsch .......................................... 42 4.2 The Afterlife of Concepts: Gershom Scholem...................................................... 44 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 49 Reviewing the findings ............................................................................................... 49 Connecting dots .......................................................................................................... 50 A glance ahead ............................................................................................................ 52 References ...................................................................................................................... 54 2 ABSTRACT This thesis explores how concepts of life, biology and organicity were adopted by 19th century German-Jewish scholars, representatives of Wissenschaft des Judentums, and adapted to contemporary Jewish issues. The author suggests that these concepts, images or metaphors may have developed into a conceptual paradigm in German-Jewish dis- course, based on or incorporating conceptual trends in the contemporary German aca- demia and the wider European context. This paradigm centralized the image of ‘organic life’, which came to serve as a framework to articulate positions on various Jewish so- cial, political and religious issues. Apart from considering the paradigm’s relationship with the contemporary German intellectual climate, the study also reflects on its roots in, or associations with, 18th cen- tury (Jewish) traditions and considers its survival into the 20th. The guiding hypothesis is that the paradigm particularly supported a conception of Judaism as a unity over the course of history (continuity), and in a modern context of perceived disintegration through acculturation or assimilation, conversion and, from a traditionalist perspective, religious reform. The objectives of the study are thus to a) sketch Jewish adoptions and adaptations of specific conceptual trends in the European context, in order to b) deter- mine to what extent these trends had a formative influence on ensuing Jewish debates and c) determine whether they might deserve more systematic study. By order of appearance, the discussed scholars are: Leopold Zunz (chapter 1.1) and Immanuel Wolf (1.2), on concepts of reproductivity and cultivation; Moritz Stein- schneider (2.1), on the conception of the Jew as an amphibious organism, and Abraham Geiger (2.2), on conflict as an expression of life and the organic function of decompos- ing forces, juxtaposed with Richard Wagner’s view of the Jew as a parasite or decom- poser as such; Zecharias Frankel and Wolf Landau (3.1), on the process of fertilizing and regenerating the tradition from its own sources; Heinrich Graetz (3.2), with a focus on his imagery in reflection on dispersion, rejuvenation and resurrection of the Jewish people; Samson Raphael Hirsch (4.1), on contemporary scholarship as dissecting a liv- ing Judaism, and finally Gershom Scholem (4.2), on the scholarly tradition of Wissen- schaft des Judentums as sterile and suicidal, reminiscent of a burial service. 3 4 INTRODUCTION: CONCEPTS OF LIFE IN JEWISH SCHOLARSHIP General introduction What struck me as I read Gershom Scholem’s “The Science of Judaism – Then and Now” for the first time a few years ago was the type of imagery Scholem employed in his evaluation of 19th century German-Jewish scholarship. To him, this Wissenschaft des Judentums resembled a funeral ceremony for a Judaism declared dead prematurely by its scholars: he accused them of approaching a living subject with an antiquarian mind- set. Scholem’s experience, however, was quite different from my own impression from the writings of prominent representatives, such as Leopold Zunz and Heinrich Graetz. What especially stood out were the clear similarities between Scholem’s criticism of his predecessors and their original criticism of contemporary rabbinic leadership. Both cri- tiques used metaphors of life, stagnation and death. As it turned out, those similarities were the result of a conscious rhetoric. From the perspective of progressive scholars in the 19th century, a once healthy Judaism had withered over the preceding centuries. Within the confines of the ghetto, halachic prac- tice had ossified under increasingly rigid rabbinic leadership.1 Scholem, on the other hand, writing from a 20th century Zionist context, turned this rhetoric around and claimed that 19th century Jewish scholars, besides having been unsuccessful in their aim to ‘revive Judaism’, had in fact actively worked towards its ‘liquidation’. Scholem claimed that they had pursued a detached and elitist agenda, ignoring the living body of Judaism, and that their talk of revival had been empty. The original plan for this thesis was to study the language of that polemic, with a focus on the concepts of ‘regeneration’ and ‘revival’ found among 19th century scholars and appropriated by Scholem. In fact, the latter’s critique can be read as a late contribu- tion to a polemic that had started already in the 19th century, when the first voices, most famously that of Samson Raphael Hirsch, criticized contemporary scholars for an al- leged lack of concern for ‘living Judaism’. However, I soon found out that (much of) this conceptual history has already been written by Asher Biemann, with special focus on the idea of Jewish renaissance in fin-de-siècle Jewish thought.2 1 Halacha; adj. halachic: the corpus of Jewish ritual developed to fulfill the religious commandments. 2 See: Asher D. Biemann, “Wissenschaft als Wiederaufstehung: Zur Polemik der toten Geschichte in der Wissenschaft des Judentums,” in Jüdische Existenz in der Moderne: Abraham Geiger und die Wissen- schaft des Judentums, ed. Christian Wiese, Walter Homolka and Thomas Brechenmacher (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2013), 391-405. Biemann extensively discusses the concept of ‘renaissance’ in Judaism in his 5 I consequently chose to shift my own focus. Firstly, by attempting a broader study of how concepts of ‘life’, ‘biology’ and ‘organicity’ found their way into the writings of 19th century Jewish scholars. Secondly, by looking back to the 18th century, to focus more on the roots of the conceptual language that thoroughly shaped debates on Jewish survival and revival, culminating in the conception of Zionism. Broadly speaking, we will examine how such concepts figured as means to (re)interpret Judaism, the Jewish people and/or Jewish history. They might be designated in different ways: I will mainly refer to them as ‘biological’ or ‘organicist’ concepts. I will explore how the concepts related to their wider intellectual context (as originating in the discourse of the German academy), and how they were adapted to Jewish debates on modern scholarship and religious reform. Starting with a statement of the research question, along with some clarifying re- marks, I will briefly introduce my conception of the European and Jewish engagement with imagery of (organic) life.
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