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Home , Age of Renaissance, Augsburg Interim, Bohemian Reformation, Carl Wilhelm Heine, Christian left, Conversion of the Jews

Jews and Protestants

Jews and Protestants

From the to the Present

Edited by Irene Aue-Ben-, Aya Elyada, Moshe Sluhovsky and Christian Wiese Supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and The Foundation (grant No. 1798/12)

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Open-Access-Transformation in den Jüdischen Studien

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Fachinformationsdienst Jüdische Studien, Universitätsbibliothek J. C. Senckenberg Frankfurt am Main Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz Universitätsbibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin Universitätsbibliothek der Technischen Universität Berlin Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf Universitätsbibliothek der Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) Bibliothek der Vereinigten Theologischen Seminare der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek – Carl von Ossietzky Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Köln Universitätsbibliothek Universitätsbibliothek der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal Acknowledgements

It is our great pleasure to thankall the institutions that contributed to the Refor- mationConference at the Institute in February 2017,includ- ing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Chair in Jewish Thought and Philosophyatthe Goethe University in Frankfurt,the Evangelical in , the Center for the StudyofChristianityatthe Hebrew Uni- versity, the Institute for the History of the German Jews in Hamburg, the for the StudyofContemporary and in University,and the Minerva Institute for German History,Tel Aviv University. We are grateful to SaraTropperfor the professional copy-editing,toJoel Swanson for preparingthe index and to Alice Merozfrom De Gruyter Verlag for her help and cooperation in bringingthe volume to publication. Aspecial thanks is extended to Daat Hamakom – I-Core In The StudyofModern Jewish at the Hebrew UniversityofJerusalem for generouslysupportingthe pub- licationofthe book.Weare also grateful to the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art funded research hub “Religious Positioning:Modalities and Constellations in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Contexts” at the Goethe University Frankfurtand the Justus-LiebigUniversity Gießen for their support.

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-001

TableofContents

Moshe Sluhovskyand Aya Elyada Introduction 1

Dean Phillip Bell The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry Politics, Community,and 13

MarkétaKabůrková Edom versusEdom Echoes of the Lutheran Reformation in Early Modern Jewish Writings 31

Alexander van der Haven Eschatologyand Conversion in the Sperling Letters 49

Lars Fischer The Legacy of Anti- in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 71

Yaakov Ariel ANew Model of Christian Interaction with the Jews Pietist and Evangelical Missions to the Jews 89

Aya Elyada The between Jews and Protestants and PolemicsinEarly Modern Germany 103

Ofri Ilany Christian Images of the Jewish State The Hebrew Republic as aPolitical Modelinthe German Protestant Enlightenment 119

Johannes Gleixner Standard-bearers of Hussitism or Agents of Germanization? Czech Jews and Protestants Competingand Cooperating for the Religion of the Future,1899–1918 137 X TableofContents

Christian Wiese Luther’sShadow Jewish and Protestant Interpretations of the Reformer’sWritings on the Jews, 1917 –1933 161

Dirk Schuster Exclusive Space as aCriterion for in German during the Third Reich 189

Kyle Jantzen Nazi Racism, American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty U.S. Responses to the Jewish Crisis of 1938 203

Ursula Rudnick Lutheran Churches and Luther’sAnti-Semitism Repression, Rejection, and Repudiation 229

Johannes Becke German Guilt and HebrewRedemption Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste and the Legacy of Left-Wing Protestant Philozionism 241

List of Contributors 257

Index 261 Moshe Sluhovskyand AyaElyada Introduction

The year 2017 marked -hundredth anniversary of the eruption of the Prot- estant Reformation. Among the thousands of events commemoratingthe occa- sion was aconference that took place in Jerusalem, dedicated to 500 years of in- teractions between Protestants and Jews. The conference was organized by the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, together with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Martin Buber Chair in Jewish Thought and Philosophyatthe Goethe Univer- sity in Frankfurt as well as the Frankfurt research hub “Religious Positioning: Modalities and Constellations in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Contexts,” the Evangelical Church in Germany,the Center for the StudyofChristianity at the He- brew University, the Institute for the History of the German Jews in Hamburg,the Stephen Roth Institute for the StudyofContemporary Antisemitism and Racism, TelAvivUniversity,and the Minerva Institute for German History,Tel Aviv Uni- versity. Some of the papers thatwerefirst presented at the conference comprise the coreofthis volume.

Since 1996,discussions of Protestant-Jewish relations,the impact of the Reforma- tion on the history of Germany, Jews, and German-Jews, and, in fact,European history tout court,havebeen shaped by Daniel Goldhagen’sbest-selling and controversial Hitler’sWilling Executioners:OrdinaryGermansand the Holo- caust.¹ While many,ifnot most,historians reject the book’smain thesis, that, in its own way, revivedthe Sonderweg explanation of German history,inpublic opinion and the media Goldhagen’sbook reaffirmed the alleged persistence, in German history,ofaneliminationist Germantype of antisemitism. stands at the beginning of this uniquelyGerman and German-Protestant trajec- tory,astraight historical path that led from Luther’scall to destroy the material presenceofJews in the HolyRoman Empire to Hitler’sactual destruction of the Jews in modern Germany.Intracking the spread of modern antisemitism in nine- teenth- and twentieth-centuryGermany, Goldhagen reminds his readers of the re- luctanceofsome segments of the Church under to adopt racist theories while positioning Protestant churches, the Protestant media, and espe-

 Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’sWillingExecutioners: Ordinary and the (: Random House, 1996).

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-002 2 Moshe Sluhovsky and Aya Elyada ciallythe Protestant Sonntagsblätter,the weeklySundaynewspapers,asactive agents in shaping antisemitic public opinion.² There is no denying Luther’sown antisemitism, nor the immense influence of his antisemitic writingsonProtestant theologyand theologians in laterperi- ods. Lutheran theologyconcerning Jews and Judaism was, in its turn, molded by the Pauline theologyofsupersession, and by Luther’sown trajectory from hop- ing to bring about amass following his purported purifi- cation of of foreign pagan elements, to the vicious and even extermi- natory theologyofhis later years. It is equallyself-evident that Luther’spersonal struggle with the Jewish refusal to accept his purified theologyhad an inestim- able impact on latergenerations of Lutherantheologians.This was true through- out the past half amillennium and even more so since 1945. In fact,asThomas Kaufmann rightlyobserves, “[Luther’s] attitude to the Jews has become asortof pivotal issue in understanding his character and .”³ Just as Luther’sown virulent antisemitismshould not be whitewashed,one ought never to dismiss or forgive the brutal, racist,and in manycases elimina- tionist antisemitism of large segments of the Protestant hierarchyinthe modern period. Nonetheless, the articles in this volume positthat there was no direct line leading from Luther to Hitler.And while some papers in the collection address Luther’santisemitism as well as the Glaubensbewegung Deutsche Christen,we have sought to broaden the scope of the investigation. Protestant-Jewish theolog- ical encounters shaped not onlyantisemitism but also the JewishReform move- ment and Protestant philosemitic post-; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not onlyinthe German-speaking sphere but also in the wider Protestant universe – in ,,the Low Countries, Eng- land, and the ;theologywas crucial for the articulation of attitudes towardJews, but music and philosophywereadditional spheres of that enabled the process of thinkingthrough the relations between Judaism and Prot- estantism. Generallyspeaking,Luther and spelled trouble for the Jews, but there weretimes that they constituted an attractive model of ‘purified’ Christianitythat could potentiallylead to arapprochement between the faith communities.For afew generations of secularized Jews in Germany, conversion to Protestantism was ameans of into Deutschtum,Protestantism’s essence as abelief system brushed aside. Thus, rather than asingle history of Protestant-Jewishrelations and asingle history of the theological mis/under-

 Ibid., 106–10;284–5, amongother places.  Thomas Kaufmann, Luther’sJews:AJourney intoAnti-Semitism (2014; Oxford: OxfordUniver- sity Press, 2017), 5. Introduction 3 standingsbetween the tworeligions, it is, in fact,multiple historiesand engage- ments that have helped to fashion boththe and their peoples over the past 500 years. The collection aims to disentangle some of the intricate percep- tions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants.Asthe presence of Dr.Martin Hauger,the Referent fürGlaube und Dialog of the Evangelical Church in Germany, at the conference in Jerusalem, and some of the articles below make clear,Jewish-Protestantrelations are an on-going project,aproject to which this collection hopes to contribute.

In 1523, Martin Luther published his first major tract on the ‘’ under the That was Born AJew.⁴ Considering the anti-Jewish stance advocated by Luther in earlier theological writings,⁵ and particularlyin light of the deeplyrooted anti-Jewishness that characterized medievalsociety and culture, the new treatise of the young reformer was marked by asurprisingly tolerant ,and even evinced acertain congenial tone toward the Jews. To be sure, Lutherdid not promoteany tolerance towardthe Jewish religion itself, nor did he call to accept Jews as Jews. The explicit aim of this work was to encourage mission among the Jews, with the goal of bringingabout their conversion to the new Protestant Church. Yet, some of the main notions Luther presented in the text clearlybrokefrom the hitherto prevalent attitudes towardthe Jewishminor- ity.Tobegin with, Lutherlaid the blame for the Jews’ persistent refusaltoconvert to Christianity squarelyatthe feet of the . It was the centuries- old Catholic perversion of Christianitythat had kept the Jews from joining this corrupt,half-pagan religion, he maintained. Moreover,the Catholic Church had treated the Jews so badly, persecuted and exploitedthem, “that anyone who wished to be agood Christian would almost have had to become aJew.If Ihad been aJew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith,” Lutheradmonished, “Iwould sooner have become ahog than aChristian.”⁶ Recommending the termination of the harsh and obviouslyfutile traditional methodsused by the Catholic Church to achieveJewish conversion, Luther en-

 Martin Luther, “Daß Jesus ein geborner Jude sei” (1523), in D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 120vols. (Weimar:Böhlau, 1883–2009), vol. 11:307– 36 (henceforth: WA). English translation in Luther’sWorks.55vols.(: Fortress Press; and Louis: Concordia PublishingHouse, 1955–1986), vol. 45:199–229(henceforth: LW).  See especiallyhis first and second lectures on the (Dictata super psalterium,from1513/ 14,and Operationes in psalmos,from1518).  LW 45,200. 4 Moshe Sluhovsky and Aya Elyada dorsed afresh, twofold strategy. would instruct the Jews kindlyand carefullyinScripture,accordingtoits ‘true Christian’ (namely,Lutheran) under- standing,and allow the Jewish minority to integrate into Christian ,asa means of exposing them to Christian and wayoflife.⁷ Luther wascertain that,when offered the option of converting to apure, correct,and unadulterated form of Christianity,and after existing barriers and obstacles had been removed, manyJews, if not all, would choose to convert to the new confession. YetLuther’shopes for Jewish conversion did not materialize, and from the late 1530s we witness the publication of several anti-Jewish tracts from the pen of the agingreformer,the most notorious of which was On the Jews and Their Lies from 1543, three yearsbefore Luther’sdeath.⁸ In this work, which be- came ahallmark of Luther’s – and Lutheran – antisemitism, Luther warns his Christian readers of their most dangerous,indeed devilish, eternal enemy – the Jews residing among them. “Therefore, dear Christian,” Luther writes, “be advised and do not doubt that next to the devil, youhavenomorebitter,venom- ous, and vehement foe thanareal Jewwho earnestlyseeks to be aJew.”⁹ And elsewherehewrites,

They arereal liars and bloodhounds whohave[…]continuallyperverted and falsified all of Scripturewith their mendaciousglosses […]The sun has never shone on amorebloodthirs- ty and vengeful people than they arewho imagine that they areGod’speople whohave been commissioned and commanded to murder and to slaythe .¹⁰

Fortunately, Luther states,they lack the power to do so. Yetthe threat posed to Christian society by the Jewishminority is no less real: since the Jews habitually lie and blaspheme, they might implicate the entire society – both Jews and Chris- – in their depravity.Ifwetolerate the Jews and their calumnies,Luther ex- horts his readers, the wrath of shall be upon us all.¹¹ What do we do then, asks Luther,with the Jews?Weare unable to convert them, yetwecannot tolerate their presenceamong us. The solution he now sug- gests to the Christian authorities is the mirror opposite of the one he offered twenty years before. Instead of integratingthe Jews into Christian society and

 Ibid., 200–201, 229.  Martin Luther, “Vonden Juden und ihrenLügen” (1543), WA 53,417– 552. English translation from LW 47,137–306.Two other important works in this respect are Wider die Sabbather (Against the Sabbatarians,1538) and VomSchem Hamphoras (On the Ineffable Name,1543).  LW 47,217.  Ibid., 156–57.  Ibid., 268. Introduction 5 approaching them with compassion, Luther advocates applying to them “sharp mercy”:burning their and schools, destroyingtheir homes, confis- cating their booksand forbidding their to teach, denying them safe con- duct,prohibiting their dealingwith finance and putting them to hard labor.But the best solution, Luther advises, would be to follow in the footsteps of other Eu- ropean countries and expel the Jews from the German landsaltogether.¹² Scholars have long attempted to account for what seems to be Luther’sdra- matic changeofheart regarding the Jews and the ‘JewishQuestion.’ First and foremost,Luther’sdisappointment concerning the continued refusalofthe Jews to convert to his new confession clearlydrovehim to the conclusion that they wereentirelyunder the wrath of God. Thus, as he makes explicit at the be- ginning of On the Jews and Their Lies,itisimpossible – and thereforeuseless – to try and convert them. Indeed, consideringthe anti-Jewish stance he advocated alreadyinhis earlywritings, the 1523text would seem to be the exception, as though Luther had ‘suspended’ his animosity towardthe Jews in order to give their conversion achance.¹³ Once this opportunity was not partaken of, the old animuscould make ahorrifying comeback. But the rancor of Luther’sattacks from the 1540s, which wereconsidered ex- ceptionallysevere even in the anti-Jewish atmosphere of the sixteenthcentury, also merits inquiry.Herescholars have proposed, alongsideLuther’sconversion- ary letdown, his increasing decrepitude; his bitterness in the face of Reformation setbacks; his apocalyptic set of mind; and the fact thatduringthoseyears Luther spoke ruthlesslyabout all his enemies – the ‘papists,’ the Anabaptists, the Turks, and basically anyone who did not affirm his theology as the one and onlytrue understanding of Christianity.Specifically, with regard to the Jews, it has been suggested thatwhat Luther perceivedas‘Judaizing’ tendencies within the Prot- estant camp (-observing , certain within Protestant Hebra- ism, etc.) sharpened his view of the ‘Jewish danger’ that he perceivedasplacing his Reformation in peril. Finally, it is important to note the influenceofthe book Der gantz Jüdisch glaub (TheEntire JewishFaith,first publishedinAugsburg, 1530) on the stance taken by the older Luther toward the Jews. Written by Anto- nius Margaritha, the son of arabbi and aconvert from Judaism, the book claim- ed, among otherthings, to expose the Jewishblasphemies and anti-Christian

 Ibid., 268–72.  It is important to note, in this respect,the last sentence of That Jesus Christ was Born AJew, where Luther makes the followingstatement: “Here Iwill let the matter rest for the present,until Isee what Ihaveaccomplished” (LW45, 229). This concluding sentenceshould probablybe takenasakind of warningmade by Luther,suggestingthat the advocatedtolerance toward the Jews was entirelyconditional, and clearlyhad an expiry date. 6 Moshe Sluhovskyand Aya Elyada sentiments allegedlycontained in their religious booksand dailyprayers. Luther referred to Margaritha’sinfluential and highlypopularbook on several occasions as acrucial sourceofknowledge for contemporary Judaism. It appears that the work contributed to the reformer’sviewofthe hostility of the Jews towardthe Christians and of their outrageous blasphemies against God and the Christian re- ligion – two prominent motifs in his 1543antisemitic tract. While the aforementioned factors maywell have contributed to Luther’san- tisemiticattacks, one thing is certain: his existential fear of the Jews, and his profound conviction that they must be converted or otherwise banished entirely from Christian Germany, persisted up to his very final days.OnFebruary 7, 1546, less than two weeks before his death, Luther added to one of his lastsermons, preached at St.Andrew’sChurch in his hometown of Eisleben, An Admonition against the Jews.¹⁴ As he noted in two letters to his wife from February 1 and 7, ¹ ⁵ Luther was quite upset by the presenceofasmall Jewish community in Eisleben and in asmall town close by.Hedecided to encourageCount Al- brecht in their expulsion – by advocating it from the pulpit. “Morethan others, youstill have Jews in your land who do great harm,” he warned his listeners, emphasizing again the great of tolerating Jewish slander and blasphemy, as well as the eternal enmity of the Jewtoward the Christian religion and its ad- herents.Inconclusiontohis final will with regard to the Jews Luther wrote:

This is the final warningIwanted to give you, as your countryman: […]Ifthe Jews will be convertedtous[…]wewill gladlyforgive them. But if not,then neither should we tolerate or endure them amongus.¹⁶

Luther died in 1546,leaving his newlyfounded Church with aJanus-faced legacy concerning the Jews and their prospective conversion. Thelegacyofthe Luther,advocated most clearlybythe Pietist movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, emphasized the responsibility of Christians to convert Jews via friendlyengagement. The legacyofthe older Luther,bycontrast,which characterized Lutheran Orthodox circles from the mid-sixteenth until the early eighteenthcentury,denied the possibility of converting the Jews through human effortsand stressed the need for Christians to defend themselvesin the face of the Jewishthreat.

 Martin Luther, “Warnungvor den Juden” (1546), in WA 51,195–96;English translation in LW 58, 458 – 59.See also Brooks Schramm and Kirsi I. Stjerna (eds.), Martin Luther,the Bible, and the Jewish People: AReader (Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 2012), 200–202.  ForEnglish translation of the letters see ibid., 198–99.  Ibid., 201, 202. Introduction 7

As the eighteenth century drew to aclose and the nineteenth century opened, the anti-Jewish part of Luther’slegacyseems to have falleninto obliv- ion. ThePietistic roots of German Enlightenment contributed considerablyto the diffusionofarelatively pro-Jewishstance among German theologians of the time,and to the imageofLuther as aproponent of tolerance towardthe Jews. Anti-Jewishwritingsfrom this period and throughout the nineteenth cen- tury tendedtocite the sinister work of the Calvinist scholarJohann Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judentum (Judaism Unmasked,1700) as theirsourceofinspiration and authority,rather than Luther’slaterworks.Onlyinthe 1830s, following the first modern edition of Luther’swritings,¹⁷ did Luther’santi-Jewishwritings gain renewed attention. While some Lutheran scholars condemned the reform- er’shostility to the Jews, others utilizedhis work to propagateantisemitic no- tions. Thiswas especiallythe case towardthe end of the nineteenth century, when the formation of the Second Reich propagated anew imageofLutheras aGerman national hero who mobilized his people against external enemies. Soon enough, and under the influenceofraciallybasedideologies,Luther was also mobilized against internal enemies. His antisemitic writingsenjoyed agrow- ing popularity in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and, usually stripped of their theological message, wereoften integrated into anew völkisch-racist un- derstandingofGerman-ness. By the earlytwentieth century,the later Luther,the author of vitriolicanti- semitic sermons and treatises,came to dominate scholarship on Luther.The impact of this antisemitic readingofLuther’stheologywas such thateventhe edition of Luther’swritings,which wascloselylinked to the (Bekennende Kirche), sang the praises of Luther’s On the Jews andtheir Lies’santisemitism.¹⁸ By the 1930s, Luther’swritingswereusedtojustify the ex- clusion of Jews from public life, the burning of synagogues, and the promotion of ethnic and racist notionsofGerman-ness. After ,the publication and circulation of Luther’santisemitic writingsincreased dramatically, the most popularcompendium of the genre being Martin Sasse’s Martin Luther über die Juden: Wegmit ihnen! (Martin Luther on the Jews: Away withThem!). Sasse was aleading Lutheran theologian who mergedworld Jewry,Catholicism, liberal Protestants abroad, and western into avast conspiracy

 ErlangenEdition,1826–1886.The volumewith the latewritings on the Jews appeared in 1832. In the Weimar Edition (WA) this volume sawlight onlyin1919.  Kaufmann, Luther’sJews,7. 8 Moshe Sluhovsky and Aya Elyada against the Führer’ssacred struggle. He alsodid not fail to point out the expia- tory symbolism of Kristallnacht taking place on Luther’sbirthday.¹⁹ This being said, one oughttobear in mind that Luther’santisemitism was rather akin to the antisemitism of his contemporaries, Catholics and Protestants alike. Luther did not call for an annihilation of the Jews, and while he talked about the degeneration of Jews since Jesus’ time, he – unlikethe Nazis – never deniedJesus’ Jewishethnicity.Nor should one forgetthat German Luther- ans’ engagement with Luther’santisemitic writingsand with Jews did not end in 1945. In fact,Lutheran theologyofthe second half of the twentieth century be- came the coreofareckoning and afundamental departure from astained past. Alreadyin1950,the of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) in Berlin- Weissensee declared that God’sselection of the Jews was not revoked with the of Christ,atheological novelty without precedent that abrogated 1700 years of supersessionist theology. Since then, the covenant with Israel has become acrucial component of German and non-German Lutheran theology. In 1983, as is well known, on the 500thanniversary of Luther’sbirth, the council of the EKD pronounced Luther’slate textsonthe Jews “calamitous,” and afew years laterthe EKD recognized the implication of the Protestant Church in the crimes of the Nazi state against the Jews. In 2017,inconjunction with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the synod published anew declaration concerning the EKD’srelations to Jews. Recognizing the mistakesmadebyre- formers and by the Reformation churches,the EKD expressed its regrets that the Reformation failed to put an end to medieval antisemitism, and that Luther’s antisemitism, in fact,contributed to Nazi antisemitism.Furthermore,unlike pre- vious discourse on Luther’stheology, which emphasized the break between the earlyand the late Luther, the EKD stated that “Luther’searlystatements and his late writingsfrom 1538, with theirundisguised hatredofJews, show continuity in his theological judgment.” The declaration attributed to the foundingfather irra- tional fear of and stereotypical thinking about Jews and drawsadirect line be- tween his writingsand the

justification of hatred and of Jews,inparticular with the emergenceofracist antisemitism and at the time of National . It is not possible to drawsimple con- tinuous lines.Nevertheless,inthe 19th and 20th century,Luther was asource for theolog- ical and ecclesial anti-Judaism, as wellasfor political antisemitism.

 Martin Sasse (ed.), Martin Luther über die Juden: Wegmit ihnen! (Freiburg/Br.: Sturmhut- Verlag, 1938), 2. Introduction 9

Last,but not least,the EKD declared that “Luther’sjudgment upon Israel there- fore does not correspond to the biblical statements on God’scovenant faithful- ness to his people and the lasting election of Israel.”²⁰

Dean Phillip Bell’sarticle looks at the impact of the Reformation on German Jewry and the development of Jewish historiographyofthe topic. Bell warns against ateleological perspective that ignores Lutheran-Jewishmoments of inter- action and collaboration. He recalls the role of Jews in the development of Lu- theran Hebraism, the growinginterest of theologians in Hebrew texts and tradi- tions, and the Jewish support of the idea of agodlycommunity.Using the concept of Confessionalization, which denotes the earlymodern processes that reshaped relations between state and church after the Reformation, Bell demon- strates how these processes alsoinfluenced Jewishcommunities in the . Bell concludes that even if German Jews totallyrejected the theo- logical messageofthe Reformation, its organizational and political transforma- tions of society still had asignificant impact on Jewishcommunities.Markéta Kabůrková explores the large and diverse bodyofJewish views on Luther,and on the Reformation as it unfolded. She shows that the Jewish reaction to the re- ligious upheavals in Christianity was farfrom monochromatic: while some - ish authorssaw the Reformation as apurification of Christianity and its return to Jewishroots, others weremoreapprehensive,fearing the impact of Luther’sRef- ormation on the fate of the Jews in the Germanlands. Still other Jewish authors, especiallythoseofSephardi origin, viewed Lutheranism as the Catholic Church’s comeuppance for its mistreatment of the Jews. All agreed, however,thatthe re- formers misunderstood Scripture. Moving chronologically, the next papers examine various aspects of Protes- tant-Jewishrelations during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Alexander vander Haven investigates the changingrelations between notions of conversion and eschatological expectations in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War. While eschatologicalthinking typicallyprompts exclusivist notions of conversion, insisting that there is onlyone true religion, Vander Havensug- gests that earlymodern alsohad the potential to bring different re- ligious groups together.Tosupport this claim, he analyzes two letters written by aconvert to Judaism in in 1682, in which the author presented asce- nario of an imminent eschaton thatassigned positive roles to more thanone religious group. This wasdone, however,without relinquishing aclear line of de- marcation between the forces of light and darkness. Lars Fischer’sdiscussion

 https://www.ekd.de/en/Martin-Luther-and-the-Jews-272.htm 10 Moshe Sluhovsky and Aya Elyada of the antisemitic natureofBach’ssacred cantatas bringsusback to the themeof anti-Jewishinclinations within German Lutheranism. Arguing that this attitude was to be expected in light of Bach’sadherencetoLutheran orthodoxy and his position as cantor in the Lutheran Church of the earlyeighteenthcentury, Fischer asks how,and to what extent,did the anti-Jewishsentiment of the time find expression in Bach’soeuvre. With Cantata 42 as acentral case-study, he wishes to raise awareness of these troublingaspects in Bach’smusic, aware- ness thathefinds to be lacking among Bach scholars and fans of our time. Questions of mission and conversion, especiallyinthe context of the Pietist and the Evangelical movements within Lutheranism, come to the fore in the next two papers.Yaakov Ariel discusses the rise of the Pietist mission to the Jews, its underlying assumptions, and the wayitwas carried out at the Institutum Ju- daicum,the great Pietist missionary center founded in 1728 in the Prussian city of . Arielhighlights the use of in the missionary endeavors of the Halle Pietists, first and foremost for the missionary publications producedin Halle. He alsoshows how eighteenth-century helpedshape the and methods of Evangelical missions to the Jews which emergedinEnglish- speakingcountries at the beginning of the nineteenth century.Aya Elyada tack- les the project undertaken by the Halle Pietists duringthe first half of the eight- eenth century,ofpublishing missionary works in Yiddish for distribution among the Jews. In particular,Elyadaattemptstoexplain whythe Pietists found it im- portant to publish Yiddish versions of biblical booksdespite the centuries-long availability of such among . Elyada raises the possi- bility that the Pietist missionaries, like earlier Lutheran theologians from the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries,rejected the existingJewish, Yiddish versions of the Bible on the basis of both style and content.These publications, she sug- gests, were then to be replaced by ‘decent’–that is, Protestant and Germanized – versions of the holytext. The vagaries of Protestant-Jewishrelations in the modern period are the sec- ond focus of the collection. From the eighteenth centuryon, these relations were often also related to different configurations of the nation and the Volk. Ofri Ilany traces the trajectory of the notion of the ‘Hebrew Republic’ in legal theory and theologyinthe German-speaking lands. This concept was central to numer- ous authors, among them the most prominent theologian of the German Enlight- enment,Johann David Michaelis. In Michaelis’ writings, the Lawgiver is portrayed as the man who, in his republican-theocratic innovations, overcame the division of the into tribes, thus enablingthe creation of anation. The Hebrew Republic could thus serveasamodel for ahopeful unification of the German people. JohannesGleixner probes the position of Jews and Protes- tants in relation to the political changes in the Czech-speakingparts of the Habs- Introduction 11 burgEmpire at the turn of the twentieth century.During thattime, Gleixner ar- gues, the two communities werepressured in asimilar manner to assimilate into mainstream, Catholic society,and there are strongparallels in the ways in which both of these minorities responded to the challenge, while strugglingtomaintain their own religious and culturalidentity.Gleixner also signals the political ach- ievementsofthe Czech Jewish-Protestant alignment and its impact on the dis- course surrounding the foundation of the new Czechoslovak republic in 1918. Christian Wiese analyses the wayJewish historians and philosophersinGer- manyinterpreted Luther’ssignificance for contemporary debates on and integration, either praising him as aforerunner of freedom of thought and Enlightenment or criticizinghis contribution to Protestantism’s submissiveness towards the authoritarian state. Those who referredtothe re- former’s Judenschriften between 1917and 1933,heargues, insistedonastrong discontinuity between the earlyand the later writings, in adesperate attempt to counter nationalist or völkisch readingsand to convince non-JewishGermans to embrace the attitude of the – idealized – youngLuther and, as aconsequence, reject antisemitism. Wiese demonstratesthat, unfortunately,this narrative of a ‘tolerant’ creator of Germanness remained without an echo among the majority of Protestant theologians of the time. Enteringdeeper into the twentieth century,Dirk Schuster and KyleJant- zen both address Lutherans’ responses to racism during the period of Na- tional Socialism.Schuster considers how ideas of racial purity influenced the theological as well as practical stance of certain movements in the German Prot- estant Church towards Jews, Judaism, and Jewishconverts to Christianity.He shows how these movements perceivedProtestantism as an exclusive Aryan re- ligion, and how racial considerations became for their adherents aprecondition to belongingtothe Protestant Church. Thus, they not onlyaimedto‘de-Judaize’ Christianity, but also denied the Jews the onlypossibility,intheir eyes, to reach salvation. Turning our gaze to the other sideofthe Atlantic, Kyle Jantzen’spaper examines how U.S. Protestants perceivedHitler,Nazism, and the persecution of Germany’sJews in the prewar era, and what kinds of responses they proposed. Analyzingasample of Protestant publications and journals, he contends that prior to the Second World War, American Lutherans did not ignorethe danger of Nazism, but wereprimarilyconcerned with the Nazi persecution of Christians. Aboveall, Jantzen claims, they identified Nazism as an enemyofreligion. As far as the Jews wereconcerned, American Protestants both condemned and perpe- tuated forms of antisemitism in the United States. Over time, they developed an anti-antisemitic attitude, which did not prevent them from adhering to superses- sionist and conversionalattitudes towardJews. 12 Moshe Sluhovsky and Aya Elyada

Post-Holocaust reckoning is crucial for Lutheran theologyofthe second half of the twentieth century, and it is the main concern of the last pair of articles. Ursula Rudnick addresses the impact of in her discussion of the process undertaken by the Lutheranchurchincondemningthe antisemitic writingsofMartin Luther,while at the sametime renewingtheological dialogue between Jews and Lutherans after the Shoah. She offers adetailedchronology of the activities and pronouncements of the Lutheran Commission on Church and Judaism over the 40-year period which led to the Declaration of Driebergenin the year 1990.The article scrutinizes pan-European and pan-Lutheran develop- ments and declarations, remindingusthat the process of reckoning and rethink- ing Jewish-Lutheran relations after the Holocaust took place across the globe. Fi- nally, JohannesBecke analyzes contemporary attitudes of Lutherans toward Judaism and the reconfigurations of theologyinthe shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict.Studying the history of Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ASF) in Is- rael from the 1960s onwards, Becke presents both theological and sociological evidence for shifting notions of guilt,responsibility,and atonement among dif- ferent generations of German Lutheran youth. After situating the history of the organization within the conceptual frameworks of Philosemitism and Philozion- ism, Becke spotlights the rupture in the long history of Protestant-Jewish rela- tions brought about by the foundation of aJewish state. As can be seen from this brief overview,the present volume aims to shed light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present day. Spanning five centuries and avast geo- graphical area, it demonstrates the manifold manifestations of these complex re- lationsinever-shifting historical contexts. The volume brings together the work of scholars who differ not onlywith respect to religious, national, and institu- tional backgrounds,but also in their methodological approachesand fields of expertise. By this, we hope to showcase current trends in present-day scholar- ship on Protestant-Jewish relations, and to open up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears bothhistorical significanceand evident rele- vancetoour own time. Dean Phillip Bell The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry

Politics, Community,and Religion

Introduction

It seems somewhat unnecessary by now to state candidlythat the Reformation, at least as traditionallyunderstood, never occurred. While something most as- suredlyhappened in Germanyinthe sixteenthcentury,itisimpossible to con- ceive of what that something was absent adiscussion of what came before and what came after.Inother words, anyinquiry into the ‘Reformation’ calls for coverageofadaunting rangeoftopics, personalities, and localities. We do know thatanniversaries, such as the one commemorating the 500th anniversary of Luther’s95Theses, are historical constructs.AsRobert Scribner, the renownedhistorian of the German Reformation, has reminded us in aslen- der but provocative book on another anniversary – the occasion of the 500th an- niversary of the birth of Martin Luther – for most of us, the Reformation began when Luther brazenly,ifrather commonly, posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenbergin1517. But,Scribner cautions,

Despitemuch scholarlydebate, it remains uncertain whether the theses wereeverposted; the real significanceofthe alleged incident resided in the fact that much later in the six- teenth century amyth was created that this was how ‘the Reformation’ began. This myth is typical of anumber of myths about the Reformation. It involves ateleological view of history,anarrangement from hindsight of the course of events into an inevitable pattern in which no other outcome is envisaged than ‘the Reformation’ as later ages understood it.¹

Ruing what he deems an excessive focus on Luther,Scribner points to the com- plexity of aprotracted historicalprocess that better reflects the Reformation as a historical phenomenon.² ForScribner and for us, however,such myths and his- torical constructions provide avaluable opportunity to question handed-down

 Robert W. Scribner,The German Reformation(Atlantic Highlands, NJ:Humanities Press, 1986), 1.  Ibid., 2.

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-003 14 Dean PhillipBell assumptions and to seek abroader context for understanding both the past and present. Like other scholars, Scribner observed that the term ‘Reformation’ was itself somewhat anachronistic in the sixteenth century.Itwas usedinthe modern sense to describeaperiod in Church history onlybeginning in the seventeenth century underparticularlypolemicalcircumstances, eventuallybecominga self-legitimatingmantrafor confessional churches in the nineteenth and twen- tieth centuries.³ Still, while the Reformation in the modern sense was aconstruc- tion, the term Reformation did have important currencyinthe late medievalpe- riod and the sixteenthcentury in three specific contexts: first,asalegal code; second, as arestructuring of auniversity curriculum; and finally, as internal re- form of the church (coming closest here to later Reformation notions). The term also carried apopularsense, almostofapocalyptic dimensions, of ushering in a great change.⁴ In this regard, thereissome overlap with more recent discussions of Confessionalization (see below). Recognizing the complexity of something called the Reformation, as well as the need to take along view of events and developments, includingearlier trends (which some scholars suggest we seek alreadyback in the twelfth century) and later developments, beginning with Confessionalization, we have aremarkable opportunity to (re)consider developments within German Jewry duringthe Refor- mationperiod. Jewishhistoriographyhas balanced its treatment of the Reformation and the Jews between two poles, reflected in the varyinginterpretations of Luther as the embodiment of the German lauter,pure,⁵ or the Hebrew lo-tahor,impure.⁶ On the one hand,the Reformation is recognized as adecisive event thatled to increasinglybitter and abusive theological and political,and in some cases even ‘racial,’ and concomitant expulsion from various cities and territories throughout central . Indeed, accordingtosome scholars,

 Ibid., 4.  Ibid.  “Light” in Hayyim Hillel Ben-Sasson’stranslation; see Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Reforma- tion in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” The Israel AcademyofSciences and Humanities Proceedings 4:12 (1970): 239–326.  See ibid., 272and n. 96,and 288; see also M. Davis on Eliezer Eilburg; as Davis points out,ananonymous polemical treatise playedwith Luther’sfirst name as well, since ‘martina’ was the word for clay, it could notethat “In 1520 apriest named Martin arose […] and his name proves that he is common clay[…]”;Joseph M. Davis, “The ‘TenQuestions’ of Eli- ezer Eilburg,” Hebrew Union CollegeAnnual 80 (January,2009): 173 – 244, here at 229. The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry 15 the reformers’ attitude towards the Jews pavedthe wayfor the centuries-later an- nihilation of European Jewry – the Sonderweg theory.⁷ On the other hand, in the view of other scholars, the Reformation ushered in adissolution of the homogeneousand all-powerful church and led to the even- tual removal of anti-Jewish motifs such as host and ritual murder. Further,the Reformation, with its emphasis on the and the refa- shioning of Protestants as the ancient and Christian cities as new Zions, by the end of the sixteenth century led to an unprecedented degreeoftol- eration of Jews through the reception of Roman Lawand the interest in , the Hebrew Bible, and Jewish customs.Jews, too, felt the burning apocalyptic sense of the age, envisioningtheirown redemption and the begin- ning of amessianic era. Moreover,manyscholars suggest that the Reformation, with its alleged Protestant Ethic, led to the economic reintegration of European Jewry by the end of the sixteenth century.⁸ Well representing an older stream of historical interpretation – one which noted the ill treatment of the Jews but also their essentialOtherness – the tow- ering nineteenth-century Jewishhistorian (1817–1891) once wrotethat,

It is astonishing, yetnot astonishing, that the surgingmovement,the convulsive heaving that shook the Christian world from pole to pole in the first quarter of the sixteenth century scarcelytouched the inner life of the Jews […]Havinghad no ‘,’ they needed no new epoch. They needed no regeneration, they had no immoral course of life to redress, no cankeringcorruption to cure,nodam to raise against the insolenceand rapacity of their spiritual guides.They had not so much rubbish to clear away […].⁹

 See Salo WittmayerBaron, ASocial and Religious History of the Jews,vol. 13 (2nd ed.) (New York: Press, 1969), 217: “Henceitwas mainlyinthe territoryofthe Holy Roman Empirethat the great drama of the Reformation immediatelyaffected manyJewish com- munities and constitutedamajor factor in the subsequent destinies of the Jewish people, down to the Nazi eraand beyond.”  According to , for example, “At the same time, the chronologicallyprecedinginfluences of the Protestant Reformation upon had to be treatedinasubsequent chapter as an integral factor in the transformation of modern Europe and the ensuingemancipation of the Jews” ;Salo W. Baron, “Emphases in Jewish History,” in History and Jewish Historians:Essays and Addresses (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964): 65– 89,here at 69. Baron argues that, “[…]inthe long run, the Reformation contributed to the religious diversifica- tion, and subsequentlytothe growing secularization, of Europe. In time, these forceswere bound to affect deeplyalso the positionofJews in the modern world”;Baron, ASocial and Re- ligious History of the Jews,vol. 13,206.  Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews,vol. IV (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of Amer- ica, 1956 [orig.1894]), 477. 16 Dean Phillip Bell

One of the few,earlyscholars to examine the contemporary Jewish view of the Reformation wasHaim Hillel Ben-Sasson (1914–1977). As Ben-Sasson noted at the beginning of one of his by now dated, but still important and landmark es- says:

Essentiallythis conflict within the Christian community no doubt left the Jewinthe roleof an outside observer.Nevertheless, therewere some Jews whoregarded themselvesasin- volved in this struggle,whether through force of circumstances, or as aresult of certain il- lusions that they chose to nurture. Whatever the cause, it can hardly be denied that many of the phenomena of the Christian controversy and attendant problems had adefinitebear- ing upon Jewish life and thought.¹⁰

Ben-Sasson identified the fact,abit begrudgingly perhaps,thatthe Reformation clearlyhad resonanceinJewish life and thought.Inthe years since his research, the regular rejection of traditionalhistoriographicalemphases on intellectual ac- complishments and persecution, in favorofamore nuanced and frequentlyless pristine, harmonious, and isolatedsociety than was once imagined has fruitfully complicated our imageofearlymodernGerman Jewry. Thus, an abundanceofrecent studies have added significant depth to our understanding of the position of Jews and the Jewishcommunity in the larger non-Jewishworld and have pointed to remarkablyrich social interactions and in- tellectual engagements between Jews and Christians. Yethistorians often remain reticent to explore the extent to which the broader changes associatedwith the Reformation affected the social and communal aspects of ‘internal’ Jewish life. This is true to such adegree that we mayevenallow for the standard bifurcation of ‘internal’ and ‘external,’ or even the segregation of what wereonce distinct fields of inquiry such as social, political, intellectual, economic, and culturalhis- tory.¹¹ The representation of Jews and Judaism, the accomplishments and activ- ities of some Jewish scholars, and even the impact of Judaism and Jews on the

 Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 239. In another article, Ben- Sasson reflected that, “On closer inspection in Germanyturns out to be much morereceptive to nonnative elements,morevariegated,than current views about it would allow”;Hayyim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “Jewish-Christian Disputation in the SettingofHumanism and Reformation in the ,” HarvardTheological Review 59 (1966): 369–90, hereat369.  Thereare,however,anumber of contributions to this discussion, including Dean Phillip Bell, in EarlyModern Germany: Memory,Power and Community (Aldershot: Ash- gatePublishers,2007); Debra Kaplan,Beyond Expulsion: Jews,Christians,and Reformation (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 2011); and L. Greenblatt,ToTell Their Children: Jewish Communal Memory in EarlyModern (Stanford, CA: StanfordUni- versity Press, 2014). The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern GermanJewry 17

Reformation have receivedmuch attention in scholarshipand continue to garner interest from Jewishand Christian scholars alike. Less attention, however,has been paid to other aspectsofthe Reformation and the Jews. Arecent exception is the book Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation in Sixteenth-CenturyGermany, which appeared in 2006.The volume attempts to place the issue of the Reforma- tion into conversation with the topic of Judaism and the Jews through the explo- ration of alonger historical and intellectual context and the consideration of a broad rangeofreformers’ (beyond Luther’s) attitudes towards Judaism and the Jews. Particularlyhelpful for present purposes, it also probed the impact of the Reformation on Jewishintellectual, legal, religious, and communal develop- ments.¹² The short shrift paid until recentlytothe internal effects of the Reformation on the Jews is undoubtedlydue, at least in part,tothe dearthofsources avail- able to scholars. Plausibly, too, the focus of Reformation studies and the as- sumption – among Christian and Jewish scholars alike – that Jewish and Chris- interaction was quite limited, likelyalso contributed to this neglect.Arange of diverse studies, however,has shown thatthe multi-faceted earlymodern Ger- man Jewish communities werecloselylinked to alonger and broader Jewish tra- dition,and that they variouslyengaged with, borrowed from, and at times reject- ed the momentous changes sparked by the Reformation.¹³ This topic calls for some caution.While we have certainlywitnessed abroad- ening of perspective and historical recalibration (as demonstrated in some of the scholarship referenced in the notes), one might arguethat in our recent rushto repudiatethe older lachrymoseview of Jewish history we maybegoingtoo far in the other direction, running the risk of over-emphasizing notions of convivencia and acculturation. The balance of this essay, therefore, will rehearse some of the valuable opportunities to contextualize earlymodern German Jewish develop- ments in the eraofReformation, but alsoremind us that Jewish communal his-

 Dean PhillipBell and Stephen G. Burnett,eds., Jews,Judaism, and the Reformation in Six- teenth-Century Germany(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006).  Traditionally, the Reformation has been interpreted to have had little direct impact on the religion of sixteenth-century Jews.Asone earlytwentieth-century scholar wrote, “Despitethe spread of Luther’swritings amongthe Jews,itleft the spirit of the people untouched, and onlyinisolated instances did conversions to Lutheranism occur; Luther himself complained that Jews read his works onlytorefute them”:Louis Israel Newman,Jewish InfluencesonChris- tian Reform Movements (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925), 629. The same author notes, however,that the Reformation did have asignificant impact on later Jewish history,ush- eringinanew erafor European Jewry and pavingthe wayand serving as amodel for the nine- teenth-century Reform movement within Judaism (ibid.). 18 Dean PhillipBell tory and development werealsomarked by boundaries and uniqueconcerns as well as aconnection with longer-term internal trajectories and discourse.

The Politics of Jewish and Christian Relations

Ibegin with the question of whether the Reformation affected Jewish and Chris- tian relations,¹⁴ which Iconsider through policies on Jewishsettlement and ex- pulsion. There werenumerous expulsions of Jews in German lands – in cities and territories – in the later Middle Ages and on the eveofthe Reformation.¹⁵ The late medieval expulsions reflected anumber of important political,econom-

 Thereisalarge and ever growing literatureonmanyaspects of Jewish and Christian rela- tions in the Reformation period. Amongthe morerecent works, consider the following: Miriam Bodian, “The Reformation and the Jews,” in RethinkingEuropean Jewish History,eds.Jeremy Cohen and Moshe Rosman (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009): 112–32.Re- garding the Reformation and the Jews in amoretraditional religious and intellectual context, see, for example, Achim Detmers,Reformation und Judentum: Israel-Lehren und Einstellungen zum Judentum vonLuther bis zum frühen Calvin (: Kohlhammer,2001); Avner Shamir, Christian Conceptions of Jewish Books: The Pfefferkorn Affair (Copenhagenand Lancaster: Museum Tuscalanum Press and Gazelle, 2011); David H. Price, Johannes Reuchlinand the Cam- paign to Destroy Jewish Books (Oxfordand New York: OxfordUniversity Press,2011); Debra Kaplan, “SharingConversations:AJewish Polemic against Martin Luther,” Archivfür Reforma- tionsgeschichte103 (2012): 41– 63;Brooks Schramm and Kirsi I. Stjerna, Martin Luther,the Bible and the Jewish People: AReader (Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 2012); YaacovDeutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes: EarlyModern Descriptions of Jews and Judaism (Oxfordand New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Stephen G. Burnett,Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (1500 –1660): Authors,Books,and the Transmission of Jewish Learning(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012); and, Jewish Books and their Readers:Aspects of the Intellectual Life of Christians and Jews in EarlyModern Europe, eds.Scott Mandelbroteand Joanna Weinberg(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016). On Luther and the Jews thereisavast literature by now.See, for example, Thomas Kaufmann, Luther’sJews:AJourney into Anti-Semitism,trans. LesleySharpe and Jere- my Noakes (Oxfordand New York: OxfordUniversity Press,2017).  Amongthe significant regional expulsions we can number:The (1390/91); Thur- ingia (1401); (1420/21); Breisgau(1421); -Munich (1442);Bavaria-Landshut (1450); / (1492);Carniola (1496); and Styria (1496). In the first half of the sixteenth century,regional expulsionsoccurredinanumber of areas, including Branden- burg(1510); (ca. 1520), and (1540). The regional expulsionsmight also include large archbishoprics,such as Cologne (1429), Mainz (1470), and (1493), or clusters of cities,asthroughout Bohemia in 1454.Duringthe fifteenth century,Jews were expelled from numerous German cities,such as (1421), Cologne (1424), (1438/40), Mainz (1438and 1470), Munich (1442),Würzburg(1450), Breslau(1453/54), (1453/54), Hil- desheim (1457), Bamberg(1478), (1498), Nuremburg(1499),Ulm (1499), Nördlingen (1504), (1519), and Rothenburgobder Tauber (1520). The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry 19 ic, and social changes in the Germancommune, including discussions about the nature of ministry and political power,for example. In addition, the religious changes prior to the Reformation, which led to asacralization of German com- munal life, help to explain the growingmarginalization of the Jews in late me- dieval German society.The Reformation continued this marginalization, while also revamping the terrain in some crucial ways. Jewishlife in earlymodern Germany was subsumedunderdifferent layers of experience and authority.While Jews livedinspecific cities, towns,orvillages, they were also subject to territorial and imperial conditions. These territorial re- alities – which were themselvesinfluenced by the Reformation – could affect Jewishsettlement and Jewry law, at times creatingopportunities and at times leading to restriction or expulsion. In such cases, Jewish relations with the em- peror and the imperial court could be pivotal. Jewish delegates made their wayto the and to imperial diets to pleadthe case of their communities and to offer much-needed financial support.The famous Shtadlan,Josel of (1476 – 1554), came, in time, to side with the Catholic emperor.Ben-Sassonattrib- utes this to his “conservative turnofmind and social ideology,”¹⁶ though it is also related to general political conditions.¹⁷ AccordingtoJosel:

At all times – as we have now seen with our own eyes in the case of apeople that has es- tablished anew faith, with all kinds of leniencies in order to cast off the yoke. And their aim was to set upon us and annihilate the people of Israel by various and harsh legal measures and massacres. But God, seeingthe affliction of His people,sent His angel, merciful , togivepower and might to his majesty,the Emperor Charles – long mayhelive! – that he might prevail over them on manyoccasions,breakingtheir covenant and voidingtheir – conspiracy.[…]And by amiracle he triumphed and savedthe people of Israel from the hands of the new faith established by the called Martin Luther, an unclean man, whointended to destroy and slayall the Jews,both young and old. Blessed be the , whofoiled his counsel and frustrated his designs and allowed us to behold His vengeance and manysalvations to this day.¹⁸

The status of the Jews in provides an intriguing prism through which to look at discussions of and expulsion of the Jews in aReformation con- text.Inthe 1530s,the LandgravePhilip sought to clarify the position of the Jews living in his territory.Eminently practical in his and often his politics as well, Philip granted the Jews limited protection while turning to reforming

 Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 293.  Sefer ha-Miknah, translated in Ben-Sasson, ibid., 291.  Joseph of Rosheim, Sefer ha-Miknah,ed. Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt (Jerusalem: Mekizei Nirdamim, 1970), 73 – 4; translated in Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation,” 291.The italics belong to Ben-Sasson. 20 Dean Phillip Bell theologians,especiallyMartin Bucer (1491– 1551), for advice on what position to adopt .¹⁹ Continuing along line of Christian analysis, Bucer distinguished between the biblical Israel of the elect (or of the spirit) and empirical Judaism (or corporeal Israel), providingnumerous historical ex- amplesofrulersexpelling the Jews. Philip, however,cast the Jews as anoble race, who might reestablish their covenant with God.Along the way, they might also provetobeoffinancial benefit to the territory. Underlying these various positions on the fateofthe Jews of Hesse, one dis- cerns several core ‘Reformation’ issues. First,the debate over true religious iden- tity and the notion of ad fontes,inwhich different religious groups stroveto claim historical, and thereby acertain spiritual, legitimacy and primacy.This battle would continue at the end of the sixteenth century,through Confessional- ization, as Catholics and Protestants debated the calendar and Jews such as David Gans (1541–1613) attempted to make Jews into historical actors,with a role in shaping the past and present.²⁰ Second, we find aclose relationship be- tween matters of state and (not toleration in the modern sense),with an emphasis on moral behaviorand acertain Godlylaw thateven Joselreferenced.²¹ Third,wesee the reality,veiled in criticism, of religious

 On Bucerand the Jews,see TimothyJ.Wengert, “Bucer, the Jews,and Judaism,” in Bell and Burnett,eds., Jews,Judaism, and the Reformation, 137–69.See also Dean PhillipBell, “Jewish Settlement, Politics, and the Reformation,” in ibid., 421– 50.See also Carl Cohen, “ and his Influence on the Jewish Situation,” Leo Baeck InstituteYear Book 13 (1968): 93 – 101; R. Gerald Hobbs, “Martin Bucer et les Juifs,” in Martin Bucer and Sixteenth Century Europe: Actes du colloque de (28–31 août 1991), eds.Christian Krieger and Marc Lienhard(Leiden and New York: Brill, 1993): 681–89;Wilhelm Maurer, “Butzer und die JudenfrageinHessen,” in Kirche und Geschichte, vol. II, eds.Ernst Wilhelm Kohls and GerhardMüller (Göttingen: Van- denhoeck &Ruprecht,1970): 347–65;and Willem Nijenhuis, “ARemarkableHistorical Argumen- tation in Bucer’s ‘Judenratschlag’,” and “Bucer and the Jews,” in idem, Ecclesia Reformata: Studies on the Reformation (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1972), 23–37,38–72.Morerecently, see Christoph Strohm, “Martin Bucerund die Juden,” in Protestantismus,Antijudaismus,Anti- semitismus:Konvergenzen und Konfrontationen in ihren Kontexten,eds.Dorothea Wendebourg, Andreas Stegmann, and Martin Ohst (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017): 79 – 96;and Görge K. Has- selhoff, “Ein ehemaligerDominikaner als Reformator:Martin Bucerund die Juden,” in Domini- kaner und Juden: Personen, Konflikteund Perspektivenvom 13.bis zum 20.Jahrhundert, eds. Elias H. Füllenbach and Gianfranco Miletto(Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2015): 349–73.  See Dean Phillip Bell, “Jewish and Christian in the Sixteenth Century:ACom- parison of Sebastian Münsterand David Gans,” in God’sWord for Our World: In Honor of Simon John DeVries, eds.J.Harold Ellens,Deborah L. Ellens,Rolf P. Knierim, and Kalimi, vol. 2 (: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004): 141– 58.  In his “Article and Ordinance” of 1530, Josel refers to “godlylaw” when discussingwhathap- pens when aChristian has acomplaint against aJew;see Ludwig Feilchenfeld, vonRosh- eim: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland im Reformationszeitalter (Strasbourg: The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry 21 change. While it is true that late medieval Jews grappled with informers and ,Josel raised the discussion of these groups to an entirelynew level, re- flecting manyofthe debates current within the Christian world of conversion between Christian religions, particularlysignificant after the middle of the six- teenth century.²² At the same time, Josel noted that Bucer’swritingshad the ef- fect of stirring up the common people and inciting them against the Jews.²³ In their defense, Josel insisted that Jews werethe true Chosen and

J.H.E. Heitz, 1898), 156.Lateronhenotes, “We arealso men, created by God the almighty to live on the , to live and deal amongthem and with them” (ibid., 157).  ElishevaCarlebachhas noted that in his depiction of the expulsion of the Jews from Regens- burgJosel’semphasis on apostates as aprimary hostile Other deflects responsibility for oppres- sion of the Jews fromterritorial rulers to an internal malefactor; ElishevaCarlebach, “Between History and Myth: The RegensburgExpulsioninJosel of Rosheim’s Sefer Ha-Miknah,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory:Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, eds.ElishevaCarle- bach, John M. Efron, and David N. Myers (,NH: Press,1998): 40 –53,hereat46. This is Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’snotion of the “profound internalization and concomitant glorification of the myth of the royal alliance” amongst Jews noted by David Myers; see David N. Myers, “Of and Memory:Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory,1–21,hereat6.The work of JacobKatz and other historians forcedare-evaluation of the onceperceivedmonolithic natureofJewish religious belief and community boundaries. Katz articulated concepts he labeled “halakhicflex- ibility” and the “semi-neutral society” that revealed aJewish society able to encompass degrees of deviationfromrabbinic or communal norms in pre-modern times. Evidencefor such diver- gencecan be found in arangeoftexts.Yom-TovLipmann Mühlhausen’spolemical Sefer ha-Niz- zahon, to give one example, served both to argueagainst as well as Jews who deviated and apostatized fromJudaism; see Israel JacobYuval, “Kabbalisten, Ketzer und Polem- iker: Das kulturelle Umfeld des Sefer ha-Nizachon vonLipman Mühlhausen,” in , Magic and in Ashkenazic Judaism, eds.Karl Erich Grözinger and Joseph Dan (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995): 155–71,here at 161, 170. Mühlhausen addresses his polemic to Christians,her- etics,and various sectarians. See Yom-TovLipmann Mühlhausen, Sefer ha-Nitsahon, ed. Frank Talmage (Jerusalem: Merkaz Dinur,1984) [Hebrew], especially20–22 in the editor’sintroduc- tion, as well as the first page of the author’sintroductory remarks (47). See also Joseph M. Davis, “Drawing the Line: Views of Jewish and Belief AmongMedieval and EarlyModern Ashkenazic Jews,” in Rabbinic Culture and ItsCritics:Jewish Authority,Dissent,and Heresy in Medieval and EarlyModern Times, eds.Daniel Frank and Matt Goldish(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008): 161–94.  Pointingtothe events on the streets of Friedburgwhere “apoor Jewwas struck and his life taken, while the perpetrators jeered: ‘see, Jew, the writings of Bucer saythat your goods should be takenand distributed amongthe poor.’” Joseph of Rosheim, Trostschrift,inJoseph of Ros- heim: Historical Writings,ed. Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,1996), 328–49,here at 331[German]. 22 Dean Phillip Bell stressed the continuity of the Jewish people.²⁴ Joselthus placed the Jews and Ju- daism squarelywithin the confines of Reformation debates, but he did so by maintaining theirexceptionalism.

Confessionalization and the Jews: ALong View of the Reformation

Taking along view of the Reformation, Confessionalization – namely,the social and theological process of denominational identity construction duringand after the Reformation – is ahighlycharged concept thathas been much discussed in recent historiography. It is worth consideringinthe context of GermanJewry.²⁵

 In his reading of manyofthe historical cases of expulsion of the Jews,Josel located the machinations of apostates and informers.See Dean Phillip Bell, Communities: Jewish and Christian Identities in Fifteenth-Century Germany(Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2001), chap- ter8.  Wolfgang Reinhard, acentral scholar of Confessionalization, has provided arich overview in his assessment of Catholic Confessionalization. Reinhardargues that Confessionalization was caused by religious innovation and the origin of and competition between morechurches with claims.Hedivides the forms of Confessionalization between processesand insti- tutions.See also Wolfgang Reinhard, “Zwangzur Konfessionalisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung10(1983): 257–77, hereat258, 263; and idem, “Gegenreformation als Modernisierung? Prolegomena zu einer The- orie des konfessionelles Zeitalters,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte68(1977): 226–52.See also the work of Heinz Schilling, including: “Die KonfessionalisierungimReich,” Historische Zeitschrift 246 (1988): 1–45;and, “Confessionalization: Historical and ScholarlyPerspectives of aComparative and Interdisciplinary Paradigm,” in Confessionalization in Europe, 1555– 1700:Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan, eds.John M. Headley,Hans J. Hillerbrand, and AnthonyJ.Paplas (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 21–35.OnConfessionalization and the Jews, see GerhardLauer, “Die Konfessionalisierungdes Judentums:Zum Prozess der religiösen Ausdif- ferenzierungimJudentum am Übergang zur Neuzeit,” in Interkonfessionalität – Transkonfessio- nalität – binnenkonfessionelle Pluralität: Neue Forschungenzur Konfessionalisierungsthese, eds.Kaspar vonGreyerz, Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen, Thomas Kaufmann, and Hartmut Leh- mann (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus,2003): 250–83.See also Dean Phillip Bell, “Confes- sionalizationand Social DisciplineinEarlyModern Germany: AJewish Perspective,” in Politics and : Studies in Honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr., eds.Peter Wallace, Peter Starenko, Printy,and Christopher Ocker (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007): 345–72,and idem, “Po- lemics of Confessionalization: Depictions of Jews and Jesuits in EarlyModern Germany,” in ‘The Tragic Couple:’ Encounters between Jews and Jesuits,eds.James Bernauer and Robert Maryks (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014): 65 – 86;Michael Driedger, “The Intensification of Religious Commitment: Jews,Anabaptists, Radical Reform, and Confessionalization,” in Bell and Burnett, eds., Jews,Judaism, and the Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Germany, 269–99;and Yosef Ka- The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry 23

Four central, and overlapping,topics raised by the Confessionalization paradigm resonatewith what we now know about earlymodern German Jewry:questions of conformity (orthodoxy?) and the role of customs;the marginalization and eradication of dissident behavior; the formalization and monopolization of edu- cation;and, communal or institutional (re)organization. EarlymodernGerman Jewish customs books soughttocodify local and re- gionalcustoms,especiallyasregional identitiesdeveloped and as German Jews responded to abroader pull in earlymodern Judaism towardscodification. The tension between moreuniversal codes and particularlocal practices and scholars highlights nicelywhat appears to be aperiod of transition in which standards of belief and practice werecoalescing. Earlymodern Ashkenazic au- thorities initiallyhad distinctlymixed responses to the codification reflected in the Shulhan Arukh. Hayyim ben Bezalel (c. 1520 –1588) grumbled that such codi- fication complicated the problem by which “there are manyuneducated who are not worried about the ancient writings, do not even understand them, and in the meantime forgetthe .”²⁶ Initiallyhostile Ashkenazic reactions to codifica- tion²⁷ gave way, within ageneration or so, to an engagement with, if not com- plete embrace, of Joseph Karo’s(1488–1575) and ’s(1530 –1572) codes of Jewish law.²⁸ Joseph Davis has argued that,despite the ongoing produc- tion of collections of local customs,the of late sixteenth-century German Jewry “gave evidence of the new,clearer sense of forming asingle community.”²⁹ Ironically, however,bothlocalized customs and broader codification could cre- ate greater uniformity,albeit at different levels and in different ways.

plan, “Between in EarlyModern Europe: The Confessionalization Proc- ess of the WesternSephardi Diaspora,” in Judaism, Christianity,and in the Course of His- tory:Exchange and Conflicts,eds.Lothar Gall and Dietmar Willoweit (Munich:R.Oldenbourg, 2011): 307–41.  Moritz Güdemann, Quellenschriftenzur Geschichtedes Unterrichts und der Erziehungbei den deutschenJuden: Vonden ältesten Zeiten bis aufMendelssohn(Amsterdam: Press, 1968), 77.His brother,the Maharal of Prague (c 1512/25–1609), was an even moreoutspoken op- ponent.Maharal believed that such codes allowed, even forced, people to make decisionsfrom ignoranceand lowered the level of knowledge moregenerally. He wrotethat it was bettertode- cide fromthe itself (relyingonacollection of decisions allows one to decide without knowing); see ibid., 69.  Joseph Davis, “The Reception of the Shulhan ‘Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazic Jewish Identity,” AJSReview 26:2 (2000): 251–76.  Ibid., 273; see IsadoreTwersky, “Lawand Spirituality in the 17th Century:ACase Studyin R. Yair Hayyim Bacharach,” in Jewish Thoughtinthe Seventeenth Century,eds.IsadoreTwersky and BernardSeptimus (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Center for ,1987), 447–67,hereat449.Bacharach urgedthe studyofcodes (ibid., 452– 53).  Davis, “The Reception of the Shulhan ‘Arukh,” 267. 24 Dean Phillip Bell

In earlymodern German Jewry,dissidence was not merelymoralized against; it was also punished, specificallythrough finesand (). Amongthe more common forms of dissidence, aside from informing³⁰ and apostasy,wefind Sabbath desecration (as well as the transgression of other religious laws, such as shaving the beard),³¹ the disruption of or decorum,³² disrespect for the authority of communal officials,³³ the violation of sumptuary laws, scandalous behavior (includingparticipation in games of chance and violence),³⁴ problematic writings,³⁵ and inappropriate rela- tions with Christians – either relations that weretoo intimate or actionsthat might provoke negative Christian reaction.³⁶ The Reformation could provide asounding-board against which to measure Jewishbehavior and religious observance. Josel’sfamoustwentieth-century bio- grapher, Selma Stern, sawJosel as asocial critic and social reformer of German Jews who, like the humanists, brought the Jews back to the wellsprings of their history and, like adherents of the ,patterned his own conduct and lifestyle after the Pietists of Germany.³⁷ Stern attributedtoJosel’spetition to the Royal Commission the samespirit that animated broadsides and articles of the rebellious peasantsofthe 1520s.³⁸ Indeed, she sawhis “Articlesand Reg-

 Apparentlyconsideredthe most dangerous infractions.See Yosef Kaplan, “The Place of the Herem in the Sefardic Community of Hamburgduringthe Seventeenth Century,” in Die Sefarden in Hamburg: ZurGeschichteeiner Minderheit,part 1, ed. Michael Studemund-Halevy (Hamburg: BuskeVerlag 1994): 63 – 87,here at 72.  Includingmention in Hamburgofpeople “careless” or “lackingconscience;” ibid., 77;81re- garding transgressions against halakah.  See also Güdemann,Quellenschriften,55ff. for the 1583Jewish-German book Buch des ewi- genLebens. It is indicated that one should not speak or hear Neuigkeiten said during the in the synagogue.  Kaplan, “The Place of the Herem,” 81.  Ibid.  Ibid., 72.  See statutes from1685in: Die Statuten der drei Gemeinden Altona, Hamburgund : Quellen zur Jüdischen Gemeindeorganisation im 17.und 18. Jahrhundert,ed. Heinz Mosche Graupe (Hamburg: ChristiansVerlag, 1973), for example, “[for every] man or woman, young man or maiden, it is forbidden, on the Sabbath and on holidays to go to drink in anon-Jewish inn. Likewise it is forbidden to visit on [a] skittle floor,acomedy, fencingschool – with penalty of 4Rt. Women and girls should generallynot go to the , not even on weekdays – with the same punishment” (86).  Selma Stern, Josel of Rosheim: Commander of Jewry in the Holy Roman Empireofthe Ger- man Nation, trans. Gertrude Hirschler (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1965 (orig., 1959), xviii.  Ibid., 70 – 71. The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry 25 ulations” as the first large-scale attempt to the life of Jews, improvedete- riorating social and economic conditions,and facilitatethe adjustment to chang- ing social and economic realities.³⁹ Various pinkasim (communal ledgers) and communal legislation also ad- dressed these issues. Famously, the important Frankfurt synod of 1603 attempted to formulate German-wide standards of behavior and governing mechanisms. It devised punishments for avariety of transgressors,including Jews who com- pelled opposing litigantstogotosecular courts,⁴⁰ who informed on the commu- nity,orwho used their or power to press their own advantages;⁴¹ created centralizedcourts and tax collection centers;⁴² and attempted to regulate rabbin- ic jurisdiction⁴³ and rabbinic ,⁴⁴ as well as the publication of books.⁴⁵ Of course, earlier,late medieval, Germansynodshad also grappledwith some of these and other challenges, and the ordinances of the earlyseventeenth century synod need to be read in the context of those discussions as well as the Confes- sional discussions of the latersixteenth century. The defining and punishment of dissent wasarecurrent topic in earlymod- ern German Jewishsources. On one hand,such discussions continued late me- dieval considerations;⁴⁶ on the other,they revealedincreased concern with generating and regulating communal norms of behavior,for both internal organ- ization and external accountability.Inthis sense, the Jewish communities were indeedapart of the earlymodern territorialization of the state,which itself took even greater interest in the internal boundaries and affairs of the Jewish com- munitiesthan its late medieval predecessors. Jewisheducation in the earlymodern period similarlymaintainedimportant links with previous traditions, all the while evidencing new emphases. In the earlymodern period, the educational institution of the Talmud Torah became

 Ibid., 119.  Louis Finkelstein,Jewish Self Governmentinthe Middle Ages (New York: The Jewish Theo- logical Seminary of America, 1964), 257.  Ibid., 258.  Ibid., 259.  Ibid., 263. See also Eric Zimmer,Jewish Synods in Germanyduring the (1286–1603) (New York: University,1978), 140 – 47 for excerpts from the Frankfurt synod of 1542that detailed the issue of jurisdiction.  Finkelstein, Jewish Self in the Middle Ages, 260–61.  Ibid., 263.  See, for example,the complex community dynamics related to violencewithin the commu- nity,asdescribedinDean PhillipBell, “EarlyModern Comparative Topics and Emerging Trends,” in The Routledge Companion to Jewish History and Historiography,ed. Dean Philipp Bell (London: Routledge,2019): 207–20,esp. 212–17. 26 Dean PhillipBell better structured and more formallyorganized, serving abroader communal population.⁴⁷ The spread of printing made seminal works morestandardized and accessible. Leadingrabbinic authorities increasinglypromoteda‘proper’ order of study. This, along with the possessionofcertain standard works,such as populargrammars, openedthe door to more consistency in Jewisheducation. Alongsidealament for the dismal Hebrew skills of manyJews, acall for areturn to the text and acertain Reformation Biblicism could sometimes be detected among some Jewish writers.⁴⁸ Jews alsosimilarlydrew from and imbibednon- Jewishliterature, thought, and practices.The work of the late sixteenth-century Prague astronomer and historian David Gans, for example, has been seen within the context of contemporary German and Czech chronicles as well as within the context of burgeoning burgher literature in earlymodern Germany.⁴⁹ According to MordechaiBreuer,

In his low opinion of the rabbinical titularies and hierarchyGans mayhavebeen influenced by the elevation of the layelement in the congregation effected by the Lutheran Reforma- tion, and moreparticularlybythe practiced by the BohemianBrothers who required their to make their livingthroughthe work of their own hands.⁵⁰

EarlymodernGerman Jewry evinced signs of growingcommunal organization, despite thinlyspread settlement and oftensmall community size. Increasingly, Jews – like their non-Jewishpeers – turned to more bureaucratic toolsand prac- tices.⁵¹ Not surprisingly,the earlymodern period witnessed agrowingnumber of community pinkasim,memorybooks, formal constitutions,community offices, and institutions, such as thosefor the sick. In some cases, the impetus for com- munal institutional re-structuring came from the outside, as Christian civic, ter- ritorial, or even imperial agents required Jews to adhere to particularcodes,pol- icies, or practices.

 Encyclopedia Judaica, “, .”  Though see the Maharal’sopposition to de Rossi (1511–1587), moregenerally, in Les- terA.Segal, Historical Consciousness and Religious Tradition in Azariah de’ Rossi’sMe’or ‘Einayim (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1989). See also Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation,” 303,307– 8, 309.  See Bell, “Jewish and Christian Historiographyinthe Sixteenth Century,” 157–58.  Mordechai Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism in Sixteenth-Century Jewish Historiogra- phy: AStudyofDavid Gans’ Tzemah David,” in Jewish Thoughtinthe Sixteenth Century,ed. BernardDov Cooperman (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Center for Jewish Studies,1983): 49–88, here at 70.Ofcourse, the shiftingofpowerfromrabbinic to layauthorities was hardly new to the Jewish community after the Reformation, though there aresome intriguingparallels.  See Bell, Jewish Identity in EarlyModern Germany. The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern German Jewry 27

Consider the protocol book of Friedberg for the year 1574. Accordingtothe document,the rabbi was closelysupervised and his powers and duties clearly circumscribed.⁵² In this case, the rabbi wasobligatedtoremain in his position for four years, without residinginanother area; the council, for its part,was ob- ligated to refrain from seeking another rabbiduringthis period. The rabbi in question was not to ostracize/excise or place under the ban anyresidents in the holycommunity,orfrom anyofthe surroundingarea, without the agreement of the council. The council, however,retainedthe authority to ostracize/excise community members without the agreement of the rabbi. The council was to pro- vide the rabbitwelve Guldeninsalary every year,and he was freed from all cus- tomary taxes (though not every tax obligation). The rabbi wasalso to receive one Guldenfrom each betrothal and aGuldenfor the lodging of each student in the yeshivah.Other regulations and agreements werealso outlined.Importantly,the rabbi was restricted from making changes in the community’scustoms without the consent of the community board.⁵³ Rabbinic contracts onlyemergedinthe sixteenth century,asdid formal proc- esses for selecting arabbi by acommunity.⁵⁴ The development,orprofessional- ization, of the rabbinatethat began in Germany in the fourteenth century has been placed within the context of social and religious (pastoral) changes thatoc- curred among Jews and Christians after the .⁵⁵ It has also been seen as part of late medieval, especiallyfifteenth-centurydevelopments in lawand university education (in which the rabbinic diploma is paralleled to that of the university doctor).⁵⁶ It has been further compared to the developmentofcity councils,guild structures, and the professionalization of lawyers and physicians in the later Middle Ages.⁵⁷ Acomprehensive comparison of these documents and communal contracts made with Christian priestsinthe late medieval and Reformation period may shed light on earlymodern German Jewish communal developments and en-

 Stefan Litt,Protokollbuch und Statuten der JüdischenGemeinde Friedberg(16.–18. Jahrhun- dert) (Friedberg: Bindernagel, 2003), 274–76 (beginningat74inthe Hebrew).  See Simon Schwarzfuchs, AConcise History of the Rabbinate(Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 19–21.  Ibid., 24.  See Simon Schwarzfuchs, “The Makingofthe Rabbi,” in Das aschkenasische Rabbinat: Stud- ien über Glaube und Schicksal, ed. Julius Carlebach (Berlin: Metropol, 1995): 133–40,here at 137; Israel Yuval, “Juristen, Ärzteund Rabbiner:Zum typologischen Vergleich intellektueller Berufs- im Spätmittelalter,” in Das aschkenasische Rabbinat,119–31, hereat122–3.  Schwarzfuchs, “The Makingofthe Rabbi,” 138;see Yuval, “Juristen,” and his criticism of Robert Bonfil’smodel, 124.  Ibid., 126 28 Dean Phillip Bell gagementwith the non-Jewish world. Setting aside for the moment their impor- tant religious practices and orientations, sixteenth-century Church ordinances grappled with similar concerns to Jewishsynodsand rabbiniccontracts. The 1582 Church ordinancefrom Nassau-Dillenburg, for example, noted the need for proper recognition and jurisdiction of ,and stipulated that the clergy should serveasmoral role models. Other contracts specified the moralupbraid- ing of congregants and citizens.⁵⁸ Contracts for priests set out term limits and a rangeofsalaries and benefits thatparalleled thosefound in rabbinic contracts.⁵⁹ Christian clergy had particularfinancial responsibilities, ritual tasks (e.g., and ),⁶⁰ teachingand supervision of scriptural and doctrinal interpreta- tion, and pastoral duties (i.e., visiting the sick⁶¹ and the delivery of sermons)that differentiated their contracts from thoseofappointed rabbis,however.⁶² On the one hand, sixteenth-century German Jewishcommunal developments mirrored late medievaland Reformation changes in which the community arrogatedim- portant authority,and layleaders could see themselvesasencompassingsome aspectsofsacral power and exercisingthe ability to appoint and removeclergy. On the other hand,Christian (even Protestant and Lutheran concerns,asre- flected in Luther’sown,often changing, notion of ministry) ⁶³ discussions of sa- cral authority were, almost by definition, differentlyfocused, drawingasthey did from general contemporary concerns as well as specific Christian traditions and innovations. What is more,the context for discussions about the rolesand authority of the rabbi and other related issues involved arangeofTalmudicma- terials and prior, late medieval, German Jewishcommunal discussions and rab- binic .

Conclusions

The Reformation – particularlyinabroad sense that began in the fifteenthcen- tury and continued beyond the sixteenth – had anotable impact on Jews and

 See Saulle Hippenmeyer,Nachbarschaft,Pfarrei und Gemeinde in Graubünden 1400 –1600: Quellen (Chur:Kommissionsverlag Bündner Monatsblatt,1997), no. 160.  See also Rosi Fuhrmann, Kirche und Dorf: Religiöse Bedürfnisse und kirchliche Stiftungauf dem Lande vorder Reformation (Stuttgart: G. Fischer,1995), 162, 331– 2.  Ibid., 179,205.  Ibid., 191.  See the table in ibid., 200.  Martin Luther,Luther’sWorks, vol. 40,ed. Helmut T. Lehmann (St. Louis: Concordia Publish- ing House), “Concerningthe Ministry (1523),” 34–6. The Impact of the Reformation on Early Modern GermanJewry 29

Jewishlife. Jews did not live in avacuum, and their exposure to major issues in the non-Jewish world shaped how they perceivedthat world and themselves. One need not resort to formal Jewish and Christian dialogue to seethatthe religious, social,and political discussions of the Reformation erasignificantlyimpacted earlymodern German Jews. In its dailylife, in its communal organization, in- deed in its educational development and at times even its very language, German Jews absorbed – bothconsciouslyand unconsciously – the major shifts in soci- ety around them, combiningthem with changes taking place within their own communities.Reformation-eraJews mayhavebeen marginalized, but,asrecent discussions of marginalization have taught us, the very act of marginalization places the marginalized in direct conversation with the heart of society. Jewishdevelopments in the Reformation era – as in every other period – ought to be considered in light of the development of interactions with the exter- nal world. And yet, it would be amistake to think that Jews unreflectively adopt- ed what was unfolding around them. As discussions of the rabbinate indicate, while there wereindeedsignificant similarities in the approach to religious func- tionariesand while the rabbinate was ‘professionalized’ in some important ways,the foci of the position and its role in acommunity could be vastlydiffer- ent from thatofclergy in Christian society.Jewish discussions of rabbinicauthor- ity,therefore, must alsobeunderstood within the context of earlier Jewishcom- munal developments and discussions, which drew both from Jewish texts and traditions and their ownbroader milieux. The notion that Reformation-era Jews werefree from rubbish or that they weresomehow hermeticallyseparated from the non-Jewish world in which they livedmay be safelyput to rest.Atthe same time,however,and, to some extent,countering recent scholarship, one notes that earlymodern German Jewish society differed from thatwhich sur- rounded it in importantways. The Reformation affected Jews directlyinsome ways and less directlyinothers, and its impact was inflected by Jewish sensibil- ities and internal concerns – as was true as well for diverse Christian commun- ities across Europe. As aconstruct,the Reformation is invaluable for framing and grappling with central earlymodern Jewish developments – for both the ideas and practices that affected Jews and those thatlacked resonance because of uniqueJewishcommunal and historical concerns.

MarkétaKabůrková Edom versus Edom

Echoes of the Lutheran Reformation in Early Modern Jewish Writings

Five hundred years have passed since Martin Luther stepped out publiclywith his Ninety-five Theses and launched the Reformation.¹ This movecarried far- reachingconsequences not onlywithin Christian circlesbut also for European Jewry.Itwas onlynatural that the Jews of the period evinced a “great interest in Luther,who seemed to wield the shovel digging the graveofChristianity’sbur- ial”² Jewishauthorswereinterested in the Protestant Reformation, in the person and teachingsofMartin Luther,and in the theological within Christen- dom as well. Unsurprisingly,they judgedthe religious struggle between the new and the CatholicChurch from their own frame of referenceand no sin- gle ‘Jewish’ view manifesteditself, but avariety of perspectivesselectively favor- ing different groups and religious doctrines instead emerged. This topic has rather escaped scholarlyattention. Someimportant excep- tions include Hillel Ben-Sasson’sstudyfrom half acentury ago,³ several articles by Friedman⁴ and David,⁵ and few monographs focusing on particularcases of Jewish-Christian encounters during the Reformation period.⁶

 It is perhapsanoversimplification to use the term ‘Reformation’ in singular as most scholars agreethat no unified reformatory movement existed but rather avariety of ‘reformations’ of which the appearance of Martin Luther was neither the first nor the last.Jewish authors com- mentingonactivities of Martin Luther and his followers werewellawareofsuch ,as it will be shown further.  Jerome Friedman, “The Reformation in Alien Eyes: Jewish Perception of Christian Troubles,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 14 (1983): 23–40,here26.  Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” The Israel Acade- my of and Humanities Proceedings, vol. 4, 12 (1970). Of the same author see also “Jew- ish-Christian Disputation in the SettingofHumanism and Reformation in the German Empire,” HarvardTheological Review 59 (1966): 369–90.  Friedman, “The Reformation in Alien Eyes,” and also idem, “The Reformation and Jewish An- tichristianPolemics,” Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance41, 1(1979):83–97.  Abraham David, “The Lutheran Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Jewish Historiography,” Jewish Studies Quarterly10(2003): 124–39.  Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt,The Historical Writings of Joseph of Rosheim in EarlyModern Germany(Leiden: Brill, 2006); Debra Kaplan, Beyond Expulsion:Jews, Christians, and Reforma- tion Strasbourgh (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 2011); Selma Stern, Josel of Rosheim: Commander of Jewry in the HolyRoman Empireofthe German Nation, trans. Gertrude Hirschler (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1965).

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-004 32 Markéta Kabůrková

The present article aims to expand the discussion by presentingawide scope of Jewishreactions to the developments in Christian society and theologythat took place in sixteenth-century Europe. The corpus of examined sources ranges from stark descriptive accounts to more elaborate reflections of theological innova- tions to texts that used major themes of the Lutheran Reformation in highlycre- ative ways.Jewish authors recognizedthe doctrinal conflict as well as the social and political ramifications of the reform within Western , and some incorporated insight from the Reformation into Jewishapocalyptic writingsof the sixteenth century. One mayclassify the Hebrew sources dealingwith the Reformation by tem- poral and physical provenance.Sources contemporaneous with Luther were mostlydescriptive attempts to characterize the new face of Christianity. Jews perceivedthe breakup of the monolithic Catholic framework as auguring better relations between Jews and Christians in the future. The reformer’sappearance and his initial call to abandon traditionalChristian hostility towards Jews⁷ aroused atwofold reaction among Jews. On the one hand, it bolstered their hopes for anew,more tolerant world order;onthe other,the idea that the great CatholicChurch was not impregnable afforded them significant satisfac- tion. Sources originating in Germanyand its environs, whereJews encountered Protestantism first-hand,expressed different opinions about Luther than, for ex- ample,Italian ones, whose authors wereacquainted with the papacy. Andboth groups of writingsdiffered from texts written by authors living in the Polish-Lith- uanian Commonwealth, which at that time enjoyed extraordinary religious toler- ance, and in the , whose Jewish inhabitants had to relyonhear- sayfor news of the Reformation’seffects. Adouble-edgedwordplayonLuther’s name givesusaglimpse of this variationinviewpoint: Joseph (Josel) of Rosheim (c. 1478 – 1554), EliezerEilburg(c. 1530 –c. 1580) and otherJews living in the Ger- man area referredtoLuther in Hebrew as “lo-tahor” (impure), while Jewishau- thors beyond the reach of Luther’sactivity referred to him as “Lauter” German wordfor “pure.” In the kabbalistic writingsofAbraham ben Eliezer Ha-Levi (1460 –1528), we even find the following tribute: “Forthis manwho is called Mar- tin Luther has done away with ,may he and his portion be blessed.”⁸

 Though, philosemitic hints of earlyLuther,expressed in That Jesus Christ WasBorn aJew (1523), weredirected solelyatfosteringconversion, and intended primarilyasapolemic against Catholicism. See e.g. Thomas Kaufmann, Luther’sJews:AJourney intoAnti-Semitism, trans. Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2017), esp. 54–75.  From aletter of Abraham ben Eliezer Ha-Levi, see IraRobinson, “TwoLetters of Abraham Eliezer Halevi,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (vol. II), ed. IsadoreTwer- Edom versus Edom 33

Additionally, one can identify various genres among the Jewishtexts under discussion. Many, of course, are chronicles,asfollows from the nature of the nar- rative genre.⁹ Nonetheless,one encounters passages mentioning Luther and Lu- theranism in other types of literature as well, such as polemical treatises and prophetic writings. In his chronicle Chain of Tradition (Šalšelet ha-kabalah), Gedaliah IbnYahya (c. 1526–1587) refers to the event of 1517inrather terse terms: “In the year 1449 to the destruction of the Martin Luther began to express his argu- ments.”¹⁰ Other earlymodernJewish historiographers,however,offer less suc- cinct reports.David Gans (c. 1541–1592),for example, wrote in the second vol- ume of his Sprout of David (Tsemach David), with respect to the year when the took place:

Martin Luther,agreat scholar and expert in Christian books,studied scrupulously and ex- amined and createdalot of writings,followingJohannesHuss whowas mentioned above to year 5174/1413.Hestoodupagainst the and divided the hearts of Christians. He told them to burn all images and statues and no longeroffer their to Miriam, mother of their Messiah, and to the TwelveApostles,and [instructed] , priests and to married, and [introduced] manyother novelties. Alot of people agreed with him immedi- atelyand with him lined up the most importantprinces and burghers in Germany, namely the of Saxony, , , Mecklenburg, , Pomerania, Baden, from and from Austrian towns, from [Augsburg], Ulm, Nuremberg, Frankfurt,, Strasbourg and manyothers. His teaching was made public at the Diet of Worms in 5282, 1522 accordingtothe Christian calendar,and then great wars brokeupinamajority of European lands, greater and heavier year by year,and so morethan thousands of thousandsChristiansperished and werekilled for his teaching up to our present time.¹¹

First and foremost,wenotice that Gans was able to identify Luther,whom he esteemed as awell-read scholarand prolific author in Christian doctrine,¹² as

sky (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1984), 412; and , “Perakim me-tol- dot ha-kabalah,” Kiryat Sefer 7(1930 –1931): 446.  On Jewish attitudes towards historiography, see Robert Bonfil, “Jewish Attitude towardHisto- ry and Historical WritinginPre-Modern Times,” Jewish History 11, 1(1997): 7–40;and “How Golden Wasthe AgeofRenaissanceinJewish Historiography?” History and Theory 27,4 (1988): 78 – 102. The alreadymentioned article by Abraham David also discussed in particular historiographic writings mentioningLuther;see David, “The Lutheran Reformation.”  Gedaliah Ibn Yahya, Šalšelet ha-kabalah (Venice:Giovanni di Gara, 1587), 116v.  David Gans,Tsemach David (Prague: 1592),vol. II, 103v.  Also Joseph of Rosheim acknowledged that Luther “wrote manybooks,” yetthese were “books of heresy [that] used to fall out of his lap”;Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, The Historical Writ- ings, 301. 34 Markéta Kabůrková afollower of an earlier reform movement,namely, that of JanHus (1369–1415). Hus, after whom the eponymous Hussite movement was named,was apriest ac- tive in late medieval Prague. Awell-known representative of the BohemianRef- ormation, Huspreached against indulgencies, atheme of acute interestinLu- ther’sNinety-five Theses. Gans’ mention of Huswas highlyrelated to his place of residence; the Utraquists had astrong presenceinRudolfine Prague.¹³ Furthermore, David Gans acknowledgedthe impact of Luther’sappearance in the religious strife and highlighted some of its relevant pointscharacterizing the theological conflict between the Catholics and the Reformed.Aftermention- ing Luther’srejection of papal authority,Gans noted the movement’sfierceicon- oclasm. This negative stancetowards images and the veneration of was,to agreater or lesser degree, shared by all reformers;¹⁴ moreover,itwas easy to ob- serveits actual manifestations in Protestant towns. Other Jewish authors writing about Luther and Christian Reformation alsomentioned iconoclastic riots. Abra- ham ben Eliezer Ha-Levi,¹⁵ whose knowledge of the European religious conflict must have been onlyindirect,wrotethat: “Protestants destroy and burnimages of theirgods and their idols are cut down in all parts of his [Luther’s] domin- ion,”¹⁶ and similarly, Joseph ben Joshua Ha- (1496– 1575) states in the His- toryofKings of and Ottoman (Divrey ha-yamim le-malkhei Zarfat u-veyt Ottoman ha-Tugar):¹⁷ “No longer weregravenimages set up or homagepaid to

 Duringthe reign of Rudolf II Habsburg(1552–1612), Prague represented one of the leading centres of the arts and sciencesinEurope, and areligiouslytolerant milieu, guranteedbythe Czech Confessionand the Majestätsbrief. EliskaFucíková, Prague in the ReignofRudolph II (Prague: Karolinum, 2015).  See e.g. Carlos M. N. Eire, Waragainst Idols: The Reformation of Worship fromErasmus to Calvin (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1986); Willem VanAsselt, “The Prohibition of Images and Protestant Identity,” in and Iconoclash: Struggle for Religious Identity, eds.Willem VanAsselt,Paulvan Geest,Daniela Mueller and Theo Salemink (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), 299–311.  On Abraham ben Eliezer Ha-Levi and his works, see Abraham David, To Come to the Land: Immigration and SettlementinSixteenth-Century Eretz-Israel (Tuscaloosa and London: Univer- sity of Alabama Press, 1999), 138–39 and 223; Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation,” 260 –69;Robin- son, “TwoLetters,” 403–22;and Scholem, “Perakim,” 242–48. See also introductiontoanedi- tion of Ha-Levi’swritings, Abraham Ha-Levi, Maamar mesharekitrin, eds.Gershom Scholem and Beit-Arié (Jerusalem: Jewish National and University Library Press, 1978).  Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 266.  Divrey ha-yamim was divided into threeparts.Iand II were published together in Sabbioneta in 1554.From the thirdpart onlyhalf has been published, ed. D. A. Gross (Jerusalem: Mosad Bia- lik, 1955). The entirepart is preserved in twoMss., housed in the British Library:Or. 3656, Or.10387. Currently, Robert Bonfil is preparingacritical edition. On the life and intellectual ac- tivity of Joseph Ha-Kohen see Martin Jacobs, “Joseph ha-Kohen, Paolo Giovio, and Sixteenth- Edom versus Edom 35 the saints as before.”¹⁸ Even remoteobservers like Abraham IbnMigash (active in the second half of the sixteenth century),¹⁹ who settled in and served as personal physician to Sultan Suleimanthe Magnificent,was impressed with this position on images: “This congregation has cast off all faith in and priests and has discarded the form of this worthless [of Catholi- cism].”²⁰ Luther’sfollowers,among them “the most importantprinces and burghers in Germany,” rejected papal authority,the adoration of the Mary and the saints, some religious festivities and fasts, and celibacy; “so their religion re- solveditself into two religions to this very day,” recapitulates Ha-Kohen.²¹ Later,the author of the Anonymous Prague Chronicle²² summarized the new reli- gious customs:

Apriest named Martinus Luther created turmoil in the Catholic religion, deridingand repu- diatingits customs. At the same time, the peasants roseupagainst the priests,seekingto expel them, and the priests were much afraid. There were others amongthe clergy who sympathized with Luther,despisingtheir dogmas.Subsequentlythey agreed that priests could marry,that meat could be eatenonFridays,that certain holydaysshould be abolish- ed, that the is false, and that crucifixes have no substance.²³

Century Historiography,” in Cultural Intermediaries: Jewish Intellectuals in EarlyModern Italy, eds.David Ruderman and Giuseppe Veltri (Philadelphia: University of Press, 2004), 67– 85;Yosef Haim Yerushalmi,Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle: Uni- versity of WashingtonPress,1983), 460 –81;Abraham David, “Igrono shel Josef ha-Kohen baal Emek ha-bakha,” Italia 5(1985): 7–105.  Ha-Kohen, Divrey,vol. II, 262v.  On Abraham IbnMigash, see Encyclopedia Judaica (New York: MacMillan, 1971– 1972), vol. 6, 95 and vol. 14,21. He came fromadynasty of physicians; his father Isaac Migash or Megaswas mentioned in alist of court physicians from 1548–1549,see Uriel Heyd, “Moses Hamon: Chief Jewish Physician to Sultan Suleiman the Magnifiecent,” Oriens 16 (1963): 158. The philosophi- cal-religious treatise KevodElohim is the onlyextant of his numerous works; it was published in Constantinoplein1585–1586,and reprinted by Ben-Sasson in Jerusalem in 1977,Abraham Ibn Migash, KevodElohim, ed. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (Jerusalem:Jewish National and University Library Press, 1977). See also Shaul Regev, “Secular and Jewish Studies among Jewish Scholars of the Ottoman Empireinthe Sixteenth Century,” in Frontiers of Ottoman Studies,eds.Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki (London and New York: I. B. Tauris,2005), 241–250; and Friedman, “The Reformation in Alien Eyes,” 23–40,esp. 27.  IbnMigash, KevodElohim, 127v.  Ha-Kohen, Divrey,vol. I, 150v.  AHebrew Chronicle fromPrague, c. 1615,ed. Abraham David, Engl. trans. Leon J. Weinberger and Dena Ordan (Tuscaloosaand London: University of AlabamaPress,1993).  Ibid., 28–29. 36 MarkétaKabůrková

Both Gans and the Prague Chronicle author,together with manyothers, re- marked on the violent character of the religious struggle. Luther’steachingdiv- ided not onlythe “hearts of Christians” but also their lands and dominion. The chronicler of French history,Joseph ben Joshua Ha-Kohen,²⁴ who held arather favorableview of the Reformation and stronganti-Catholicsentiment,observed: “Thus, Martin grew wise, probingand investigatingand amendingmanyworks and matters concerning their faith and cause, and discredited papal practices throughout Germany.”²⁵ Some Jewish textsdistinguishedsharplybetween Martin Luther’sinitial view on Jews and Judaism and the fierceanti-Semitic tone of his laterwritings.²⁶ An anonymous Hebrew anti-Lutheran polemic portraysthis turn as follows:

In the year 280accordingtothe small counting(1520), apriest named Martin arose and his name proves that he is abittermaterial for Jews.²⁷ He attracted dukes, and noble- men²⁸ from among his people,and scholars from his faith. He and his faction said that

 He was born in , the papalenclave;however he descended fromafamilyofexpell- ees from Spain. He spent most of his life in . Encyclopedia Judaica vol11, 595and vol. 10, 241–42.  Ha-Kohen, Divrey,vol. I, 104v.English translation according to Friedman, “The Reformation in Alien Eyes,” 30.  LiteratureonLuther’sattitude to Jews and Judaism is vast,e.g.Kaufmann, Luther’sJews; idem., “Luther and the Jews,” in Jews,Judaism, and the Reformation in the Sixteenth-Century Germany, eds.Dean Phillip Bell and Stephen G. Burnett (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 69 – 104; Martin Stöhr, “Martin Luther und die Juden,” in Die Juden und Martin Luther.Martin Luther und die Juden: Geschichte, Wirkungsgeschichte, Herausforderung, eds.Heinz Kremers, Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz and Bertold Klappert (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag,1985); Heiko Oberman, “Three Sixteenth-Century Attitudes to Judaism: Reuchlin, and Luther,” in Jewish Thoughtinthe Sixteenth Century,ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman (Cambridge,Mass., and London: HarvardUniversity Press, 1983), 326–64;idem., “Luthers Stellungzuden Juden: Ahnen und Geahndete,” in Leben und Werk Martin Luthers von1526 bis 1546,ed. Helmar Jun- ghans (Berlin: Evangelische Verlag,1985), 519–30 and 894–904;Robert Michael, Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism,and the Holocaust (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Mark U. Edwards, Luther’sLast Battles:Politics and Polemics, 1531–46 (Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Gordon Rupp, Martin Luther and the Jews (London: The Council of Christiansand Jews,1972).  Aword playonthe word komer (priest,monk), the name Martin and the phrase “khomer mar le-yisrael” meaning “bittermaterial for Jews.” Also awordplayonMartina, when combina- tion of “mar” (bitter)and Aramaic word “tina” (clay, mud) repeats the meaning. Abraham David translates the phrase: “and his name proves that he is commonclay”;AHebrewChronicle, 129.  “Pricim” maydenote both noble men and violent men. Kaplan translates as “law-breakers”; Debra Kaplan, “SharingConversations: AJewish Polemic against Martin Luther,” Archiv für Re- formationsgeschichte103 (2012), 48. It is also aterm used in some Hebrew version of Toledot Yeshu to denoteJesus’ followers. Edom versus Edom 37

[one should] not placeaheavy burden on the Jews,and that [one should] treat them in a respectful and lovingmanner in order to attract them. And he brought proof and composed abook ‘Jesus from the familyofHebrews’.²⁹ And they mocked him, [saying] that he was a little bit like aJew,and he regretted it.Inorder to divert suspicion, since they were com- plainingabout him and sayingthat his faith tended towards Judaism, when he heardall of this, he changedhis words, and wrote to all the nations to act badlytowards them [the Jews]. And he said that he did what he had done previouslyonlytodrawthem [the Jews] to his [Protestant] faith, but oncehesaw that they did not turn to him, and they werestiff-necked, and did not listen to him, he wrotelibels about them, fulfillingthe Scrip- ture “he that utteredaslander is afool” (Prov. 10:18). All sorts of false accusations and lies he could find he put intobooks,and he gave them [the Jews] aname, callingthem Sabba- tarians,which comes from the word Sabbath,meaningthat they observed Sabbath.³⁰

Accusations of Judaizing werehurledfrom the Catholics to the Reformed and back again. Luther himself was labelled ‘semi-Judaeus’ by ecclesiastical author- ities. Forhis part,Luther criticized the sect of Sabbatarians in his book, Against the Sabbatarians (Wider die Sabbather),written in 1538. The Jewishauthor of the above-citedpassagewas clearlyfamiliar with at least some of the content of Lu- ther’streatise That Jesus Christ WasBorn aJew (DassJesus Christus ein geboren- er Jude sei),³¹ writtenin1523. Furthermore,hewas able to grasp the turn in Lu- ther’sattitude towardJews. In the earlyphase of his career – until around 1536, – the reformervoiced concern over theirprecarious situation in Europe and enthu- siasticallygreeted the prospect of converting them to reformed Christianity.³² Findinghimself unsuccessful in that endeavor, he soon became astrong oppo- nent of Judaism, and in his latercareer called for the harsh persecution of its ad- herents.Luther’slaterbooks, On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) and On the Holy Name and the Lineage of Christ (Vom Schem Ham- phoras und vomGeschlecht Christi), constituteatreasury of anti-Semitic argu- ments, and he personallycampaigned against the Jews in Saxony, Brandenburg, and Silesia. An outstanding example of his success in this effort is the mandate that Luther’sprince, Elector of SaxonyJohn Frederick, issuedin1536,prohibiting

 Meaningthe tract That Jesus Christ WasBorn aJew.  MS Mich. 121(Bodleian),270v. Versions of this paragraph werepublished in Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 289; concerningthis MS see Kaplan, “Sharing Conversations,” 41– 63.  Martin Luther,Luther’sWorks,trans. Walther I. Brandt,vol. 45 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1900 –1986), 195–229. Against the Sabbatarians maybefound in Luther,Luther’sWorks, trans. Martin H. Bertram, vol. 47,64–98.  See Ernst L. Ehrlich, “Luther und die Juden,” in Antisemitism: Vonder Judenfeindschaft zum Holocaust,eds.Herbert A. Strauss and Norbert Kampe (Frankfurt am Main: Campus,1988), 47– 65,here 50. 38 Markéta Kabůrková

Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passingthrough his realm. In his account of the expulsion of Jews from the city of Braunschweig in 1546,Eli- ezer Eilburg³³ depicted aparticularlyadverse impact of Lutheran persecution:

We wereall suddenlyexpelled […]onthe advice of the foul priest vile Mart[in] and other heretical scoundrels, and due to our iniquities,those [s] came beforethe Council of Braunschweig of accursed memory causingthe expulsion with their libellous accusations and temptations.They annulled and brokeour charter of manydaysand years which our fathers bought from them, and even though we had recentlyrenewed our privileges for agreat fortune, they did not honour them.³⁴

The writingsofJosel of Rosheim disclose Luther’sincreasingmalice towards the Jews.³⁵ Joselserved as arepresentative of GermanJewry during the reign of the Maximilian Iand Charles V, and he, along with his German-Jewish brethren, weredirectlyexposed to the turmoil of the Lutheran Reformation. Un- like those living in the safety of foreign shores,they did not have the luxury of a distantview of the conflict.Jerome Friedman has characterized their approach to Luther and Lutheranism as non-ideological and pragmatic, expressing a “polit- ical position predicatedupon concerns removed from esoteric or other conceptual approaches.”³⁶ Joselmet Luther on several occasions,knew Martin Bucer (1491– 1551), and was close with WolfgangCapito(c. 1478 – 1541). In 1530,inthe presenceofthe emperor and his court at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg, Josel had apublic dis- putation with the baptized JewAntonius Margaritha (1492– 1542),who had pub- lished apamphlet, TheWhole JewishFaith (Der gantze Jüdisch Glaub),³⁷ full of

 Forabrief biographyofthe author,see Joseph Davis, “The TenQuestions of Eliezer Eilburg and the ProblemofJewish Unbelief in the 16th Century,” Jewish QuarterlyReview 41,3–4(2001): 293–336, esp. 295–300.  The text is part of the author’sintroduction to his work Machberet ha-measef, extant onlyin manuscript (located in New York, Jewish Theological Seminary,Mic. 2324). English translation according to David, “The Lutheran Reformation,” 128–129.For aslightlydifferent version of this paragraph,see Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 289.  Forthe biographical survey of the German rabbi,see , Rabbi Joselmann von Rosheim (Frankfurt am Main: VerlagH.Bergman, 1879); Ludwig Feilchenfeld, Rabbi Josel von Rosheim: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichteder DeutschenJuden im Reformationszeitalter (Strasburg: J. H. E. Heitz, 1898); Stern, Josel of Rosheim; Fraenkel-Goldschmidt,The Historical Writings.  Friedman, “The Reformation in Alien Eyes,” 26,and 34–40 for further details.  ConcerningMargaritha’stext see Maria Diemling, “Anthonius Margaritha on the Whole Jew- ish Faith: ASixteenth-Century Convert from Judaism and his Depiction of the Jewish Religion,” in Jews,Judaism,and the Reformation in the Sixteenth-Century Germany, eds.Dean Phillip Bell and Stephen G. Burnett (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 303–334; Stephen G. Burnett, “Luther’s Chief Witness:Anthonius Margaritha’sDer ganzjüdisch Glaub (1530/1531),” in Revealingthe Se- Edom versus Edom 39 libelous accusations against Judaism. The disputation terminatedinadecided victory for Josel, who obtainedMargaritha’sexpulsion from the realm.³⁸ Josel of Rosheim intervened on behalf of various Jewishcommunities throughout the HolyRomanEmpire and he substantiallyimproved their legal status due to the favorableattitude of Charles V – whom he even described as God’s angel sent to protect Jews from the Lutherans:

We have now beheld it with our own eyes. Anation which founded anew faith with all sorts of modifications attempted to cast off every yoke and plottedtoattack us and destroy the Jewish nation by manyoppressive decrees and abuses so that it might cease to be a people. He [God] sent his angels in the persons of compassionatekings whogavepower and strengthtothe Emperor Charles to defeat the enemies over and over again, to frustrate their alliances and conspiracies, to subdue them, and to conquer their cities and provinces without effort.He[Charles] wonthe battle in amiraculous manner and savedthe Jewish nation from the might of this new faith which had been founded by amonk called Martin Luther,who is impure, and who planned to wipe out all the Jews,youngand old, and to slaythem.³⁹

Returning to our earlier polemical fragment,wenote astriking referencetothe Jews as “Sabbatarians.” This mention indicatesthat the author’sfamiliarity with – or understanding of – the tract Against the Sabbatarians⁴⁰ was, at best,incom- plete. Although Against the Sabbatarians was largely dedicatedtoanti-Jewish po- lemic,what prompted Luther to write it was his concern with the Sabbatarians, Christians who observed the dayofrest on Saturdayrather thanonSunday. In the work, Lutherclearlydistinguished between the Sabbatarians and Jews, whom he blamed for this Christian practice. Despite the partiality in his comprehension of Luther’swritingsand various reformation movements’ ,the author of the aforementioned fragment

crets of the Jews:Johannes Pfefferkorn and Christian Writings about Jewish Life and Literature in EarlyModern Europe, eds. and Cornelia Heβ (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2016), 183–200; Idem, “Distorted Mirrors: Anthonius Margaritha, Johann Buxtorf der Ältere and Christian Ethnographiesofthe Jews,” Sixteenth Century Journal 25 (1994): 275–87.  Despitethis decision,this work would be repeatedlyreprinted and citedbyanti-Semites over the coming centuries.Martin Luther read TheWholeJewishFaith in 1539 beforewritinghis own anti-Semitic tract On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543. Josel himself acknowledgedthe fact that Luther was inspired by Margaritha in alettertothe Strasbourgcity council; see Fraenkel-- schmidt, The Historical Writings,388. ForJosel of Rosheim’scontroversy with Margaritha see Eli- shevaCarlebach, “Jewish ResponsestoChristianityinReformation Germany,” in Jews,Judaism, and the Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Germany, 451– 80,esp. 455and 460 –61.  Stern, Josel of Rosheim, 223–24.  Luther,Luther’sWorks,vol. 47,89–92 and 94–95. 40 Markéta Kabůrková demonstratesanimpressive awarenessofdetailed distinctionswithin them. DebraKaplan has rightlynoted that it is likelythat he had acquired this knowl- edge either orallyorfrom apamphlet detailing Luther’steachings,given what we know about the spread of the Reformation among Christians living in the Em- pire. Not onlywereLuther’sworks printedinpamphlet form in the vernacular to facilitate their circulation among , but digests of his writings werealso pub- lished with great success.⁴¹ These werealso read aloud to thosewho were illit- erate,diffusingLuther’steachingbeyond those who could read.⁴² It is thus likely that the Jewishauthor had either read such atext,orheardabout it from aChris- tian neighbor who had read or heard these pamphlets.⁴³ Our polemical fragment mayattest to continuous contact between Christians and Jews living in Europe from medieval timestothe earlymodern period, in- cludingboth formal and imposed interaction, and informal and voluntary en- counters which could have occurred on an everydaybasis. Moreover,not only elite authors debated religion; laypeople werewell acquainted with one anoth- er’steachingsand rituals.⁴⁴ Thefactofinformal conversations about religion in- tensified the motivation to compose polemicalliterature, especiallythat which was accessibletonon-elite Jews:

And sometimes, the tricksters wish to arguewith us about matters of faith, and in order to protect ourselves, for the lawrequires that we remain steadfast in our faith, Icomposed this, and it is not lengthy, and its languageisclear,sothat everyone whocomes to read it can understand it,ayouth and asmall child can lead them (Is 11:6), all whounderstand the holytongue.⁴⁵

 See, for example, Louise W. Holborn, “Printing and the Growth of aProtestant Movement in Germanyfrom1517–1524,” Church History 11, 2(1942):123–37;RichardG.Cole, “Reformation Printers: UnsungHeroes,” Sixteenth Century Journal 15,3(1984): 327–39.  See, for example, Miriam UsherChrisman,Lay Culture. Learned Culture.Books and Social change in Strasbourgh, 1480 –1599 (New Haven: Press, 1982); Robert W. Scribner, ForSakeofSimple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Propaganda (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1994).  Kaplan, “SharingConversations,” 51.  Formedieval times see Israel JacobYuval, Twonations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and ChristiansinLateAntiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. Barbara Harshavand Jonathan Chipman (Berkeley,Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2006); Ivan G. Mar- cus, “AJewish-Christian Symbiosis:the Culture of earlyAshkenaz,” in CulturesoftheJews: ANew History,ed. David Biale (New York: Schocken Books,2006), 449–516; and Jonathan Elu- kin, LivingTogether,LivingApart: RethinkingJewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Press, 2007).  Ms 121, 173r.English translation according to Kaplan, “SharingConversations,” 48. Edom versus Edom 41

The polemicist here defined the new threat that Lutheranism posed to Jews, that is, the emphasis on Sola scriptura,the centrality of the Scripture in the creed of Martin Luther: “Their faith is basedonour prophets and holywritings, and if we did not have prophets,then they would have no proof or anything to say.”⁴⁶ The anonymous Jewish polemicist even warned his readers to refrain from discussing biblical verses while in conversation with Lutherans:

And at first,donot begin and talk to them [using references] from the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings.And it is onlythroughthe wayofnature, and with heart and mind, that one should believe. Foritisapparent that thereisaunity governingthe entireworld, ruling over below and above. And this is what youmust do to purify and cleanse them, speak to them as if therewere no book in the world.⁴⁷

It seems thatneighborly discussions about faith, then, mayhaveprompted the composition of the polemic. Interestingly,the author did not instruct his readers to cease speaking with theirneighbors. Rather,herecommended thatinthese conversations Jews avoid discussing the Bible, and instead, thatthey focus on demonstratingthe rational natureofJudaism. In this vein, we mayrecall an ear- lier Ashkenazi polemicist, YomTov LipmannMülhausen (d. 1421), who also de- fined the necessitytodevelop rationallyand philosophicallyoriented arguments and thus to equip Jews with more sophistic resourcestohold theirown in the face of the increasinglysophisticated polemicaltools of the rival faith.⁴⁸ The anonymous author of our anti-Lutheran polemic sensed the seductive- ness of the Lutheranidea of Sola scriptura;the next author we shallconsider, this time arepresentative of Italian Jewry,scrutinizedthe problematic idea of ,justification by faith alone.Several passages in Offering of Zeal (Minhat kenaot), an acerbic polemic against Jewish Aristotelianism⁴⁹ written by Yehiel Nissim (Vitale) ben of Pisa⁵⁰ (c. 1493 – before 1572),deal with the differ-

 Ibid., 57.  Ibid.  Ora Limor and Israel Yuval, “Scepticism and Conversion: Jews,Christians, and Doubt- ers in Sefer ha-Nizzahon,” in Hebraica Veritas?Christian Hebraists and the StudyofJudaism in EarlyModern Europe, eds.Alison Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,2004), 159–79,esp. 175 – 76.  On this belatedbattle against philosophyand conflict with Azariah de’ Rossi, see Israel Zin- berg, AHistory of : Italian Jewry in the Renaissance Era ( and New York: Hebrew Union CollegePress and Ktav PublishingHouse, 1974), 89–95.  On him, see AlessandroGuetta, Italian Jewry in the EarlyModern Era: Essays in Intellectual History (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2014), 12–28;Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in RenaissanceItaly(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), esp. 284–89 and 292–93. 42 Markéta Kabůrková ence between Protestants and Catholics in respect to and free will:

[Fundamental] is the principle of free choice[…]asopposed to the mockers whoclaim that man neither prospers nor suffers perdition by his works unless divine sanction has so de- termined… In our generation we have seen the sages of the gentiles divided intosects… Some maintain this view [that man neither prospers nor suffers perdition by his works unless divine sanction has so determined] which is morebitter than wormwood and de- structive to the very foundations of faith. But others maintain the principle of free will in asimple and straightforward manner,brandingtheir coreligionists as heretics and apos- tates […].⁵¹

Yehiel rejected the fideistic position opposing belief in free will and the merit of good deeds, doctrines which were held up as common to Judaism and the Cath- olic Church.

The new sect that has emergedamongChristianswho fail to understand the meaningof Scripture, maytheir be damned. In their opinion all the actions of man areofneces- sity subjecttoGod’sdeterminationinthe absenceofwhich man can do neither good nor bad. The same is also the case with punishment[…].⁵²

At this point,wewill leave aside specific examples of doctrinal issues and turn to the next theme which preoccupied the majorityofJewish authors reflecting upon the religious battle within Western Christendom. Reformation ferment had brought about religious uncertainty.Not everyone, however,understood in anegative light the religious chaos and even violence of thosetimes, when “Edom turned against Edom.”⁵³ Abraham IbnMigash, for example, sawinthe formlessness of doctrinal opinionachance to attract Gentiles to Judaism and thus realize the next step towards the Messianic redemption:

God has aroused the spirit of the Lutherans – whooriginallybelongedtothem, but now rejectedtheir views […]. So they abrogated and devastated much of the unworthyfaith they possessed. And each daypasses,this people is gaining in strength, so that it waxes exceedinglygreat –‘And the Lordshall be Kingoverthe earth’ (Zech. 14:9). Now behold, this congregation has cast off all faith in iconsand priests,and has dis- carded the form of this worthless creed. So their faith has revertedtoastateofprimeval

 Yehiel of Pisa, Minhat kenaot,ed. David Kaufmann (Jerusalem: Mekitze nirdamim, 1970), 11. English translation accordingtoFriedman, “The Reformation in Alien Eyes,” 27–28.  Yehiel of Pisa, Minhat kenaot,46. English translation according to Friedman, “The Reforma- tion in Alien Eyes,” 28.See also Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 294.  An Expression from AHebrew Chronicle, 55. Edom versus Edom 43

flux. Wherethereare athousand of them one cannot find tenmen willingtorelyupon a single doctrine or consent to agiven line of reasoning. Thus they areinastate of formless- ness, readytotakeshape, since faith has departed and no longer finds expression in their utterances. But they have been made readytoassume form when they will find favour with God, after beingscourgedfor their and the sins of their fathers,for all that they and their fathers have perpetrated against Israel. And when they find favour with God they will be readytoaccept the faith.⁵⁴

Disunityand non-dogmatism, “the return to the state of primeval flux,” as Ibn Migash called it,could be perceivedpositivelyaswellasnegatively.Inhis view,the reformation movement thathad originated in the midst of Christianity was an instrument of God’swill, designed to destroy the old Christianitywhich was now afflicted by internal fragmentation. The Lutheran rejection of tradition- al Catholic beliefs, especiallythe veneration of saints and images, indeed seemed destined to bring the Gentiles closer to the true . In his WorksofGod (Maase ha-Shem), acommentary on the Pentateuch, EliezerAshkenazi (1513–1585)⁵⁵ expressed an optimistic view of the dynamic changes and voiced sanguine expectations stemmingfrom the prevailing reli- gious nonconformity.Ashkenazi, who livedanitinerant life – residinginSaloni- ka, ,Italy, Prague and Poland – interpreted “Dor Babel”–the generation of dispersion (“Dor ha-haflagah”) – as mirroringthe times he livedin.⁵⁶ Among those Jewish authors who reflected the Christian Reformation in their writings, both Ashkenazi and IbnMigash evaluated positively,demon- strating adivine design. Forthem,pluralism was asign of the absence of intel- lectualand religious repression and anecessary prerequisite for the free perfor- mance of religious inquiry. We have seen that the Jews appraised the Reformation not onlyasanhistor- ical event,but also as an act in apocalyptic history.The Lutheran schism ap- peared at atime when Jews wereinparticularneed of encouragement.Let us recall that in 1517, amere generation after the expulsion from Spain and forced

 IbnMigash, KevodElohim, 127v-128r. Forashortened version, see Ben-Sasson, “The Refor- mation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” appendix I.  Little has been written about this thinkerand his work. Forscatteredreferences, see Ben- Sasson, Hagutve-hanhagah (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1959); and Byron L. Sherwin, and Social Dissent (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006), 58–69,es- peciallyfor his conflict with Yehudah ben Bezalel of Prague. The first and onlycomprehensive studyofAshkenazi is N. Ecker-Rozinger Universalistic TendenciesinRabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi’s Teachings [Hebrew] (Ph.D.dissertation, University of , 2010).  Byron L. Sherwin, “The TowerofBabel in Eliezer Ashkenazi’sSefer maase ha-Shem,” Jewish Bible Quarterly42, 2(2014): 83 – 8. 44 Markéta Kabůrková conversions in Portugal had elapsed. Hence, some Jews, especiallythe writers of Sephardi origin, perceivedthis phenomenon as retribution for the brought upon them by the Catholic Church. Abraham IbnMigash, fascinated by the fundamental rivalry between Edom and Edom, anticipated the ultimate collapse of Christianityand return to Judaism: “[…]they will find favorwith God afterbeing scourgedfor their sins and the sins of their fathers for all that they and theirfathers have perpetrated against Israel.”⁵⁷ Moreover,the idea emergedthat the Lutherans were, in fact,Jews – or at least of Jewish lineage. Usque (c.1500 –after 1555)⁵⁸ in Consolation for Tribulations of Israel (Consolação ás Tribulações de Israel), from 1553, wroteinreference to forced conversions in Toulouse,in5106/1346:

In this waythat province was sown with this feed, and manyofthe descendants of these Jews areprobably still uncomfortable in the faith which their ancestors accepted so reluc- tantly. It would not be implausible to assume that from these people stem the Lutherans,⁵⁹ whohavesprungupeverywhereinChristendom. Forsincethroughout Christendom Chris- tians have forcedJews to change their religion, it seems to be divine retribution that the Jews should strikeback with the weapons that wereput into their hands;topunish those whocompelled them to change their faith, and as ajudgment upon the new faith, the Jews break out of the circle of Christian unity,and by such actions seek to re-enter the road of their faith, which they abandoned so long ago.⁶⁰

Asimilar understandingofLutherasadouble agent acting in favour of Jews and Judaism is found in the aforementioned Kevod Elohim of Abraham IbnMigash. The third chapter of the third book contains various anti-Christian tales and re- marks, among them, on folio 127a, apassagefrom the Toledot Yeshu narrative.Of particularrelevance is the part following the death of Jesus when the land of Pal- estine witnessed persistent violence between Jesus’ followers and adherents of . The story,representing acoreofthe so-called Acts narrative of Toledot Yeshu,depicted awise and righteous scholar selectedbythe rabbis to save the purity of Judaism at the expense of living alife of pretense. Eliyahu, as the sageisnamedinthe version quoted by Abraham IbnMigash, pretended to be authorized by Jesus himself to teach his followers –“the lawless ones who

 IbnMigash, KevodElohim, 127v–128r.  ConcerningUsque see Abraham A. Neumann, Samuel Usque. Historian of the 16th Century,Landmarks and Goals (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,1953), 105–132; and Juan Berajano Guitierez, “Samuel Usque and the Consolation for the Tribulation of Israel,” Halapid 21–22 (2011–2012): 34–66.  He used this name to denoteall reformed groups.  Samuel Usque, Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, trans.Martin A. Cohen (Philadel- phia: Jewish Publication Society,1965), 193. Edom versus Edom 45 desecrate and holyfestivals and slayone another” as they were called by the rabbis – the new lawand to separate them from the people of Israel.⁶¹ On the following pageIbn Migash adds his own experience, framing the story from Toledot Yeshu in apersonal context:

One day, when Iwas in the royal courtyard, the Chamberlain, whose name was Mustafa Aga, said to me: ‘Come, Iwill show youhow you[Jews] destroyed human lives.’ He brought one book fromthe royal collections and on reading it,Ifound that it stated that the Jews workedtodestroy the Christian community, writes IbnMigash. The following narrative resembles that of Toledot Yeshu: the story of aJewishsagewho pretendedtobeaChristian in order to deceive Chris- tians and divide them. Making contradictory statements to seventy priests re- garding theirfaith, he thus split them into seventy sects. He then told them that in afew days he would ascend bodilytoheaven. The method he employed both argues against the belief in Jesus’ ascension to heavenand explains the tes- timonyofthe emptytombusing amotif from medicinewithout denying the pos- sibility of the fact itself: the sagedrowned himself in abarrel full of quicksilver, a substance which melted all his bonesand flesh. The consequences werethe fol- lowing:

And they slashed one another accordingtotheir practice, with swordsand spears,until they were coveredinblood, because they quarrelled so much, for they were divided into manygroups and the disputes multiplied. This destroyed their habitations,and there werestrife and fightingintheir tents […]And I, too, have heardevil reportsspread by many, for this matter [that the division in Christianity was induced by Jews] is known but kept secret amongthe gentiles […]Beitasitmay,itisconsensus of opinion among all prophets that our people werethe cause of it.⁶²

Christians facing the hardships of the sixteenth-centuryreligious wars werethus punished for the sins of their fatherswho had persecuted the people of Israel throughout the history,just as Jesus’sfollowers wereled to confusion and eclipse

 The quotation of Toledot Yeshu in KevodElohim is very similar to the version preserved in MS Strasbourg, one of the most known versions of Toledot Yeshu which, according to William Horbury,was written down in the seventeenth-century Galician Karaite milieu, however the identicaltext circulated earlier in France and Spain; see William Horbury, “The Strasbourg Text of the Toledot,” in Toledot Yeshu (“The Life Story of Jesus”)Revisited, eds.Peter Schäfer, Michael Meerson and Yaakov Deutsch (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 49–59,esp. 55.  IbnMigash,Kevod Elohim,127v–128r; translation according to Ben-Sasson, “The Reforma- tion in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 85 – 87. 46 Markéta Kabůrková by Eliyahu at the beginning of the Common Era. The passageends with an ab- breviated quotation from the MishnehTorah,and IbnMigash declared that:

Had this [the clash within Christianity] happened in the days of […]hewould have danced ecstaticallyfor sheer joy […]for he has raised up from amongthem and within them, of their own flesh and bone, of their kin and religion, aphenomenon that destroys them […]itincitesthem, fraction against fraction, to destroy their faith; and they burn the statues of their in fire,and their asherot they cut down, and their icons they break in pieces […]This He does unto them by means of leaders and their friends,their brethren Lu- therans. Forthe sword of every man is against his brother,and each man is against his friend and his relative,against his son and his brother, city against city,kingdom against kingdom.⁶³

Clearly, then, IbnMigash adopted the idea of Jewishresponsibility for develop- ments within Christian religion. LikeEliyahu – the righteous and learned Jew sent by the rabbis to take charge of the Christian hierarchyand institute new rules in the Toledot YeshuAct narrative – Martin Luther in IbnMigash’sreading is acounter-character:aman who, from within Christian circles,works to bring conflict and collapsetoChristianity. Our Jewish authors wereaware that the Catholics chargedLuther with the heresy of Judaizing.After all, they themselvesperceivedsome aspects of the new religion as close to Judaism, the original, true, and pure belief. When Ger- shom Scholem summarized Abraham ben Eliezer’sview of Luther,heeven used words like “crypto-Jew,aproselytewhose revolt was not limited to the pope but extended to Christianity as awhole, so as graduallytodrawthe gen- tiles near to the Jewish religion and its laws.”⁶⁴ Passages from Kevod Elohim stress Lutheran iconoclasm, and also for other Jewishthinkers dealing with the Reformation the rejection of images and the veneration of saints represented the first thing they noticed about the sect.Ibn Migash goes one step further in his presentation of Luther – the one who ignited aconflagration within Christianity – as part of God’splan workinginfavor of the congregation of Israel. The above-discussed selection of Jewishtexts does not offer asystematic view of the German Reformation, both because no unifiedJewishassessment of this development in Christian history ever emergedand because the Reforma- tion itself manifested in various forms. Jewishhistoriographic works of the early modernperiod treated the Reformation as an external event,often assessing it in abrief and dispassionate manner. Following ashort period of curiosity and cau-

 IbnMigash, KevodElohim, 128r.  Scholem,”Perakim,” 161. Edom versus Edom 47 tious hope, Jewishauthorslivinginthe areaofthe HolyRoman Empire reacted to the changing political realities and novel religious forms with abitter grasp of the negative ramifications of Luther’sactivities. In Germany,Luther wasun- equivocally “impure,” one who “soughttodestroy and to kill all of the Jews, both young and old”–the newest embodiment of the archetypal villain .⁶⁵ Textswritten by authors living beyond the areas directlyaffected by Luther’spolicy,bycontrast,displayasignificantlymore creative approach to the Reformation. The scholarship on the Christian uses of Jewish history,Jewish literature, and Jewishfigures for internal needs, be they theological, sociologi- cal, or political, is vast.Itought to come as little surprise, then, that the Jews en- gagedinsimilar exploits of expropriation.

 As expressed by Josel of Rosheim in Sefer ha-Miknah; compareBen-Sasson, “The Reforma- tion in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” 272and 288.

Alexander vander Haven Eschatologyand Conversion in the Sperling Letters¹

When conversion andeschatologyjoinedforces duringEurope’slong Reformation period, it was usually to underscorereligiously exclusivist claims. Eschatological expectations heightened the sense that those who adhered to the wrongbeliefs, did not follow the correct practices,and did not belong to God’ssole favored re- ligious community,should convert before it was toolate. Thus, of this period, also known as the AgeofConversion, tended to ground demands for conversion in exclusivist terms.² This was the case for Christian communities in the Reformation, but it was alsocharacteristic of contemporary Jewish eschatol- ogies, which abandoned older traditions that had allowed for righteous ‘Sons of ’ to find salvation outside the Jewish community.Elisheva Carle- bach, among other scholars, portraysearlymodern eschatologies – Christian as well as Jewish – in these terms:

Jews knew that if Christian expectationsmaterialized, their own millennial hopes would provevain;Christians understood that messianic redemption for the Jews would under- mine the foundation principles of the Christian religion. Each groupremained certain that their own prophetic vision of the endtime would ultimatelymaterialize. Each sought toassureits membersthat the signsofthe endtimeidentified by the other were fraudulent, products of deliberatedeception.³

The fact that religious rapprochement was generallyregarded in anegative light confirms this imageofChristians and Jews duringthe long Reformation. ALutheranwoodcarvingfrom the illustratesthis point.Its subject is the AugsburgInterim agreement,inwhich Emperor Charles Vmade important con- cessions to the Protestants. The carving depicts the Interim as one of three de-

 This researchhas been supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planningand BudgetingCom- mittee and The Israel ScienceFoundation (grantno. 1754/12),the European Research Council’s StartingGrant TCCECJ headed by Dr Pawel Maciejkoofthe HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, and aResearch Fellowshipfromthe Department of Jewish History at Haifa University.Ithank also Mike Zuber and both anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.  Forthe use of the term ‘AgeofConversion’,see Dieter Breuer, “Konversionen im konfessionell- en Zeitalter,” in Konversionen im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit,eds.Friedrich Niewoh- ner and Fide Rädle (Hildesheim, 1999): 59–69.  ElishevaCarlebach, “Jews,Christians,and the in EarlyModern Germany,” Jewish History 14:3 (2000): 331– 44,here 331.

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-005 50 Alexander vander Haven monic characters (alongside the pope and the Turkish sultan) being trampledby amuscular risen Christ.Acaption beside the demon’shead reads, “Der Teuffel kumpt in einer gstalt eins Engels”–the devil comesinthe guise of an angel. Be- neath the angelic appearance of religious , suggests the print,ademonic actor lurks.The Savior’sreturn forebodes disaster for those who make religious concessions to the wrongreligions or denominations.⁴ The reactions of writers and artists to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which brought an end to the bloodyThirty Years War, demonstrate that such attitudes continued into the seventeenth century.What todayisupheld as an example of religious peace-makingwas portrayed at thattime by artists and authorsonboth sides in eschatological exclusivist terms,asthe victory of theirown denomina- tion.⁵ In this Christian eschatological , converts and the phenomenon of conversion weregenerallytaken to signify that,with the end imminent,there was onlyone road to salvation. Manyofthe Christians who converted to Judaism in the Calvinist-dominated Dutch Republic maintained this attitude, and accepted thosecontemporary Jew- ish claims that salvation can onlybeattained through living fullyinthe Lawof Moses.⁶ Forinstance, while in Amsterdam visitingafellow German who had re- centlyconverted to Judaism, atraveler encountered another convert.This was a formerCatholic priest,now named Danielben Abraham, who expected the mes- siah to come in 1703.While the traveler was talking with his host,this Daniel ben Abraham:

[…]sat quiet for awhile, but finallytalked, saying: “Dear friends,ithappens now like it happened at the days of Noah, when the good and pious man was ridiculed, and he and his ark were mocked until the Flood, and those whohad mocked him beggedhewould take them in his ark, but in vain. Also the People of God have been laughed at with their hope and waitingfor the messiah, which manyfor certain to their own damage all toolatewill regret […].”⁷

 Erasmus Alber,Also spricht Gott: Dis ist mein lieber Son an welchem ich wolgefallen hab Den SolltIhr Hören (s. l., n.p.: c. 1550).  Foranoverview,see Hartmut Laufhütte, “Der gebändigteMars:Kriegsallegorie und Kriegs- verständnis im deutschen Schauspiel um 1648,” in Ares und Dionysos: Das Furchtbareund das Lächerliche in der europäischen Literatur,eds.Hans-JürgenHorn and Hartmut Laufhütte (Heidelberg: Winter, 1981): 121–35.  Forsuch exclusivist Jewish views in the Dutch Republic see, for instance, the writings of the polemicist Isaac Orobio de CastrodescribedinYosef Kaplan, From ChristianitytoJudaism: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro(Oxfordand New York: Publishedfor The Littman Library by OxfordUniversity Press,1989), 353–59.  “niedergesetzt und ihrenDiscours in der Stille fleißigzugehöret,endlich aber darein geredet und gesagt, geliebteFreunde, es gehet jetzo, wie zu den ZeitenNoae, da man den gutenfrom- Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 51

Typical of the kind of wide-scope conversion narrative that relied on eschatolog- ical expectation, the aforementioned converted priest’scombination of promise (for the Jews)and threat (to the Christians),and expectation that the fortunes of the two religious communities would be reversed, mirrored as well as legitimized BenAbraham’sown religious change. Yet, not all earlymodern converts thoughtoftheir religious affiliation in ex- clusivist terms,oratleast did not expressthis exclusivism in practice. As recent studies of earlymodern interreligious relations such as thatofBenjamin Kaplan show,converts did not necessarilydemand their unconverted familymembers’ conversion or sever ties with relations who remained in their old faith.⁸ More- over,asisamplydemonstrated by the rich recent scholarship on Iberian New Christians, the religious self-perception of earlymodern converts was complex. To continue with the example of Iberian Jewish converts to Christianity, whereas older scholarshipassumed that Jewishconverts to Christianity either fullyem- braced their new religion or clandestinelyremained loyal to the religion they had publiclybeen forced to abandon, more recent scholarship such as that of David Graizbord has shown thatfor these converts, the “threshold” between the Jewishand Christian worlds was “at once aboundaryand acrossroads.”⁹ In other words, earlymodern converts were markers of religious difference and exclusivity as they embodied the possibility to dwell in two religious worlds simultaneously. Likewise, the demand for exclusive commitment in the face of an impend- ing separation of the wheat from the chaff was not endemic to the AgeofCon- version’seschatological expectations. Augustine Bader (c. 1495– 1530), Quirinus Kuhlmann (1651–1689), Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657), and Oliger Paulli (1644–1714), for instance, offered another possibility,namely, that the Last

men Mann wohl wirdverlacht,und mit seiner Arche verspottet haben, biß die Sünd-Fluth ein- gebrochen, da ihrer garviele die ihn zuvor verspottet,werden angeflehet haben, daß er sie doch auch zu sich in seine Arche nehmen mögte,aber vergeblich; Also ist das Volck GottesIsrael jetzo mit seiner Hoffnungund Warten des Messiae verlachet und verspottet,welches gewißlich aber viele mit ihrem Schaden allzuspäth dereinstens [b]ereuen werden;” Johann JacobSchudt, Jü di- sche Merckwürdigkeiten:vorstellend, was sich Denkwürdigesinden neuen Zeitenbey einigen Jahrhunderten mit den in alle 4Theile der Welt,sonderlich durch Teutschland zerstreuten Juden zugetragen. Sammt einer vollständigen Franckfurter Juden-Chronick, Darinnender zu Franckfurt am Mayn wohnenden Juden, voneinigen Jahr-Hunderten, biß auff unsereZeiten, MerckwürdigsteBegebenheiten enthalten, vol. 1(Frankfurt and :s.n., 1714), 275–76.  Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the PracticeofToleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge,MA: BelknapPress of HarvardUniversity Press, 2007), esp. 266–93.  David L. Graizbord, Souls in Dispute: Identities in Iberia and the , 1580 –1700 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,2004), 2. 52 Alexander vander Haven

Days called the believer to resolve inter-religious strife – albeit mostlywithout giving up at least one religious denomination in the role of adversary – rather than to unequivocallychoose sides. Put differently, earlymoderneschatology,al- though predominantlyexclusivist,also had the potential to bring different reli- gious groups together. The present article willexplore this side of earlymodernconversion and es- chatology by analyzingtwo extraordinary letters written in Amsterdam in 1682, and theirimmediate and broader religious Umwelt such as Bader,Kuhlmann, Menassehben Israel, and Paulli.¹⁰ The letters are found todayinacollection of miscellaneous documents in Hamburg’sState Archive,and wereformerly held in the archive of the Hamburger Geistesministerium,aninstitution that served as the highest authority of the Lutheran Church in Hamburgand func- tioned as an advisory bodytothe city government in the earlymodern period. They werewritten by acertain Benedictus SebastianSperling to his mother,to explain his conversion from Christianity (presumably the Lutheran faith) to Juda- ism. Sperling,who by then alsoused the name Israel Benedeti Ger (ger meaning ‘proselyte’), tried to comfort his mother who apparentlyhad been greatlyupset by the news of his conversion, by presentingher with ascenario of the imminent eschaton that allowed for the salvation of people of different religions. What is striking about Sperling’sletters is the lack of religious exclusivism they convey. This is not what we would expect from an earlymodern convert in the confessional ageofthe Reformation, particularlynot from aconvert in expectation of imminent eschatological events. Nevertheless, as Iwillshow, Sperlingrecognized Christian scripture as authoritative scripture, claimedthat good Calvinistsand Lutherans would alsobesaved, hinted at universalsalva- tion, and depicted the eschaton as acooperative effort of Protestantismand Islam to return the Jews to theirpromised land. It is important to mention that each of these elements – scriptural promiscu- ity,the claim of multiple paths to salvation, and an eschatology that attributes positive roles to more than one religious group – has, at various times, been ex- ploited to serveexclusivist claims. Sperling’sletters can indeedbereadinthat way: as with manyJewish polemicists before and after him, he used Christian scripture to undermine the dogmas of Christian churches.Furthermore, while Sperlingenvisioned hostsofCalvinists, Lutherans,and gathering and aiding Israel to return to its promised land,healso imagined RomanCatholics

 StaatsarchivHamburg511–1Ministerium III A1dBand 2(1553–1686), further as “Sperling letters.” Translations aremine, and the original German is found in the footnotes. Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 53 as their common enemy. As in most eschatologies, Sperling’sscenario drew a clear line between the forces of light and darkness. Yet, to focus on this feature is to ignore the spirit of the letters,inwhich du- alism between the Catholics and the Protestant-Muslim-Jewish alliance plays a minor role relative to the positive elaborationofthat alliance. In the following, Iexplore Sperling’sremarkable combination of (on the one hand) personal con- version and thus commitment to aparticularreligion, and (on the otherhand) commitment to anon-exclusive attitude toward different religions. Beforead- dressingSperling’sinclusivist eschatology in the letters themselves, however,I will first brieflyexplore the historical Sperlingaswell as the religious environ- ments of Hamburg, whencehecame, and Amsterdam,whereheconverted and wrotehis letters.

The Historical Sperling

Benedictus Sebastian Sperlingasahistoricalperson has thus far been somewhat of amystery.The absenceofdocumentation on Sperling’slife should have raised the question of whether the letters wereperhaps,rather thancorrespondence written by ason to his mother,literaryartifacts: fictive missivescomposed to fur- ther the agenda of aspecific religious group somehow associated with the Jewish community of Amsterdam. Neither WolfgangPhilipp, who published Sperling’s letters in their original Germanin1958, nor Gerald Strauss, who published an English translation in 1974,everconsidered this option, and took the letters as authentic.¹¹ Moreover,because the letters ended up in agovernmental archive

 Wolfgang Philipp, “Der Philosemitismus im geistesgeschichtlichen Feld: Bericht über eine neue Quelle und Orientierungsversuch,” Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistesgeschichte10:3 (1958): 220 –30.Philipp published the letters also in idem, ed. Das Zeitalter der Aufklärung, Klassiker des Protestantismus (: C. Schönemann, 1963), 106–10;and see idem, “Spätbar- ock und Frühe Aufklärung: Das Zeitalter des Philosemitismus,” in Kirche und Synagoge: Hand- buch zur Geschichtevon Christen und Juden: Darstellungmit Quellen, eds.Karl Heinrich Re- ngstorf and Siegfried vonKortzfleisch (Munich:Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag,1988), 54–7; Gerald Strauss, “ASeventeenth-Century : TwoLetters from Benedictus Sperlingtohis Mother,1682,” Jewish Social Studies 36:2 (1974): 166–74.Strauss claims that, based on the handwriting, the archivedlettersmust be eighteenth-century copies. The archival locations Philipp and Strauss notedare not accurateanymore. Sperlingisalso mentioned in other research, often merelyasaconvert to Judaism. The most detailed discussions arebyEli- shevaCarlebach,who argued that Sperling’sclaim to be of Jewish descent served to legitimize his conversion, and Paul Thraugh, whoused Sperlingasa‘Jewish’ perspective on Luther;Elishe- va Carlebach, “‘Ich will dich nach Holland schicken …’ Amsterdam and the Reversion to Judaism 54 Alexander vander Haven in Hamburg, Philipp and Strauss presumed thatSperlingwas from Hamburg. The letters themselves, however,donot indicate their destination.¹² But Sperling did exist,and the records of the PortugueseJewishcongrega- tion in Amsterdam document thathewas indeed from Hamburg. It is not known whether Sperling arrivedinAmsterdam alreadyintent on converting,or whether he traveled to Amsterdam for other reasons and found Judaism once there.¹³ Theformerismore likely, though, because in his second letterheclaims to be in possession of abequest from his father to his children, stating that his ancestors had been Jews forciblyconverted to Christianity “duringwars.” His onlytwo appearancesinAmsterdam’srecords are in the Portuguesecongrega- tion’s Livro Longo,wherethe charity donations, among others, were registered. It lists that on 15 Adar I, 5442(23 February 1682),thus, six weeks after sending his first letter,two florins weregiven to “Israel Beneditoguer de Hambo”:Israel Beneditothe proselytefrom Hamburg. Three and ahalf months later,onthe first of Sivan(Sunday, 7June), “Israel Benedito”–this time it is not mentioned that he is aconvert – is again givencharity,specifically, 3: 3florins.¹⁴ This is the last we hear of Sperlinginthe annalsofJewishAmsterdam. Thus, it seems that SperlingarrivedinAmsterdamatthe latest in earlyJan- uary 1682, the date of his first letter,and remained there, receiving financial sup- port from the city’sprosperous Portuguese community,atleast until June of that year.His subsequent fate is unknown, but additional clues about his social and religious environment in Amsterdam can be found in his letters.Having received charity from the Portuguesecongregation does not mean thathehad joined the Sephardic community,for the Portuguese provided charity to both Sephardic as

of German-Jewish Converts,” in Secret Conversions to Judaism in EarlyModern Europe, eds.Mar- tin Mulsow and RichardH.Popkin, Brill’sStudies in Intellectual History 122 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004): 51– 70,here 61;eadem, “Converts and their NarrativesinEarlyModern Germany: The Case of Friedrich Albrecht Christiani,” The LeoBaeck InstituteYear Book 40:1 (1995): 65 – 83,here79; Paul Pitchlynn Traugh, “The ImageofMartin Luther in German-Jewish Litera- ture:From Israel Benedeti to LeoBaeck” (PhD Dissertation, University of California, 1972).  My own inquiry with Hamburg’sarchiveshad no result.Sperlingwas never registeredasa citizen of Hamburg, nor was he listed in its registers of inhabitants without citizenship and strangers.E-mail communication from AnkeHönnig,StaatsarchivHamburg,9April 2015.  The fact that he does not surfaceinthe recordsofAmsterdam’sChristian churches,such as Amsterdam’sLutheran congregation, might be an indication that he was alreadyinterested in convertingwhen he arrived. E.g. Stadsarchief Amsterdam (further as SAA) 213(Archief vande Evangelisch-Lutherse Gemeente te Amsterdam;Kerkenraad en Ouderlingen), 520 – 5(Communi- canten registers,1677– 1682).  SAA334 (Archief van de Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente), 217(Livro Longo:Kasboek be- treffende salarissen,lijfrenten en andereperiodiekeuitkeringen, 1676 – 1685), 310 and 339. Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 55 well as Ashkenazi Jews. In fact,the name Sperlingadopted in Amsterdam, Israel Benedeti, and his chosen term of address, “signor,” suggest contact with Italian Ashkenazi Jews rather than, as Philipp assumed, the Sephardic community.¹⁵ The hypothesis thathejoined the Ashkenazi community rather thanAmster- dam’sPortuguese Sephardic congregation is further supported by his postal ad- dress,namely,the residenceof“Rabbi Gaim Lubbeliner” on the Uilenburg. This was Haim Lubliner, awell-respected rabbi in the Ashkenazi congregation.¹⁶ Un- fortunately, too few of the Ashkenazicongregation’srecords of this period sur- vivedWorld WarIItoreveal more about Sperling’sidentity.If, after June, Sperlingremained in Amsterdam’sJewish community and died there, he was not buried under the name he had chosenfor himself and under which he had receivedcharity,but under ageneric proselytename such as “Abraham Ger of Hamburg.”¹⁷

Sperlingand Lutheran Hamburg

The background of Sperling’seschatological beliefs,then, should be soughtin both Hamburgand Amsterdam. Philipp in particular,and Strauss while offering amoregeneral contemporarycontext,onlyconsidered Hamburg. Philipp sug- gested thatSperling’sbeliefs ought to be understood in view of late Baroque philosemitism in Lutheran Hamburg(an idea adopted by later studies such as those of Hans-Joachim Schoeps).¹⁸ Noting the presenceinSperling’sletters of

 Philipp, “Der Philosemitismus,” 224.  Sperlingletters, p. 1529; Hindle S. Hes, Jewish Physicians in the , 1600 –1940 (Assen: VanGorcum, 1980), 66.  The Askhenazi burial society buried aproselyteAbraham in 1707 and the “old man” Abra- ham Ger in 1733;see Jits VanStraten, De begraafboeken van Zeeburg: indexen van personen be- graven op de joodse begraafplaats Zeeburgtussen 11 oktober 1714 en 21 juni1811 =The Burial books of Zeeburg: Indexes of Persons Buried at the Jewish Cemetery ZeeburgBetween 11 October 1714 and 21 June 1811 (s.l.: StichtingBevorderingOnderzoek Joodse Historische Bronnen, 1997), 16,24. Although it would be most likelythat he would be buried in one of the Askhenazi cem- eteries, occasionallyconverts to the Askhenazi community,such as the well-known convert Moses Germanus, were buried at the Portuguese cemeteryatOuderkerk. There areseveral pros- elytes buried in the Portuguese cemetery whomight be him, such as Abraham Guer in June of 1682 (in his letter, Sperling wrotethat he was severely ill), and in 1705 Abraham Ger of Hamburg (Stadsarchief Amsterdam 334(Archief van de Portugees-IsraëlietischeGemeente) 916 (Livrode BetHaim. Register vanbesluiten van de maamad betreffende de begraafplaats 1703–1722; jour- naal van begraven1680 –1716;grafboek 1691–1733), 34,160.  Hans-Joachim Schoeps,BarockeJuden, Christen, Judenchristen ( and Munich: Francke, 1965), 88;Lutz Greisiger, “Chiliasten und ‘Judentzer’–Eschatologie und Judenmission im Prot- 56 Alexander vander Haven millenarian Paul Felgenhauer’s(1593–1677) philosemitic ideas, Philipp sketched abroad imageofphilosemitic cultureinHamburg. Itscomponents included the influenceofthe Swede Andress Pederson Kempe,the presenceofaflourishing Sephardic Jewishcommunity and the messianic Sabbatian movement thathad seduced manyofthis community’smembers, close contacts with English philo- semites,and (later in the seventeenth century), agroup of scholars centered around the theologian JohannFriedrich Mayer(1650 –1712).¹⁹ Like Philipp, Strauss too placed the letters in the context of scholarlyinterest in the Jewishroots of Christianityand the attraction to Judaism by Christians grown weary of Christendom’sinternal divisions. Moreover,Strauss regarded Sperling’sletters as an example of the late seventeenth-century rapprochement between spiritual Christian messianic expectations and more earthlyJewish ones. Strauss also identifiedspecific eschatological beliefs which wereincircu- lation when the letters werewritten – for instance, aseries of claims focused on the comets thathad appearedinthe threeyears preceding Sperling’sletters and on the rare astrological conjunctions expectedfor the years immediatelyto come.²⁰ When describing Hamburg’sreligious climate,Strauss, in contrast to Philipp,emphasized the hostile Christian environment by which it was marked in the second half of the seventeenth century,rather than its philosemitic intel- lectualmilieu. How might one account for the differencebetween Philipp’spositive and Strauss’snegative characterizations of Hamburg? In this regard,itmight be use- ful to recall Hamburg’spolitical division, that is, its relatively tolerant civil lead- ership on the one hand,and its clerical opposition on the other.²¹ The city mag- istrates’ economic interests and distrust of clerical ambitionsenabled the Sephardic Jewish community to prosper and reach apeak in the 1660s.²² The philosemitism evinced by aselect group of intellectuals described by Philipp fur- ther fueled this attitude. Nonetheless,the city’sLutheran clergy, generallyinopposition to the city’sleadership,tended to be hostile towardsa

estantischen Deutschland des 17.und 18. Jahrhunderts,” Kwartalnik Historii Ż ydo´ w, no. 4(2006): 535– 75,here564–5.  Philipp, “Philosemitismus,” 224–7.  Strauss, “ASeventeenth-Century Conversion to Judaism,” 166–9.  Foradetailed analysis of this conflict in the period that Sperlingconvertedtothe end of the century,see Hermann Rückleben, Die Niederwerfung der hamburgischen Ratsgewalt: Kirchliche Bewegungen und bürgerliche Unruhen im ausgehenden 17.Jahrhundert,Beiträgezur Geschichte Hamburgs herausgegeben vomVerein für hamburgische Geschichte(Hamburg: Hans Christians, 1970).  Joachim Whaley,Religious Toleration and Social Change in Hamburg, 1529–1819 (Cam- bridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 79. Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 57 non-Lutheran presenceinHamburg, includingthatofJews.²³ The second half of the century sawanincrease in this hostility following the arrivalofJewish refu- gees (whichmay have included Sperling’sown paternal ancestors), who were fleeing the Khmelnytskymassacres and otherpogroms in the East.²⁴ This antip- athytowards Jews was reinforced by aggressive missionary efforts includingthe foundation of the Edzardische Proselyten Anstalt in 1667, one year after the con- version to Islam of the Jewish messianic claimant Sabbatai Tsevi (1626–1676), who had manyadherents among Hamburg’sJews. Exploiting the Jewishmes- sianic disappointment to convince Jews that JesusChrist was the true messiah, this missionary institute attracted agreat number of converts.²⁵ Particularlyifhis claims about his father are true, Sperling was likelyal- readyincontact with Jews whenstill in Hamburg, making Philipp’ssuggestion that publicinterest in Sabbatianism mayhavecontributed to Sperling’sconver- sion highlysignificant.²⁶ Pawel Maciejko has recentlyshown how in the Sabba- tian movement “fusinginterreligious elements became apositive,and possibly even asupreme, value.”²⁷ Following theirmessiah, who, in contrasttothe histor- iographic tradition, seems to have sincerelyembraced Islam while continuingto observeanumber of Jewishpractices, Sabbatians became

[…]the most ecumenical of earlymodern Jews.While mainstream Jewish discourse habit- uallybundled all ‘nations of the world’ and their faiths together,Sabbatianism carefully distinguished between different and denominations,often drawinglines not only between large religious formations such as Islam and Christianity,but also between differ- ent sects and subgroups,such as different Protestant churches or different Sufi orders.²⁸

Hamburg, whereSabbatianism survivedthe demise of the Sabbatian massmove- ment,thus offered aJewishsubculturethat combined religious conversion and an ecumenicalattitude, breathingthe samespirit of Sperling’seschatologicalbe- liefs described below.

 Jutta Braden, “Die HamburgerJudenpolitik und die lutherisch-orthodoxe Geistlichkeit im 17.Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte 89 (2003): 1–40,here 3–4.  Whaley,Religious Toleration, 76;Braden, “HamburgerJudenpolitik,” 26.  On the institution, see Whaley, Religious Toleration, 86–7. On its conversion successes,see Braden, “HamburgerJudenpolitik,” 29.  Philipp, “Der Philosemitismus,” 225. These contacts would have been likelywith Ashkenazi Jews,who from amere forty to fifty families in the early1660s had rapidlygrown in numbers by the time of Sperling’sconversion; see Whaley, Religious Toleration, 81.  Pawel Maciejko, ed., Sabbatian Heresy:Writings on Mysticism, Messianism, and the Origins of Jewish Modernity (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2017), xxiv.  Ibid., xxv. 58 Alexander vander Haven

Hence, Hamburgwas hometotwo attitudinalextremes.Whereas astrong Lutheran exclusivist sector tried to either aggressively bar Jews from Hamburg or convert them to Christianity, several subcultures sheltered by Hamburg’smag- istratesthat ranged from philosemitic Lutherans to Sabbatian Jews explored more ecumenical connections between Christianityand Judaism. Sperling’sjour- ney to Amsterdam epitomized his own preference for the latter,since these inclu- sivist attitudes could also be found in Amsterdam.

Sperling’sAmsterdam: German Boehmistsand InternationalProselytes

In his second letter to his mother, when Sperlingpresents his eschatological sce- nario, he refers to what he “has also heard in the sermons,” in which it was claimed thatthe first angel of the Apocalypse of John refers to “the great angel, the archangelD.Martin Lutherus.”²⁹ It is unlikelythat this phrase came from the mouth of an Ashkenazi rabbi. Possibly, Sperling was alludingtoaser- mon rememberedfrom aGermanLutheran past that he had left behind – after all, he mentions sermons while discussingLuther.Nevertheless,the depiction of Luther as an archangelisanintegralpart of the eschatological belief system he held after his conversion – suggesting that he mayhaveheard the description in sermons he was stillattendingatthe time he wrotethe letter.Itisalso notewor- thythat he usesthe definite article in his letter (“the” sermons)and chooses the perfect rather thanthe past perfect tense. While Boehmists – followers of the German mystic Jakob Böhme (1575 – 1624) – might not have had the pulpitsnecessary to directlyspread their message, Boehmistelements in the letters,alreadynoted by Philipp, indicate that these sermons might be linked to the presenceofGerman Boehmists in Amsterdam around 1680,such as Johann GeorgGichtel (1638–1710) and Friedrich Breckling (1629–1711).³⁰ Other suspects are the chiliasts Johannes Rothe (1628–1702)and

 “Meines Verstandes nach, und wie ichs auch woll habegehört in den [Pred]igten[…]der Mann Gottesder große Engelund Erz Engel der D. MartinusLutherus”;Sperlingletters, 1568.  Lucinda Martin, “JacobBoehme and the Anthropology of German Pietism,” in An Introduc- tion to Jacob Boehme: Four Centuries of Thoughtand Reception, eds.Ariel Hessayonand Apetrei, Routledge Studies in Religion (New York: Routledge,2014): 120 –41,here121–5. See also Caspar G. C.Visser, “Die mystisch-pietistische Strömunginder niederländisch-lutherische Kirche in der zweitenHälftedes 17.Jahrhunderts,” in Pietismus und Reveil: Referate der internationalen Tagung:Der Pietismus in den Niederlanden und seine internationalen Beziehungen, Zeist 18–22.Juni 1974,eds.Jan van den Berg and JanPieter van Dooren (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978): Eschatology and Conversioninthe Sperling Letters 59

Quirinus Kuhlmann. LikeSperling,Kuhlmann wroteabout an eschatological alliance among Lutheranism, , and the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire.³¹ UnlikeSperling,however,Kuhlmann attributed to himself acentral role in the upcomingmessianic events. These or other German-speaking Boehmists in Am- sterdam, some of whom weresuch fervent Hebraists that they spoke Hebrew at home, werelikelyinstrumental in Sperling’sturn to Judaism. Moreover,the fact that the Revelation of John figures prominentlyinSperling’seschatology points to some continued connection with this Boehmistmilieu after joining the Jewish community.³² An important clue about another religious environment in Amsterdam can be found at the end of Sperling’sfirst letter,where he cryptically hints in an un- derlined sentence: “Please know that Iamnot the first Christian who has be- come aJew,and Iwillnot remain the last.”³³ As burial and other records from both Amsterdam’sAshkenazi and Sephardic communities show,Amsterdam numbered manyconverts at the time.³⁴ These include converts from Hamburg or thosewith some other connection to it: in the twoyears before Sperling’s conversion, for instance, the English convert Elias BarAbraham traveled to

169–81;Magdolna Veres, “Johann Comenius und Friedrich Brecklingals ‘Rufende Stimme ausMitternacht’,” Pietismus und Neuzeit 33 (2007): 71– 83.  Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, “Salvation through Philology: The Poetical Messianism of Quirinus Kuhlmann (1651–1689),” in Towardthe Millennium: Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco, eds.Peter Schäfer and Mark R. Cohen (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1998): 259–98, esp. 267–8.  Foranother possible factor,namelythe rich and various scene of Dutch philosemitesand their interactions with Jews,such as the Dutch millenarians and their contacts with Jews like Menasseh ben Israel, see RichardH.Popkin, “ChristianJews and Jewish Christians in the 17th century,” in Jewish Christians and Christian Jews:From the Renaissancetothe Enlighten- ment,eds.RichardH.Popkin andGordon M. Weiner,Archivesinternationales d’histoire des idées =InternationalArchivesofthe History of Ideas (Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994): 57–72.  “wisset daß ich nicht bin der Erste Christ der da ist ein Jude geworden, Ich werde auch der letztenicht bleiben;” Sperling letters 244/1529.  On the Ashkenazi cemeteries, see Jits VanStraten, De herkomst vandeAschkenazische joden: De controverse opgelost (Bennekom: [the author], 2009), 159.The Portuguese burial register fromthe period in which the Sperling letterswere written: Stadsarchief Amsterdam 334(Archief van de Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente) 916 (Livro de BetHaim. Register van be- sluiten van de mahamad betreffende de begraafplaats 1703–1722; journaal vanbegraven 1680 – 1716;grafboek 1691–1733). Two other sources mentioning multiple converts contemporary to Sperlingare the aforementionedLivro longo(SAA334:217), as wellasthe Portuguese “Manual” that also reported welfaregifts to converts: SAA334:175 (Manual, 1677–1689). 60 Alexander vander Haven

Hamburgtwice.³⁵ The Portuguesecommunity’scharity lists also includeseveral converts from Hamburginthe years following Sperling’sletters,who, like Sperl- ing,had come to Amsterdam.³⁶ Social interactions between converts was common in Amsterdam. The afore- mentioned MosesGermanus and Daniel ben Avraham interacted with fellow converts, as did Abigail Guer(“Abigail the proselyte”), who in the 1640s stipulat- ed that part of her large donation to the Portuguese Jewish community should be reserved as ayearlyallowance for Dinah Guer (“Dina the proselyte”).³⁷ In addi- tion, at least some of these converts, as Sperlingimplies, expectedthat there would be more conversions to Judaism in the near future. The use of the as authoritative prophecybyaJewish proselytewho receivedhis mail at the address of arenowned rabbi comes as something of asurprise. But proselytes, it might be helpful to recall here, occu- pied arather liminal status in the Jewishcommunity.Beginning at the end of the seventeenth century,the Portuguese community required the permission of the maamad,the synagogue board, for the burial of proselytes, and one instance in its burial book shows aseparate plot for proselytes.³⁸ Thus, the Portuguese community,atleast,may have deemed converts as belongingtoasocio-religious category distinct from that of born Jews.³⁹ If the Portuguese community perceived proselytes differently, the AshkenaziJewish community,financiallydependent

 SAA334:217 pp. 212, 274. In 1688, the proselyteAbraham Guer of Tunis traveled from Am- sterdam to Hamburg: SAA334:218 p. 230.  At the end of the decade, the Portuguese community twice gave money to proselytes from Hamburginthe house of SebatayCoen; ibid. 422, and SAA334:219,p.64. In the fall of 1692, money was givenfor the burial of achild of Abraham Israel Ger of Hamburg; ibid., 104.Around the same time, proselytes from Hamburg, possiblythe same as those at the house of Sabetay Coen, weregiven money;ibid., 138, and againin1694– 5(p. 301). In 1694,Rachel Israel the pros- elyte from Hamburgwas buried in Amsterdam: SAA334:916,pp. 91 and 258.  On Abigail Guer and Dina Guer see, for instance: Stadsarchief Amsterdam 334(Archief van de Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente), 172(Manual, 1639–1646), 178, 309.OnGermanusand Clericus,see Schudt, Jü dische Merckwürdigkeiten vol. 1, 275–6.  Burial ‘segregation’ begins in this period, when former slavesbegan to be buried in the “ne- groes section.” In addition, converts begin to be listed as “buried by the order of the maamad,” suggesting that their burial in the Jewish cemetery was not self-evident.For an instanceofsep- arate burial, see Sarah BenAbraham’splacement in the “row of the giorets” in 1712: Stadsarchief Amsterdam 334(Archief van de Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente) 916 (Livro de Bet Haim. Register van besluiten van de mahamad betreffende de begraafplaats 1703–1722; journaal van begraven 1680 –1716;grafboek 1691–1733), 201.  See for this argument also Yosef Kaplan, “The Self-Definition of the Sephardic Jews of West- ern Europe and their Relation to the Alien and the Stranger,” in Crisis and Creativity in the World: 1391–1648, ed. BenjaminR.Gampel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 121–45. Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 61 on their richer Portuguese brethren, likelyfollowed suit.One of the effects of this différence mayhavebeen agreater toleration – albeit by virtue of neglect – for the peculiarreligious views of proselytes. While the graduallygrowingdistinction between born Jews and proselytes in JewishAmsterdam might have afforded acertain degreeofdoctrinal liberty for the city’sconverts, there seems to have been amorepositive factor at playas well. This was the presenceofheterodoxtendencies among Amsterdam’sJews themselves, in particularamong its Portuguese community.Yosef Kaplan and Yirmiyahu Yovel, among others, have shown how Amsterdam’sJews’ converso past resulted in widespread heterodoxy in its community – Spinoza being its most famous example – which included positive engagementswith Christianity and Christian-Jewish hybridities.⁴⁰ Sperling’sstatements about the origins of his prophetic beliefs provide addi- tional evidence about the subculture to which he belonged. Combining the prin- ciple of Sola scriptura with assertions of their owninsights and authority,Prot- estant non-conformists oftenclaimedthat their personal interpretationsof scripture were equally, if not more, valid thanofficial doctrinal positions.One of the ways Sola scriptura was invoked was to arguethatGod’seternal command- ments to Moses werenever,and could never be, nullified.⁴¹ As Iwill show in due course, Sperling shared both this viewpointand its Sola scriptura justification. Sperlingalso gave his own readings of the 12th,14th,and 19th chapters of the Book of Revelation, of Daniel, and of the traditionalJewishlife-saverZechariah 8:23.Tohis mother,Sperling stressed the personal nature of his reading of scrip- ture, writing, for instance: “I believethe woman clothed with the sun is […];” “I have read in the .”⁴² Of course, this does not rule out the pos- sibility that these readingswereshared within an interpretive community. Afurther sourcefor Sperling’sinterpretations emergesinthe more lyrical passages of his missives. At the end of his second letter,Sperlingwritesabout the “Spirit of Prophecy” (Rev.19:10).⁴³ Elsewhere, after adazzling interpretation

 See Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism,110 –78;YirmiyahuYovel, Spinoza and Other Her- etics:The Marrano of Reason (Princeton, NJ:PrincetonUniversity Press,1992),20–6. See also Graizbord’srevealingdescription of Iberian renegadesinGraizbord, Souls in Dispute, 171– 6.  Thereare multiple examples in seventeenth-century Amsterdam of appealingto sola scriptura to legitimize their religious claims. Forone example, see Alexander vander Haven, “Conversion on Trial: Toleration of Apostasy and the HoornTrial of Three Converts to Ju- daism (1614– 15),” in Contesting Inter-Religious Conversion in the Medieval World, eds. Yaniv Foxand Yosi Yisraeli (New York: Routledge,2017), 41– 60,here 47– 8.  “Den ich vermeine daß Israel daß weib sey daß mit der Sonne bekleydet ist;”“Ichhab ge- lesen beym ProphetenDaniel” Sperlingletters, 1569, 1568. My italics.  “der Geist der weißagung.” Ibid., 1570. 62 Alexander vander Haven of biblical prophecy,Sperling halts – perhaps suspectingthat his mother,read- ing the letter,might have begun to doubt his sanity – and writes:

Manywould ask me: How do youknow that?Wisdom, whoisthe judge of all the arts,has taught me. Iwant to praise her,makeher known, show her clearlysothat everybodyknows what that wisdom is. Forthrough her one gets to know God and his holiest name, which cannot be uttered and which teaches everything[…]She knows God’swill and counsel, for she was therewhenGod created the world […]Through her we will resurrect from the dead and live in eternity,because she inhabits in all that is, and whoever seeks for her finds her.Whoever seeks her from the heart will receive her.⁴⁴

“Wisdom,” who appears in Proverbs 3and 8and 1, was aparticular- ly popular character in the earlymodern period. Consequently, the origin of Sperling’sloyalty to herishardtoassess. He couldhavepickedher up from theBoehmisttradition alreadymentioned, from Jewish or Christiankabbalists, or even from Sabbatians (who were presentbothinHamburg andinAmsterdam), or possibly,fromacombination of these. More importantly, however, Sperling’s readingofscripturalpropheciesstemmed notonlyfrom Sola scriptura andthe dis- coursesofexegeticalcommunities, butalso – so he believed – from divine inspi- ration. Sperling must have belonged to,oratleast have been socialized by,one or more groups that upheld individual divine inspiration.⁴⁵ Wisdom was as “pure,”“noble,” and “careful” as Sperling portraysher: Sophia was able to do something with Revelation, the prophetic text at the coreofSperling’sbeliefs, that few others have been able or willing to do. Al- though she left one villain in place (in the person of the pope), the thrust of Wis- dom’swork was to turn the Book of Revelation into acall for and forecastof inter-religious alliance at the end of times.

 “Da möcht mich mancherfragen, wie weißtDudaß. Die Weißheit die aller Kunsterichter Ist hat es mich gelehret dieselbe wil ich dermahlen Ein rühmen und kundtmachen und sie deutlich zu erkennen geben daß jedermannweiß waß die weißheit sey,den durch sie erkennet man Gott und seynen Allerheylichsten Nahmen, der doch unaussprechlich ist der alles lehret. […]Sie weiß Gotteswillen und Rath, den sie ist dabey gewesendaGott die Welt gemacht hat.Nach den Wort- en des weisenKönigs Salomons, sie wirdauch bleiben in Ewigkeit.Durch sie werdenwir wieder aufferstehen vonden Todten und leben in Ewigkeit,den sie wohnet bey alles waß da lebet,wer sie suchet der findet Sie, wer sie vonHertzen suchet der erwirbetsie;” Sperlingletters 1569–70.  On individualrevelation in earlymodern Protestantism: VolkhardWels, “Unmittelbaregöt- tliche Offenbarung als Gegenstand der Auseinandersetzunginder protestantischen Theologie der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Diskurse der Gelehrtenkultur in der Frühen Neuzeit: Ein Handbuch, ed. Herbert Jaumann (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2011): 747– 808. Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 63

Sperling’sEschatology

Sperlingwas not the first to design eschatological alliances among different re- ligious groups.Inthe rapidlyglobalizing earlymodern world, manysought to make room for different religions in their end-time scenarios.AJewishexample is Menasseh ben Israel’swell-known appealtoOliverCromwell (1599 –1658) that the English Christian readmission of Jews would hasten the arrival of the Mes- siah.⁴⁶ In ,Quirinus Kuhlmann (mentioned aboveasapos- sible influenceonSperling) outlined an alliance between Lutheranism and Cal- vinism. Twosimilar eschatological proposals to join Jews and Christians under a single religious banner werethose of Augustin Bader (c. 1495– 1530) from South Germany, and the Dane Oliger Paulli, from Amsterdam. Each claimed to be the messiah, or representing the future messiah, of both Jews and Christians and at- tempted, unsuccessfully, to forge aJewish-Christian alliance against the Roman Catholic Church.⁴⁷ Sperling’scase, however,isdifferent.Evenifhis letters are literaryartefacts rather than personal documents, they lack the obvious strategic interests of something like Menasseh ben Israel’sappeal. Nor did Sperling share the mes- sianic religious ambitions of Bader,Kuhlmann, and Paulli – ambitions thatset these religious entrepreneursapart from, and above, the regular human realm with its various religious commitments.Thisdifference makes Sperling’sreli- gious eschatology remarkably gentle. One can hear this in the tone of the letters, which is, as Strauss mentioned, unusually tender and conciliatoryfor someone who himself to be witnessingthe last events unfold.Thus, we read:

Dearest beloved mother,Icannot neglect to write –– my filial lovefor you, mother,burns constantly –– regarding the fact that Ihavebecome aJew because of God and his Holy Name. Iknow that this is alreadyknown to my mother,myfriends,and my enemies.Iin-

 Menasseh ben Israel and Lucien Wolf, Menassehben Israel’sMission to OliverCromwell: Being aReprint of the PamphletsPublishedbyMenasseh ben Israel to Promote the Re-admis- sion of the Jews to , 1649–1656 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).  On Bader,see RebekkaVoss, Umstrittene Erlöser:Politik, Ideologieund jüdisch-christlicher Messianismus in Deutschland1500 –1600 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2007), 138–52; Anselm Schubert,Täufertum und Kabbalah: Augustin Bader und die Grenzen der radikalen Ref- ormation, Quellen und Forschungenzur Reformationsgeschichte81(Gütersloh: Gütersloher Ver- lagshaus,2008). On Paulli, see Schoeps,Philosemitismus im Barock, 53 – 67,and Jeannine Ku- nert, “Der Juden Könige zwei: ZumdeutschsprachigenDiskurs über SabbataiZwi und Oliger Paulli. Nebst systematischen Betrachtungenzur religionswissenschaftlichen Kategorie Endzeit und sozio-diskursivenWechselwirkungen” (PhDDissertation, Erfurt University,2018), 331–436. 64 Alexander vander Haven

tend also to live and die as aJew in the name of the Lord of Hosts. Ibeg my mother,brother, sister,and brother-in-lawthat they will not be hostile because of religion. ForIdesireto remain in friendship with my friends and blood relatives. Forwhatgood is enmity?At all times we should remember that at one point we will appear in front of God’sjudgment seat to account for ourselvesinorder to enjoy God’scompassion. So let us practice love, and know,that God is purecompassion.⁴⁸

Sperling’srhetorical question –“Forwhat good is enmity?”–supplies an implic- it answer –“nothing at all”–by his claim that we all will be judgedindividually for our actionsrather than our denominational commitments.Indeed, in the sec- ond letter,inwhich Sperlingmentionsthathehad heard how badlyhis mother had taken his conversion, he writes:

The question now is whycould Inot have become savedinthe Lutheran faith, or whether the Lutherans [Sperlingadded initially “and Reformed,” but crossed that through] are damned. Ianswer and declare that the upright Lutherans and Reformed will all achieve salvation. Letmysoul stand for yours if Iwritethis out of hypocrisy.⁴⁹

Further on in the second letter,Sperling writes also that the third angel, which “Ihope will be the messiah,will bring redemption to all people, and all that is evil will be destroyed.” Not onlygood Lutherans and Calvinists could achieve salvation, then, but salvation could be universal.⁵⁰ Let us now turn to the content of Sperling’seschatological views. Twoof the passages from the Book of Revelation that he focused on were Revelation

 “Hertz vielgeliebteMutter Ichkan nicht unterlassen zu Schreiben den die kindliche liebe von mir brennet alle Zeit gegender Mutter was anlanget daß ich vonGott und seines Heyligen Namens wegen bin ein Jude geworden. Daß weis ich daß solches der Muttermeinen freünden und feinden schon bekandtist.Ich gedenkeauch im Namen der HERRN der Herrscharen ein Jude zu leben und zu sterben. So gereichet nun meine bitte an der Mutter Bruder und Schwester und Schwagerdaß sie wegen glaubens halber keine feindschaft ausüben. Den ich habeLust freündschafft zu halten mit meinen freünden und Bluts Verwandten. Denn was soll uns die feindtschafft [phrase striked through]wir müssen doch alle Zeit gedenken, daß wir alle Zeit ein mahl müssen aufftretenfür den Richter Stuhl Gottesund Rechenschafft geben, damit wir nun GottesBarmhertzigkeit genieSen. So last uns Liebe üben, und wisset,daß Gott vonlauter Barmherzigheit Ist”;Sperlingletters, 1529.  “[So] ist nun die frageobich den nicht hette können Seligwerden in den Lutherschen glau[ben] Oder ob ander Lutherianer und reformirten verdampt sind. So antworteIch und [be]kenne daß die auffrichtigenLutherianer und reformierten alle selig werdenund [gro]ße See- ligkeit erlangen. Schreibe ich solches außHeucheley so stehe meine Seele für die ihrige”;ibid., 1567.  “verhoffe daß soll Messias sein und al[ler] Menschen Erlösungsoll zu der Zeit kommen und alles übels soll außgerot[tet]werden können”;ibid., 1568. Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 65

14:6–11, concerning the three successive angels, and Revelation 12: 1, concerning the woman clothed with the sun. Either Sperlingcopied Revelation 14:6–11 from Luther’stranslation, or he remembered it by heart (onlyasingle “and” is miss- ing), and he cites it in full. Notably,heends his exegesisofverse 12 just before the point at which it commands belief in Jesus.

According to my understanding, and how Ihavealso hearditinthe sermons,the first angel […]asthe man of God, the great angel and archangelMartin Luther.The other angel who followed the first and shouted “She is fallen Babylon the great city” was the man of God the great angel and archangelJohn Calvin […]. The third angel, with agreat voicewill speak, saying:Those whoworship the Beast and its idol receivesthe mark on his forehead and the mark of its name, after which the papacywill perish. This angel, the thirdone, I think has not come yet. Iexpect the third angel[and] hope it will be the messiah who will bringredemption to all people, and all that is evil will be destroyed. Now Ilet you know that these two angels,these two men of God Martin Luther and , stand for the Lutheran and Reformed host,they arearchangels,fromthe seven of them who stand thereand serveGod dayand .They aretwo peaceful angels of one beingand hence the Lutherans and Reformed will not wagewar with another over religion.⁵¹

Clearly, Sperling,like thosewho preached the sermons he had attended, be- lieved himself to be witnessingthe fulfillment of the very prophecies described in Revelation. The first twophases, in which the first two angels appeared, had alreadybeen completed by the arrival of the Lutheran and Calvinist churches. Sperlingwas waitingfor the third angel to come. God has placed his judgment seat in these two religions,Sperlingwrote, and will judgethe entire world when the third angel appears. At this point,the Jewish

 “Meines Verstandes nun nach, und wie ichs auch woll habegehört in den [Pred]igten, So ist der ErsteEngel […]das ist gewesender Mann Gottesder große Engel und Ertz Engelder D. Mar- tinus Lutherus.Der andereEngel aber der dem erstenist nachgefolgetund hat geschrie[en Sie] ist gefallen Babilon die große Stadt. daß ist gewesender Mann Gottesder große Engelund Ertz Engelder D. Johannes Calvinus. Der dritteEngel aber der mit große Stimme soll sagen. So jemandt[daß] Thier anbetet und sein Bilde und nimpt an sein Mahl Zeichen an seiner [Stirn] und das mahl Zeichen seines Namens,worauff daß Pabstthum wirdvergehen. Dieser Engel, nemlich der Drittemeine ich der sey noch nicht gekommen. [Ich]Erwarte den dritten Engel, verhoffe daß soll Messias sein und al[ler] Menschen Erlösungsoll zu der Zeit kommen und alles übels soll außgerot[tet]werden können. Nunthue ich auch zu wissen, namelich daß die Zween Engeln der Zween Män[ner] Gottesdeß Doctor Martinus Lutherus und deß D. Johannes Calvi[nus] ihreEngeln welche stehen für daß Lutherscheund ReformitischeHerr, d[aß] sind Ertz Engeln, und sind vonden Sieben, die da stehenzudienen für Gott [Tag]und nacht.Und sindtZween friedtsahme Engeln in einem wesent [da]rumb werden die Lutherianer und Reformierten keinen Krieg mit einand[er] führen wegen religion”;ibid., 1568–9. 66 Alexander vander Haven people become part of the eschatologicalscenario. AccordingtoSperling,the woman clothed in the sun of Revelation 12:14 is not,asintraditional Christian interpretation, the true (Christian) church. Rather,she standsfor the Jewish peo- ple who, pursued by the great dragon, will be savedbybeing giventhe two wings of agreat eagle. These wings are the Lutheran and Reformed communities:

So the two communities,namelythe Lutherans and Reformed,will be to the Jews as the two wingsofagreat eagle. And they will bringthem to the barren land, to their place, namely the promised land. That the holycity Jerusalem and the temple of God and the land that has so long lain in ruins will be rebuilt.⁵²

This Protestant alliance will help the Jews return to theirland in order to rebuild it and its Temple. Failing to predict the appearance of the Ottoman armyat Vienna’sgates the comingyear,Sperling foretold that the Turkish sultan, the ca- liph of ,would build a “neatroad” so the Jews could travel to their promised land.⁵³ With the important exception of RomanCatholicism, Sperling described eschatological cooperation among different religions. Together,they would bring about universal redemption by enablingthe of the Jews to the land promised to them by God. To support his view,Sperling offered an as- trological interpretation of the passageabout the woman who is clothed with the sun, has the moon underher feet,and on her head acrown of twelve stars. In so doing,hedrew on atraditionalidentification of the different heavenlybodies with the different religions that stretched back to the illustrious eighth-century astrologers Al Kindi (c. 800 –873) and AbuMashar (c. 787– 886). The latter’s De magnis coniunctibus was astandard item in learned households of the earlymodern period.⁵⁴ Sperlingwrotethis part of his exegesis in an inspired style:

Youshould know that the Lutherans arethe mother from whom everythinggood is born. Luther,you arethe clear morningstar that heralds every good, oh powerofVenus. The Reformed are astrengtheningofthe good, prepared to fight against the dark power of the papacy.They arethe evening star.Mars,guard Venus with your sword so

 “So werden die zween gemeinen,nemblich die Lutherianer und Reformirten. denen Jüden sein wie Zween flügel eines großen Adelers.Und werden sie bringenindaß verwüst landtan ihrenOrth. Nemlich ins gelobte Landt. Daß die heyligeStadtJerusalem. Undder Tempel Gottes und daß Landt so lange wüßte gehele gelegen Izt wieder gebauet wird”;ibid., 1569.  “ein Reinlich straßen;” ibid.  Robin BruceBarnes, and Reformation (New York and Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2016), 23,55, 72. Eschatology and Conversion in the Sperling Letters 67

that she will not become awhore. The Turks arethe upholders of the good and archenemies of everythingevil, namelythe darkness of the papacy.Mahomet,your powerisinthe moon. And the threecommunities,namelythe Turks, Lutherans and Reformed are trusted friends of Israel. The pope with his cardinals, bishops,,prelates, monsignors and whatever be- longstothat which is the dark night,the mother of all evil and all whoredom and idolatry. Yes, the dark night that is friend to no-one, pope, your powerisfickle. Mercury is [your] star.⁵⁵

Here, with the papacyasthe sole negative force, the different religions/heavenly bodies playcomplementary roles. Like the first angel, Venus/Luther – standing for the Lutheran faith – heralds the good news. Calvin takes over from there with asterner,more martial role, making sure to keep in line the ex-monk who once proclaimed that “He who loves not , women and song remains afool his whole life long.” The sultan, who keeps the pope at bay, is also as- signed adisciplinary duty.

Conversion and Universal Salvation

Sperling’sinclusivist eschatology raises the question of his conversion. Whydid Sperlingconvert to Judaism when he did not regard Judaism as the sole road to salvation?The explanations Sperlinghimself provides suggest an interesting model, one thatcouples religious pluralism with commitment to one religion alone. Sperlinggives tworeasons for his conversion. The first is that he had arrived at apersonal conviction that God had never abolished the lawgiven to Israel. Sperlingsupported this claim with, among other texts, Christian scripture, name- ly,Matthew 5:17– 20 and Luke 16:17, in which Jesus statesthat he has not come to abolish the Law. Christians who deniedthatthe lawofMoses had been abolished

 “Zu wißen die Lutherianer daß ist die Mutter da alles guts ausgebohren wirdLuther.Dubist der Helle MorgenStern,der alles gutes ankündigt OVenus Gewalt. Die Reformirten sind eine verstärkung deß guten bereit zu fechten wider die finstere Macht des Pabstthumb, der Abend Stern Ist ihr Mars bewache mit deinem Schwerdtdaß Venus nicht zur Huren werde, die Türken daß sind Erhalterdeß guten, und Erbfeinde alles übels Nemlich der finsternis deß Pabstthumb. Mahomet deine Gewaltbestehet in dem Mondt. Unddie drey gemeinen nemlich die Türken, Lutherianer und Reformirten sindtvertraute Freunde Israel. Der Pabst mit seinen Cardinälen, Bischöfen,Abten, Prelaten, Monsigniors und waß darzu gehört daß ist die finsternacht die Mutteralles Übels aller Hurerey und Abgötterey. Ja die finsternacht die keinesMenschen freundtist,Pabst dein Gewaltist leichtfertig, Mercurius daß ist Stern;” Sperlingletters1569. 68 Alexander vander Haven werenot an infrequent phenomenon in the Dutch Republic. This can be seen in the complaints recorded throughout the seventeenth century by Amsterdam’sRe- formedChurch, which kept awatchful eyeonwhat happened in other religious communities as well.⁵⁶ Although ‘Judaizing’ was often limited to insistenceona specific commandment – most often the observanceofthe JewishShabbat – it occasionallyresulted, as in Sperling’scase, in conversion to Judaism.⁵⁷ Although Sperlingthus maintained that Scripture, correctlyinterpreted, proved Judaism to be the onlytrue religion, and although he himself converted to Judaism as resultofthis conviction, he did not holdthatadhering to another religion would automaticallypreclude salvation. This “salvific pluralism” has roots in the Jewish tradition itself,from which the aforementioned attitudes of the proselyteDaniel ben Abraham and manymembers of Amsterdam’sPortu- guese community had deviated. Sperling’spluralistic attitude could alsobe found in seventeenth-century Dutch Jewish discussions of Noahites (initiated by Christian Hebraists such as (1584–1654), as MiriamBodian has recentlyshown), in which the possibilityofmultiple paths to salvation also appears.⁵⁸ Sperling’sviews also echo tolerant Christian , such as thoseof the influences discussed above, as well as those popularinthe Dutch Republic since its earlydays. Forinstance,incriticizingCalvin’sexecution of (c. 1509–1553), (1515–1563) had argued that “the truth is to saywhat one thinks, even when one is wrong.” And Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert (1522–1590) had written thatpagans,too, could attain salvation as long as they followed the “spirit.”⁵⁹ The second reason Sperling gave for decidingthatheshould “live and die as aJew” was that, as mentioned above, he had Jewish ancestry.Inhis second letter,hewrote:

 One example is aschoolmaster insistingonobservingthe Shabbat.Stadsarchief Amsterdam 376(Archief vandeHervormde Gemeente): 5(Notulen kerkeraad Amsterdam,1621– 1627), 225, 228.  This seems to have been the case with acertain glass maker,whomthe consistory for several years tried to discipline: Stadsarchief Amsterdam 376(Archief van de Hervormde Gemeente): 7 (Notulen kerkeraad Amsterdam,1633 – 1644), 196,202,206,300,301, 339, 341.  Miriam Bodian, “The GeographyofConscience: ASeventeenth-Century Atlantic Jewand the ,” The Journal of Modern History 89 (2017): 247–81,esp. 267–72. Forabroader dis- cussion of Jewish views on ChristiansinSeventeenth-Century Amsterdam,see eadem, “The Por- tuguese Jews of Amsterdam and the Status of Christians,” in New PerspectivesonJewish-Chris- tian Relations:InHonor of David Berger, eds.ElishevaCarlebach,Jacob J. Schacter,and David Berger (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012): 329–58.  Bodian, “Geography of Conscience,” 265. Eschatology and Conversioninthe Sperling Letters 69

Idesire to live according to such awonderful law, all the moresosinceIdescend from the Jewish race,justasmybrother and sister,because we come from one father.This will seem quitestrangetomother because she knows nothingofit, nor do my brotherand my sister. I, however,know it and Ilet mother know that my father has left behind in writingabe- quest and declaration to us childrensothat we will know from what kind of tribe we are. Because my father’sforefathers have been forced [toconvert] in wars.They wanted to save their lives. This report Ihaveinthe documentofmyfather and can give testimonyofit under oath.⁶⁰

Sperlingthus claimed that, unbeknownst to his mother and siblings, his father had givenhim documents provinghis and his siblings’ Jewishancestry.Whether Sperlingpossessed such documents or whether this was acaseofinvented Jew- ish ancestry,wewill never know.⁶¹ What we do know is thatSperling believed he was of the seed of Abraham through patrilineal descent,and thathewas thus called upon to observeother commandments than thoseofthe gentiles. Eschatology and conversion often accentuated the differences among reli- gious communities.The Sperling letters in their Amsterdam context show that the opposite was alsopossible. Theconvert who sought to preservehis or her social and familial tiestoareligious past could serveasabridge between differ- ent communities,and even as aguide for them to fulfill – together – their respec- tive roles at the end of time.

 “Habe ich Lust nach solchem Herrlichen Gesetz [zu] leben, über daß weil ich doch vonJü- dischem geschlecht bin hergekommen Ingleichen meine Brüder und Schwester weil wir von einem Vater sind hergekommen. Solcheswirdder Mutterseltzam vorkommen, nach demmahlen sie nichts davon[we]iß auch mein Bruder nicht noch auch meine Schwester nicht.daß ichs aber weiß [thu]e ich der Mutter zu wißen daß mein Vateresinschrifft hat nachgelaßen, [und] zum Erbgutund uns Kindern Zurnachricht auff daß wir wißen solten [von] waß vorgeschlecht wir sind Den meines Vaters vorVäter sind durch Kriegswesen gezwungen worden. habensie anders Ihr lebent wollensalviren Diese nachricht habe[ich] durch die Schrifft meines Vaters und kanes Eydlich außsagen;” ibid., 1567.  Agreat number of victims of the anti-Semitic Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–1649and sub- sequent settled in and near Hamburg, and amongthese were also Jews whohad been forcedtoconvert duringthese persecutions, and thus arrivedasChristians.Afamousex- ample is the wife of the Jewish messiah Sabbatai Tsevi, Sarah the Ashkenazi; see Alexander van der Haven, From LowlyMetaphor to Divine Flesh: Sarah the Ashkenazi, SabbataiTsevi’sMes- sianic Queen and the Sabbatian Movement (Amsterdam:Menassehben Israel Instituut,2012), 25–30.For asource that appears to be inventingJewish ancestry to legitimize conversion, see the Graanboom chronicle: LajbFuks and R. G. Fuks-Mansfeld, “The HebrewChronicle of the Swedish FamilyGraanboom,” in Aspects of Jewish life in the Netherlands: ASelection From the Writings of LeoFuks (Assen: VanGorcum, 1995): 100 –30.

LarsFischer The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’s SacredCantatas

No personal documents have survivedinwhich (1685– 1750) has anything explicit to sayabout Judaism or Jews, nor do we have any reason to assumethat Bach ever had anypersonal contact with Jews. There are some who would be onlytoo pleased to let the matterrest right there. Yet what we can sayquite alot about is how Judaism, Jewish-Christian relations and, by extension, Jews were represented in Bach’smusicaloutput.Itisfre- quentlyargued, sometimeswith surprising vehemence,that anysuch issues weresurelythe responsibility of the librettists and not the composer.Yet it should be instantlyobviousthatthis line of argument hardlyholds. In this par- ticular case, it is clear that Bach not onlychose the he set but in fact “preferred to work directlywith an author rather thanuse alreadypublished col- lections” of libretti for his cantatas.¹ Moreover,while his peers frequentlycom- posed entire annual cyclesofcantatas based on the texts of just one librettist, Bach never did so and rarely drew on textsbyone and the samelibrettist for more than three consecutive cantatas.² But whatever his level of input into the librettos he chose, he certainlyhad considerable leewaywhen it came to the de- ployment of musical means to de/emphasize certain elements in relation to oth- ers; he could go out of his waytohighlight or elaborate upon certain ideas and concepts, say, or present them in arelatively dispassionate manner; whether a particulartextual element was presented in achaste or triumphalist manner, for instance, dependedinhighmeasure on the musical setting. Givenhis education and training,Bach was steeped in the Lutheran ortho- doxy of his dayand his knowledge of, and commitment to, that orthodoxy was carefullyexamined before he was appointed to his position as cantor in Leipzig. In that role, he was beholden to provide aconstant flow of church music for the city’smain churches, especiallyStThomas and St Nikolai. The express purpose of this church music was the utilization of musical meanstorender the congre- gants more receptive to the of the dayand thus intensify its articulation in ways that the spoken wordalone, it was assumed, could not.In implementing this agenda, Bach presumablythought of himself not so much as

 Robin A. Leaver, “Operinder Kirche: Bach und der Kantatenstreit im frühen 18. Jahrhundert,” Bach-Jahrbuch 99 (2013): 171– 203, hereat194.  Ibid., 193.

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-006 72 Lars Fischer agreat artist but primarilyasaconsummateartisan.³ Against this backdrop it is ultimatelymore or less irrelevant what he mayhavethought or felt in his heart of hearts about certain tenets of the Lutheran orthodoxy of his day. He had atask to perform and we have reason to assume that he was determinedtoperform that task to the best of his abilities. Taking into account the interpretations of issues relevant to Jewish-Christian relations prevalent at the time, we can reconstruct with ahighmeasure of plau- sibility the wayinwhich their reflection in Bach’ssacred cantatas is likelyto have been understood by most of Bach’scongregants, giventheir own religious education and the extensive religious instruction they receivedinchurch each week. In his discussion of Bach’sCantata 46,⁴ MichaelMarissen – the scholar who has made the most sustainedeffort to date to discuss constructions of Juda- ism and Jewishness in Bach’sworks and specific expressions of anti-Judaism within them – has demonstrated how this reconstruction can be undertaken. If we want to understand what Bach’scongregants, as ageneral rule, would have taken away from anygiven cantata we need to take into account not only the cantata on its own terms but also the liturgicalcontext within which it was performed, the specific themesand readings assigned to thatparticular day, contemporaneous exegetical and homiletic literature either in wide circula- tion at the time or known to have been in Bach’slibrary or that of his immediate peers – and,far from least,images in the churches in which the cantatas were performed. These images were, after all, intended to prompt the congregants to think in certain directions and emphaticallynot in others. It should also be borne in mind thatthe biblical and theological knowledge of Bach’scongre- gants,asageneral rule, would have far outstrippedthatofcurrent churchgoers. The meaning of arangeofallusions,associations and cross-references would have been immediatelyobvious to them. Awealth of inter-textual references, in other words, to which manyofusare oblivious today, helpedshape their per- ceptions of the “message” propagated by aparticular cantata. This includes,as Eric Chafehas demonstrated with great sophistication, cross-references,both textual and musical, between cantatas thatBach’scongregantswould have

 Foraninteresting recent discussionofLydia Goehr’sprovocative claim that “Bach did not in- tend to compose musical works,” see Gavin Steingo, “The Musical Work Reconsidered, In Hind- sight,” Current Musicology 97 (2014): 81–112.  Michael Marissen, “The Character and Sources of the Anti-Judaism in Bach’sCantata 46,” Har- vardTheological Review 94 (2003): 63 – 99;now also in Michael Marissen, Bach &God (New York: OxfordUniversity Press,2016), 63 – 121(chapter3). The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 73 heard within weeks of each other.⁵ Moreover,congregantswereable to buy the cantata librettos in advance, allowing for amore sustained engagement of the cantatas’ theological meaning than might otherwise have been possible. In my characterization of Marissen’swork on this topic, Ireferred to “con- structionsofJudaism and Jewishness in Bach’sworks and specific expressions of anti-Judaism within them.” Marissen and I, Ishould point out,donot neces- sarilyagree on the issue of wherelegitimate religious polemic directed at Juda- ism ends and outright anti-Judaism begins. In this discussion, Iwill relyonan intentionallyinclusive definitionofanti-Judaism. To my mind, supersessionist (or,asitissometimes called, substitution) theology – thatis, theologybased on the claim that the on which Christianity is predicated has re- placed God’searlier covenant with the Jews, and that thereare consequently no legitimate grounds for post-biblical Judaism – is, on principle, anti-Judaic. Consequently, Iwould likewise insist that the claim thatthe Christian version of the Tanakh, the ,primarilyorexclusively prefigures the narrative,not to mentionthe attempt to exploit the vast corpus of post-biblical rabbinic writingstodemonstrate the validity of Christian truth claims, are inherentlyanti-Judaic. Moreover,anumber of corejuxtapositions in- tegral to Lutheranism – lawvs. grace, true faith vs. mere outward adherenceto rules, the letter vs. the spirit of scripture – have historicallybeen saturated with anti-Judaic connotations thatwould have been instantlyobvious to earlymodern Protestants and are likelystill to resonate with manyProtestants today.⁶ Growing up (on and off)inaLutheranfamilyinGermanyinthe 1970sand early1980s, I was certainlystill taught these juxtapositions with their anti-Jewish connotations and Iwould be surprised if they had simply evaporatedsince. To be sure, in their more lucid moments, at least some professional theologians have not been en- tirelyoblivious to the fact that these juxtapositions actuallyreflect complicated dialectical tensions within Christianity.If, however,one looks, for instance, at the multitude of earlymodernimages that didacticallycontrasted lawand grace, the oldand the new covenant,one would have been hard-pressed, even as an educated and well informed congregant,todetect atrace of these dialec- tical tensions and associate the negative pole in each case not just with Cathol- icism and Judaism but also with Lutheranism itself. Eighteenth-centuryLutheranism, then, was fundamentallyanti-Judaic. To be sure, positions regarding Judaism and the Jews among earlymodern Protestants

 See especiallyEric Chafe, J. S. Bach’sJohannine Theology:The St.John Passion and the Can- tatas for Spring 1725 (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2014).  On the history and polemicaluses of these juxtapositions in the “longue durée,” see David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism:The History of aWay of Thinking(London: Head of Zeus,2013). 74 LarsFischer varied. Thisconcerned two principal questions. First,there wassome controver- sy as to whether “the Jews” had been damned eternallyfor their failuretoac- knowledge the of Christ or might yetberedeemed if they converted at the end of days.Second, some felt thatindividual Jews weremore likelytocon- vert if they weretreated with some measure of respect and that an undulypolem- ical approach would onlyantagonize them. Even when Christian attitudes to- wards Judaism were at their most benevolent and relations between Christians and Jews at their most amicable, however,the suggestion that the Jews might be appreciated – to borrow the apt phrase Gershom Scholem coined for alater period – for what they had to give rather thanwhat they had to give up,remained inconceivable to earlymodern Christians of anystripe. In short: Bach would have been entirelyout of step with his education and training,the assumptions taken for granted by everyone around him, and the requirementsofhis professional position, had he been entirelyfreeofanti-Judaic convictions and sentiments. The punch line, then, is hardlythatBach stood out in this respect.Ifanything,the notion that he might not have subscribed to the prevalent anti-Judaic attitudes would be perplexing and inexplicable. As so often, the reallyinteresting question thereforelies not in the ‘did he/didn’t he?’ but instead concerns the extent to,and the ways in, which the anti-Judaic consensus of his time found expression in his output.Inacontext in which anti-Judaism went without saying,wecan still draw distinctions between those for whom anti-Judaism quite literallywent without saying and those for whom it was amajor preoccupation – and the various gradations in between these two positions.The vehemence with which Bach chose to accentuate anti-Judaic notions seems to have varied, and his approach was certainlymore nuanced than that of, say, GeorgPhilipp Telemann (1681–1767).⁷ Deploy musical means to lend additional affectiveforcetothe propagation of anti-Judaic notions he nevertheless did. In this context,wealso need to bear in mind that,insofar as the existence and legitimacy of Christianityhingesfundamentallyonits relationship to,and delineation from, the religion of the biblical Jews, every Christian theological statement is implicitlyalso astatement about Jewish-Christian relations.When it comes to discerninganti-Judaism in Bach’ssacred cantatas, then, we need to focus not onlyonobvious thematic ‘flashpoints’ or explicit anti-Judaic/anti-

 See Jeanne Swack, “Antijudaismus in TelemannsKantatezum SonntagJudica ‘Der Kern ver- dammter Sünder’ TWV 1:303,” in Telemannund die Kirchenmusik, eds.Carsten Lange and Brit Reipsch (Hildesheim:Olms,2011): 256–78; “Anti-Judaism and Lutheran Sacred Music in Ham- burginthe EarlyEighteenth Century,” in Constructions of Judaism and Jewishness in Baroque Music, ed. Lars Fischer (forthcoming). The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 75

Jewishstatements.⁸ An inordinateamount of ink has now been spilled over Bach’stwo Passions. Some work has also been done specificallyonBach’scan- tatas for the Tenth Sundayafter – known in the Lutheran churchas“Is- rael Sunday” because it is the dayonwhich Lutheran congregations traditionally commemorate(d) the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalemin70CE–of which the aforementioned Cantata 46 is one; and on ahandful of cantatas with libret- tos that make explicit anti-Jewish references. Yetthe bulk of Bach’s200 surviving sacred cantatas have not been scrutinizedfrom this perspective – on the under- standing that therecan be no anti-Judaism wherethe actual words “Judaism” or “Jew” do not feature. This was certainlythe position of leadingmembers of the now-defunct In- ternationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft fürtheologische Bachforschung [International Working Group for Theological Bach Research], established in 1976,who made (and some of whom continue to make) asustained effort to discredit anydiscus- sion of possibleanti-Judaism in Bach’sworks.⁹ As Robin Leaver recentlyrecalled, the workinggroup’s “conferences in the earlyyears weregenerallyeffective and productive.” Yetsubsequently “the non-scientific speculations of some of the members” increasinglygained traction in the workinggroup and, following the death of its principal founder, Walter Blankenburg, in 1986, “manyinthe wider Bach world” became convinced “that the old imageofBach the supreme Lutheran Cantor was being repristinated. Ultimatelywhen it became clear that the wider culturalreligious issues such as those pursuedbyTanya Kevorkian, or the Anti-Judaism explored by Michael Marissen, werenot being encouraged, afew of the established members of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft took action that eventuallyled to the demise of the workinggroup.”¹⁰ Michael Marissen has described his own chequered encounters with this group. Having argued thatBach’smusic “sometimes puts a spin on the text in away that is readilyexplainable as orthodoxLutheran in its orientation” and demonstratedthat the librettist and composer of Bach’s St John Passion could

 It is worth notingthat,ascantor in Leipzig,Bachwas sparedthe temptation, should he have been susceptible to it,ofcapitalizingonsome of the particularlyobvious ‘flash points,’ since cantatas were not performed in Leipzig during Advent and Lent – parts of the church year that had the potential to throwthe question of what was qualitatively new about Christianity and whythe ‘old’ had supposedly ceased to serveits purpose into particularlysharp relief. Ithank Jeanne Swack for pointingthis out to me.  Ihavediscussed this in greater detail in Lars Fischer, “Bach Matters,” in Constructions of Ju- daism and Jewishness in Baroque Music, ed. Lars Fischer (forthcoming).  Robin A. Leaver, “Introduction,” in The Routledge Companion to Johann Sebastian, ed. Robin A. Leaver(Abingdon: Routledge,2017): 1–22,hereat17–8. 76 LarsFischer have done awhole lot more to emphasize the anti-Judaic implications of the pas- sion narrative (as Bach’speers frequentlydid), he was initiallythe Working Group’s “golden boy.”¹¹ But then

Manyinthe Arbeitsgemeinschaft weresorelydisappointed, and indeed violentlyangry[…] when Iwent on to writeadetailed conference paperontheological anti-Judaism in Bach’s cantata Schauet doch und sehet (BWV46) […]and asubsequent conference paper on Bach’s St.Matthew Passion that included adetailed exposé of Luther’sheightening in his trans- lation whatever degree of anti-Judaic tendencies theremight be in the Greek source text of the of Matthew […]What struck my Arbeitsgemeinschaft colleagues as further scandal was the fact that my research for these projects had been supported by an Alexand- er von Humboldt-Stiftung research fellowshipatthe (large and overwhelminglyLutheran) Theology Faculty of the University of Leipzig. It happened that senior theologians at the university during my year in Leipzig [2001] had likewise strongly disapprovedofthe re- search, repeatedlytellingme, several times via purple-faced screaming,that it was abso- lutelyimpossible for Luther or for Bach’sLutheran liturgy to have said such and such a thingabout Jews.They wereutterlyunmoved by the historical texts Ishowed them that ob- viouslydid saypreciselythose very things that they had declaredimpossible. It was afrus- trating year.¹²

Somewhat counter-intuitively,given my earlier remarks about the need to move beyond the obvious ‘flash points,’ in this chapter Iwill focus principallyonthe one surviving cantata by Bach in which ‘the Jews’ are mentioned explicitlyand of which one might be forgivenfor assuming that its problematic nature would be instantlyobvious. And yet, especiallyinthe sort of handbooks likelytoap- peal to ‘practitioners’–,cantors,singers and instrumentalists – theirau- diences,bethey congregantsorconcertgoers,and, not least,the authors of pro- gram notes,the problem simplydoes not seem to exist.Ifnot even this explicit negative reference to ‘the Jews’ raises anyconcerns, we can hardlyhope for wide- spread sensitivity regarding the more subtle articulation of anti-Judaic assump- tions in Bach’scantatas. Whyall this matters rather more thanmay meet the eye Iwill address in the final section whereIdiscuss the troublingimplications of the neo-traditionalist notionthat cantatas are musicalsermons that render their message ‘real in the present.’

 Marissen,Bach &God, xii.  Ibid., xiii. The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 77

Cantata42: Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats

Cantata42, Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats [Butinthe evening of the same Sabbath]was composed for the Sundayafter Easterin1725. It begins with a sinfonia,followed by arecitativesetting of aquotation from John 20:19: “But in the evening of the sameSabbath/When the disciples wereassembled and the doors closed for fear of the Jews/Jesus came and stood in their midst.” ¹³ The disciples’“fear of the Jews” is subsequentlyreiteratedinasecond recitative (no. 5):

One can see afine example/In what happened at Jerusalem: Forwhen the disciples had gatheredtogether/In dark shadows/For Fear of the Jews/MySaviour entered in their midst/Asawitness that He will be the defenceofHis Church/Therefore let the enemies rage!

Eric Chafe has recentlyoffered ahighlysophisticated discussion of this cantata in the context of the cantatas Bach composed in 1725 for the Sundays between and Trinity against the backdrop of the version of his St John Passion per- formedthat year.Chafe situates the “fear of the Jews”“in the context of the long- established practice of drawingananalogybetween the situation of the disciples in first-century Jerusalemand the place of the Christian church in the world.” This trope, he argues, “dictated much of what follows in the remainder of the 1725 cantata sequence,which further alludes to the interactionofJews and Chris- tians in the first century.”¹⁴ He drawsaline from the final recitative of Bach’sSt John Passion, via Cantata42tothe cantata composed for Trinityofthat same year,Cantata 176, Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding [There is something contrary and despairing]. The referencetothe disciples’“fear of the Jews” in Cantata 42, he explains, echoed the final recitative of the St John Passion, “whereweare told that kept his discipleship secret ‘from fear of the Jews’.” The first recitative of Cantata 176, in turn, refers to , “described earlier in the Gospelasa‘highofficial among the Jews’ […]who was alsoa‘secret’ disci-

 This “evening of the same Sabbath” is the evening of the dayofthe , that is, it is actuallyaSundayevening – which alreadyrepresents ablatantlysupersessionist moveonthe part of text. The official translation was changedto“Am Abend aber desselben ersten Tagesder Woche” [“But in the evening of the same first dayofthe week”]inthe of 1912 and since1984 reads “Am Abend aber dieses ersten Tagesder Woche” [“But in the evening of this first dayofthe week”].  Chafe, Johannine Theology,12. 78 Lars Fischer ple, comingforth onlybynight.”¹⁵ Nicodemus was widelyseen as “asymbol for earlyChristianity in his eventual emergence from the ‘darkness’” and, as Chafe points out, “in Bach’stime the memory of such ancient associations bound up with the very origins of the church, was still very much alive.”¹⁶ Cantata 42 maybeBach’sonlysurviving cantata expresslytomention the Jews. Yetthe dis- ciples’“fear of the Jews” clearlyreverberated, and was meant to reverberate, throughout that entireliturgicalseason stretching from Good FridaytoTrinity in 1725. Marissen discusses Cantata42under the heading, “Fearing the Jews, Then and Now.”¹⁷ In the cantata, he argues, “Jews are the persecutingenemiesof the disciples of Jesus, and ‘the Jews’ of the Gospel of John are emblematicof the truechurch’spersecutors ever since.” Not least,Bach “would have encoun- tered similar statements about Jews as the archenemies of Christians in Johannes Müllers Judaismus oder Jüdenthumb,”¹⁸ astandard work of anti-Jewishpolemic.¹⁹ Chafe disagrees with this assessment. “The text does not say”,heinsists, “that the enemies in question would still be the Jews, even in eighteenth-century Leip- zig;and it would be amisinterpretation to so understand it.” Even so, Chafe does concede that “they [i.e., the Jews] werecertainlyviewed as among the opponents of Christianity” and “following soon after the St. John Passion […]itseems likely that the librettist intended as much.”²⁰ Cantata42isthe onlyone from this series of cantatas “beginning with an instrumental movement rather than with the dictum itself”–suggesting that, to Bach’smind, therewas something special about this work. Bach “preceded the opening dictum of Cantata 42 with an extended instrumental sinfonia […] and followed it by an even more extended aria […]This decision, which must have been Bach’salone, places agreat deal of emphasis on the dramatic situa- tion,” Chafeexplains. Forhim, the drama lies in “Jesus’sappearing ‘in the midst’ of the fearfuldisciples, calming theirfear.”²¹ Indeed, he suggests that “the motto

 Ibid., 414.  Ibid., 12–3.  Marissen,Bach &God, 134.  Ibid., 136–7.  The Professor of Church History at Erlangenand zealous Nazi, Hans Preuss, in his pamphlet on Johann Sebastian Bach, der Lutheraner [Johann Sebastian Bach the Lutheran], first pub- lished in 1935 and reissued by the Martin Luther Verlag in Erlangenin1950,rather quaintlyde- scribed Müller’spolemic as “adefenceofChristianity against the Jews”;Hans Preuss, Johann Sebastian Bach, der Lutheraner (Erlangen: Martin Luther-Verlag,1950), 15.  Chafe, Johannine Theology,414– 5.  Ibid., 415. The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 79

[i.e., the quotation from John 20:19] is virtually swallowed up by two extended movements,” that is, the preceding sinfonia and subsequent aria.²² Iwould suggest the exactopposite. There can be little doubt that Bach’s setting of the first recitative does agood of conveying asense of fear and ap- prehension. Hans-Joachim Schulze, in his one-volume commentary on Bach’s cantatas of 2006,emphasizes that Bach’ssetting givesasense of “the sort of trepidation whereone’sheart is in one’smouth.”²³ The grand old man of Bach cantatacommentary,the late Alfred Dürr,noted the “throbbingcontinuo semiquavers, which are no doubtdesigned to depict the disciples’ fear of ‘the Jews’”,and stressedthe “stark contrast” between the recitative and the aria that follows it.His characterization of thataria as radiating “heavenlycalm” has repeatedlybeencited in the literature.²⁴ Chafe refers to it as “an oasis of Trost [consolation].” This, Iwould suggest,isspot-on: the luxuriant nature of the aria that follows the first recitative – which, in recordings,runs to some- wherebetween ten (Philippe Herreweghe) and more than thirteen minutes (Ma- saaki Suzuki) – indicates the measure of consolation required following the dis- ciples’ traumaticexperience of having to lock themselvesaway “for fear of the Jews.” Schulze adds to this the notion thatthe shift from the Dmajor of the in- troductory sinfonia – which itself runs to another six (Elliot Gardiner)toseven minutes (Herreweghe) – to the corresponding bminor of the first recitative “ef- fects an abrupt shift from bucolic tranquilitystraight to an actuallyorapparently dangerous situation,”²⁵ suggesting that the recitative indeed necessitatedconso- lation of considerable proportions bothbefore and after.Inhis older two-volume commentary,William Gillies Whittaker – the first incumbentofthe Gardiner Pro- fessorship in Music at Glasgowcurrentlyheld by John Butt – characterized the aria following the reiteration of the disciples’“fear of the Jews” in the second recitative as “almost extravagantly joyful,” likewise suggesting aheightened need for consolation to deal with the “fear of the Jews”–about which Whittaker has nothing to say, despite quoting both recitativesinfull.²⁶

 Ibid., 417.  Hans-Joachim Schulze, Die Bach-Kantaten. Einführungenzusämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006), 202.  Alfred Dürr,The Cantatas of J. S. Bach, trans. RichardD.P.Jones (New York: OxfordUniver- sity Press,2005), 297. Jones’stranslation of “überirdisch” as supraterrestrial rather than - ly seems quiteodd.  Schulze, Bach-Kantaten, 202.  W. Gillies Whittaker,The Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: Sacred and Secular,vol. 1(Lon- : OxfordUniversity Press,1959), 299. 80 LarsFischer

Schulze, as we saw, was evidentlytrying to soften the blow.Hewroteof“an abrupt shift from bucolic tranquility straight to an actually or apparently danger- ous situation” (emphasis added).²⁷ He also claimedthatthe “fear of the Jews” is reallyonly “mentioned in passing” in the gospel text.²⁸ About the reiteration of the “fear of the Jews” in the second recitative,hehas nothing to say. Ultimately, this all looks more likeanattempt to evade rather than confront the problem, but at least he does not ignore it entirely. Thelate Martin Petzoldt, in the relevant volume of his big commentary on Bach’scantatas, published in 2007,did just that.Henoted that the recitative quotes John 20,19without Jesus’sassurance of peace at the end, hence placing “the thematic emphasis on the assemblyof fearfuldisciples.” This, he pointsout,was certainlyatodds with the interpreta- tion presented in the widelyread contemporaneous Bible commentary by Jo- hannesAndreas Olearius (1639 –1684). Olearius paidlittle attentiontothe disci- ples’ fear and instead stressed the fact of Jesus’smiraculous entry despite the locked doors.²⁹ The fifth movement,inwhich the introductory narrative is repeat- ed and its meaningspelled out,Petzoldtcharacterizes as an expression of “pro- found Biblical thinking.”³⁰ At this point,the fear of the disciples is no longer even mentioned, and nowheredoes Petzold comment on the ostensible cause of thatfear identifiedsoexplicitly(and twice) in the cantata. Petzoldtisingood company. In the two-volume Bach cantata handbook edit- ed by Reinmar Emans and Sven Hiemke and publishedbyLaaber in 2012,Chris- tina Blanken merelypointsout thatBach, with simple musical means “illustrates the fear of the disciples of persecution by the Jews” and has nothing more to say on the matter.³¹ Most recently,Konrad Klek, aProfessor of churchmusic at Erlan- gen, in the third and final volume of his Bach cantata commentary,has shown himself entirelyuntroubled by the disciples’“fear of the Jews.” He notes that “the librettist accentuates the fear of the Jews and, by analogy, perceivesofthe Christian congregation as a ‘little band’ (movement 4) that is threatened by ‘en- emies’ (movement 5) and ‘persecution’ (movement 6). But the liturgical presence of Christ serves as aprotective shield.” Bach, he adds, implemented the ’s “accentuation of fear” with the appropriate musicalmeans. Klek also emphasiz- es the stark contrast between the recitative and the “uniquelycalming music” of

 Schulze, Bach-Kantaten, 202.  Ibid., 201.  Martin Petzoldt, Bach-Kommentar,vol. 2: Die GeistlichenKantaten vom1.Advent bis zum Trinitatisfest ( and Stuttgart: Bärenreiter, Internationale Bachakademie, 2007), 779.  Ibid., 783.  Christine Blanken, “Der sogenannte ‘DritteJahrgang’,” in Bachs Kantaten: Das Handbuch, vol. 2, eds. Reinmar Emans and Sven Hiemke(Laaber: Laaber,2012): 1–88, hereat63. The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 81 the subsequent “overlylong” aria, music to which one could chill (“Musik zum ‘Chillen’”). All he has to sayabout the second recitative,inwhich the disciples’ “fear of the Jews” is reiterated and interpreted, is that it assures the congrega- tion of Christ’sprotection.³² Ever since Alfred Dürr did so back in the 1950s,³³ far from showing anycon- cern, authors have repeatedlysingled out Cantata 42 as aparticularlyapt casein point for Bach’ssuperlative ability to compose cantatas that reallyare musical sermons and render their message “real in the present.” The erstwhile Professor (in various combinations) of ComparativeReligion, Old Testament,and Hebrew at the Protestant theological faculties in Brussels, Bochum, and , and prominent interfaith activist (though with agreater interest in Islam than Juda- ism), Johan Bouman, for instance, wroteinatext republished in 2000:

followingthe reading on Jesus’sappearance and encounter with the doubtingThomas,in the Cantata Butinthe Evening of the Same Sabbath (John 20:19–29) the applicatio sounds as follows: ‘One can see afine example in this, from what tookplaceinJerusalem; for when the disciples had gatheredinthe dark shadow,out of fear of the Jews,atthat my Saviour entered amongst them, as testimonythat he wants to be his Church’sprotection. So let the enemies rage!’ This convergenceofcantata and sermon has the task of actualizing the ex- egetical message and stimulatingone’sown faith and piety.³⁴

We will shortlyencounter another fan of the cantata’squalities as amusicalser- mon. Exceptions to this enduringpattern of oblivion to the disciples’“fear of the Jews” are few and farbetween. Unsurprisingly,Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm, who first pioneered the studyofanti-Judaism in Bach’sworks,³⁵ is one of them. In program notes for Cantata 42 published in 2012,she describes as “de- pressingfrom today’sviewpoint” the fact that anti-Judaism went without saying

 Konrad Klek, Dein ist allein die Ehre: Johann Sebastian Bachs geistliche Kantaten erklärt vol. 3(Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017), 39–40.  Alfred Dürr, “Johann Sebastian Bachs Kirchenmusik in seiner Zeit und Heute,” [originally published in 1957]inJohann Sebastian Bach, ed. Walter Blankenburg(Darmstadt: wbg, 1970): 290 –303,hereat296–7.  Johan Bouman, Musik zur EhreGottes: Die Musik als GabeGottes und Verkündigung des Evangeliums bei Johann Sebastian Bach, 2nd ed. (Gießen: Brunnen Verlag, 2000), 29–30.  Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm, “Bach und die Perfidia Iudaica: ZurSymmetrie der Juden-Tur- bae in der Johannes-Passion,” Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis 13 (1989): 31–54; eadem, “Bach und die ‘perfidia iudaica’:Zur Symmetrie der Judenchöre in der Johannespas- sion,” Neue Zü rcher Zeitung, 2April 2004:63; eadem, “Die Judenchöre in Bachs Johannes-Pas- sion: Der Thomaskantorals Gestalter lutherischer Judenpolemik,” FreiburgerRundbrief New Series 5(1998): 103–11, http://www.freiburger-rundbrief.de/de/?item=569(8November 2017). 82 LarsFischer for Bach and his peers and congregants.³⁶ TheEmmanuelMusic ensemble, which is affiliated with the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston and has “a 46-year tradition of presentingweeklyBach cantatas in aliturgical setting,”³⁷ is another noteworthyexception. They suggest twowaysofdealing with the dis- ciples’“fear of the Jews” in the two recitatives. In the first instance, they pick up on aremarkablypopularyet nonsensical exegetical claim thatthe gospel verse, in fact,refers not to the Jews but to the Judaeans, that is, not to “the Jews” per se but merelytothose from the RomanprovinceofJudaea (whichcovered roughly the area of the erstwhile southern kingdom of Judah).³⁸ As asecond,more rad- ical solution, they propose that one might omit the reference to ‘the Jews’ alto- gether and refer instead to “Verfolgung/persecution.”³⁹ The latteriscertainlya suggestion worthyofconsideration though it,inturn,raises the question of whether simple erasure is reallyanappropriate wayofdealingwith this legacy. There in fact seems to have been some controversy on this matter within the en- semble. Itsfoundingdirector,Craig Smith, in his program notes for Cantata 42, while being rather reticent in his commentary on the first recitative,when discus- sing the second recitative,inwhich the disciples’“fear of the Jews” is reiterated and interpreted, characterized it as presenting “one of the most distasteful exam- ples of akind of knee-jerk anti-Semitism in all of Bach.” The ensemble’slong- standing principal guestconductor John Harbison, in 2004,appended remarks specificallyonthis “uncomfortable” issue. “It has been often the practice at Em- manuel to changethis text and similar referenceinthe final recitative,” he explains, and continues:

Here aresome reasons not to do so:1)the text of anymusical work represents its original sources, the artist’sconception, and the historical moment of its creation. Witnesses to the work must be trusted to interpret it according to their own belief and culture. 2) The men- tion of the Jews is at the least paradoxical, since every person in that room,includingJesus, soon to appear,lived and died as devout,practicingJews.3)Throughout the book of John, to magnify the significanceofthe message,the author downplays what is (merely) factional

 Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm, “‘Am Abend aber desselbigenSabbats’ (BWV42). ‘Nundanket alle Gott’ (BWV192),” in Wieschön leuchtet der Morgenstern: Johann Sebastian Bachs geistliche Kantaten. Werkeinführungenund Dokumenteder Basler Gesamtaufführung, eds.Albert Jan Becking, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher,and Anselm Hartinger(Basel: Schwabe, 2012): 200–4, here at 201.  http://www.emmanuelmusic.org/who/who_history_mission.htm#pab1_2 (8 November 2017).  On the illogical nature of this suggestion, see Marissen,Bach &God, 128–9.  http://emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/translations_cantata/t_bwv042.htm (8 Novem- ber2017). The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 83

or doctrinal, among Jews.Still it is helpful to remember how manyspecific enemies are identified as money-changers, chief priests,orPharisees.⁴⁰

What makes these comments somewhat disconcerting is the fact that they are, at least in part,mutuallyattenuating. Suffice it to saythat,weretherenot aserious problem at stake, one would not need to emphasize one’strust in the ability of the audience/congregation to interpret thatproblem away.The subsequent at- tempt to minimize the measure or substance of the problem in the first place seems rather at odds with that emphasis.

The CantataasaSermon in itsOwn Right

That the congregation should, as Harbison suggests, “be trusted to interpret” the disciples’“fear of the Jews”“accordingtotheir ownbelief and culture” is aplau- sible suggestion within the remit of liberaltheology. Yet, among neo-traditional- ists, the notion that cantatas are musical sermons that render their theological message “real in the present” is still (or again) in rude good health and,ifany- thing,advancing. From this point of view,one might just as well saythat it does not reallymatter what is preached from the pulpits todaybecause the congrega- tion can also “be trusted to interpret” the sermons they hear “according to their own belief and culture.”⁴¹ It is by no means just people like the late Renate Steiger,Blankenburg’slong- standing and starklydoctrinaire successor at the helm of the International Work- ing Group for Theological Bach Research, who stress this crucial homiletic func- tion of the cantata. She discussed this,for instance,inconnection with the com- plex penultimatemovement of Cantata 67,composed ayear earlier (1724) for the same SundayasCantata 42.Technicallyspeaking abass aria, the movement combines two distinct elements. On the one hand, there is adeeplycalming set- ting of Jesus’swords at the very end of John 20:19 – the aforementioned verse in which the disciples have locked themselvesaway “for fear of the Jews”–“Peace be unto you.” The other element,instark contrast, is the rather frantic grap- pling,inthe first instance presumably of the disciples but ultimatelyofall those in need of divine grace, buffeted as they are (or feel) by adversity,with the news of Jesus’sresurrection, sung by the sopranos, altos and of the

 http://www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/notes_cantata/n_bwv042.htm (8 Novem- ber2017).  http://www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/notes_cantata/n_bwv042.htm (8 Novem- ber2017). 84 LarsFischer choir. “The resurrected Lordappears to them – todayinthis cantata,” Steigerex- plained, “in his wordand assures them – i.e., us, the listeners – of his peace. The musicaldepiction of the event represents not areport but asermon, thatis, it renders that of which it speaks real in the present and dispenses it.”⁴² Jochen Arnold, one of the most senior officials responsible for church music in Germany’smainstream Protestant church, the EKD,makes the sameargument in his post-doctoral thesis (Habilitation), VonGottpoetisch-musikalisch reden. Gottes verborgenes und offenbares Handeln in Bachs Kantaten [Speaking of God with Poetical and Musical Means.God’sHidden and Revealed Action in Bach’s Cantatas], arguablythe most important recent work on the theologyand contem- porary liturgical context of Bach’ssacred cantatas. Arnold is clearlynot interest- ed in, and feels no need to displaysensitivity towards, concerns in the realm of Jewish-Christian relations.Tellingly,neither DagmarHoffmann-Axthelm nor Mi- chael Marissen feature in his bibliography(whichinany case includes only 6non-German titles). To be sure, he claims that “the aesthetics of affect charac- teristic of Bach’smusic […] render real in the present Jewish, Reformation and Protestant-Baroque forms of experience of Godand the world thatcan open up for us apersonal encounter with God.”⁴³ Yet, by ‘Jewish,’ he principallymeans the Old Testament,and his understanding of the Christian relationship to the Old Testament constitutes atextbook case not just of supersessionist appropriation but of comprehensive expropriation of the Tanakh. Not onlydoes the Old Testa- ment in general, and the Psalter in particular, “prefigure” the New Testament narrative.⁴⁴ In the cantatas that begin with apsalm setting,the subsequent movements “realize the lead of the psalm,” the “performative quality of the divine word” open to experience with poetic and musicalmeans.⁴⁵ Discus- sing the psalm setting at the beginning of Cantata 110,composed for Day1725, for instance, Arnold explains that the librettist “effectively blocked out the promise to Israel of areturn from exile in order to transfer it in ageneralized form to the Christian church. The ‘we’ of the earlypost-exilic Israel becomes the ‘we’ of the Christian congregation at Christmas.”⁴⁶ As he subsequentlyreiterates:

 RenateSteiger, Gnadengegenwart: Johann Sebastian BachimKontext lutherischer Orthodo- xie und Frömmigkeit (Stuttgart–BadCannstatt: frommann-holzboog,2002),19.  Jochen Arnold, VonGott poetisch-musikalisch reden: Gottes verborgenes und offenbares Handeln in Bachs Kantaten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2009), 427.  Ibid., 424.  Ibid., 427– 8.  Ibid., 317. The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 85

The promise associated with the returnfromBabylonian exile: “our mouths shall be filled with laughter” (Ps 126,2) is moved to the liturgical presenceofsalvationatChristmas,that is, it is resolutelyrendered real in the present: Mayour mouth be full of laughter means:at Christmas mayour mouth be ‘full of laughter’ now,hereand today.

And yet, giventhatthereisnoexplicit Christological referenceinthis movement, Arnold suggeststhis psalm setting could be performed separately “at anyChris- tian or even Jewish celebration.”⁴⁷ PsalmsettingsinBach cantatas, Arnold ar- gues, are “nearlyalways[…]performative milestones.” They ensure “that at the end nothing is as it was at the beginning.”⁴⁸ Perhaps Arnold also assumesheisdealing with Jewishtradition when he emphasizes representations of the lawinBach’scantatas. This would amount to asortofblack-faceapproach to Jewish-Christian relations: an attempt to rein- tegrate Christianity’sJewish roots by dressingupasone’sown cliché of what Jewishreligion is supposedlyabout.Onthis issue,Arnold seems determined to have his cake and eatit. On the one hand, he insists that the marvel of divine gracecannot be fullyappreciatedunless contrasted to the burden of the law. Consequently, the prevailing one-sided emphasis on God’slovetothe detriment of his wrath dilutes the messageofthe gospel. The law, then, is not extraneous to Christianitybut integraltoit–and consequentlynot,aswidespread convention- al wisdomwould have it,atenet exclusive to Judaism. Yetthe crucial point is still the “shift from the accusatory voice of the lawtothe acquittal of the gospel.”⁴⁹ Much as Augustine insisted thatGod had ordained the abjection of the Jews to show others what layinstorefor those who refused to acknowledge the divin- ity of Christ,Arnold insists that the law – and its representation in Bach’scan- tatas – is there to throw all the more sharplyinto relief the marvel of the divine gracethatrenders the lawobsolete. To be sure, Arnold pays lip service to the ac- tual dialectic of lawand gospel in Christianitybut,aswewill see, what prevails in his account is not that dialectic but the “objection to [divine] judgment in Bach’scantatas.”⁵⁰ ForArnold, then, Bach’scantatas have atransformative capacity;indeed, they “preach and proclaim the Gospel in their own right.” To illustrate this,the example that immediatelyspringstoArnold’smind is none other than Cantata 42, Butinthe Evening of the Same Sabbath. It opens, he explains,

 Ibid., 424.  Ibid., 430.  Ibid., 235.  Ibid. 86 Lars Fischer

with aBiblical quotation from John 20 (tenor recitative)and then expands through the text of the followingaria, which paraphrases the promise of Mt 18,20: Aria (alto) Wheretwo or three aregatheredtogether,InJesus’sprecious Name, There Jesus ap- pears in their midst,And says to them “”. With the musicalization of the text by Bach the presenceofChrist announced in the Biblical quotation […]transpires in the hereand now: “heavenlycalm” prevails.⁵¹

The latter (“heavenlycalm”), as we saw, is aquotation from Dürr.Note that Ar- nold has elegantlyrefrained from quoting the text of the recitativeorevenpara- phrasing its content,apart from its final clause: “Jesus came and stood in their midst.” Now, here is my problem: thelikes of Steigerand Arnold credit cantatamove- mentswiththe abilitytomakemanifestinthe here andnow,inthis case,the con- solation thoseinfearofthe Jews drawfromJesus – or,onamore generallevel,the victoryofthe gospel over thelaw,offaith over outwardadherencetothe law, of thespiritoverthe letter of scripture.But then it must surely follow that thecantata movementsproviding thefoilfor that victoryalsomake theburdenofthelaw or thethreatofthe Jews “real in thepresent.” Readersmay be temptedtothink (or hope) that Iammaking this up.Yet Jochen Arnold is very clearabout this.None toosurprisinglyperhaps,for Arnold,the problembecomes most virulent in the contextofone of Bach’scantatasfor Israel Sunday,specificallyCantata 102, Herr,deine Augensehennachdem Glauben [Lord,YourEyesLookfor Faith]. To add alittle historical depth: when this cantata was performed at the opening concert of the 13th German Bach Festival in Essen in July 1925,the mu- sicologist Alfred Heuß (1877–1934) noted in his program notes that “the bedrock of the concert and the entire festival is one of the works that shows Bach unre- lentingly preachingrepentance with harsh old-testamentarian [alttestamentari- sche]fervor.”⁵² In it,Heußwenton, Bach “applies aforge hammer to arock”, the music is of a “downright demonic savagery” and “executed with steelyartis- try.”⁵³ There can be little doubt that these remarks weremeant to be complimen- tary,which is all the more intriguing, giventhat Heuß was anotorious anti- semite. In October of that sameyear,hecharacterized ’s appointment to the Prussian Academy of the Arts as “asetback for the cause of German music,” which pitted “Germanness against […]the specificallyJewish

 Ibid., 92.  Alfred Heuß, “Zu den Werken des dreizehnten Deutschen Bachfestes,” in Dreizehntes DeutschesBachfest.Vom 11. bis 13.Juli 1925 in Essen: Bach-Fest-Buch, ed. Neue Bachgesellschaft (Leipzig: Breitkopf&Härtel, 1925): 3–10,hereat3.  Ibid., 4. The Legacy of Anti-Judaism in Bach’sSacred Cantatas 87 spirit of music. This is clear to anyone who knows about racialdistinctions [Ras- senunterschiede].” To be sure, there wereassimilated Jews who could make a valuable contribution, but Schoenberg’s “personal and racial [rassenmäßig]” de- velopment had led in adifferent direction. He was arootless fanatic who con- sciouslydisavowed tradition. The Germanness of German music wasalready weakened, and Schoenberg’sappointment would set the recovery backbyde- cades. Evidently, then, it was entirelypossible for one and the same musicologist to admire Bach’s “harsh old-testamentarian fervour” and the works of “rooted” Jewishcomposers and yetengageinantisemitic polemics against Schoenberg – agood indication of some of the complexities that can be involved in under- standing non-Jews’ attitudes to Judaism, the Old Testament and the Jews. Arnold,too,seems impressed – albeit negatively – by Bach’s “harshold-tes- tamentarianfervour” in Cantata102.It“immediatelyraisesthe question,” he ex- plains: “does itscentralmessage lieprimarily in thethreatening word of thelaw or thebeckoning word of thegospel?”⁵⁴ ForArnold, thecantata highlights theneed to repent before one’sdeath,thatis, before it is toolate,but it failstoreflect the promisethatawaitsthosewho do repent in time.Itthusaddresses agenuine em- piricalafflictionofthe sinful believer.Thoughnot directly referenced in thelibret- to,the connection to thedestruction of Jerusalemliesinthe fact that it serves as an exampleofthataffliction, of what awaits thesinfulifthey fail to repentintime. How, then,shouldone deal with this “cantata’ssustained propagationofthe law”? “Undernocircumstances,” Arnold stipulates, “should Part II be performed subcommunione sincethe propagationofthe lawcould become superimposed on thepromise of theEucharist.”⁵⁵ Thelaw,inother words, couldbecomerealinthe here andnow at apoint whereonlygraceought to reverberate. Maybe Arnold has sound empirical evidence to demonstrate definitively that Lutheran congregants who associate, say, the juxtaposition of lawand gospel with the juxtaposition of Christianityand Judaism no longer exist.Ifso, this would reflect afairlygroundbreaking turn of events, and his decision not to pub- lish the relevant research would be astonishinginthe extreme. If not,one can onlyassume that he considers it both useful and desirable for today’sLutherans to be exposed to the horrors inflicted by the (Jewish) God of the Old Testament and ‘the Jews’ to help them understand fullythe superiority of Christianity. Given Arnold’sstatus in the EKD,this, surely, is deeplytroubling.

 Arnold, VonGott poetisch-musikalisch reden, 221.  Ibid., 227. When Bach composed two-part cantatas,the first part would be performed before, the second after the sermon. It would thereforebehighlyunusual to consider performing the first part during the Eucharist,rather than beforethe sermon, hence Arnold’sreference to Part II (rather than the whole cantata) in this instance.

Yaakov Ariel ANew Model of Christian Interaction with the Jews

Pietist and Evangelical Missions to the Jews

The turn of the eighteenth centurysaw the rise of anew movement in the land- scape of Western Christianityand Christian-Jewish relations – German Pietism, which provided an alternative means for Protestants to relate to Jews.¹ The Halle Pietiststhus became one of the important movements in the Protestant world, and their pioneering mission, the Institutum Judaicum,influenced other groups of Pietists in Central and Northern Europe, as well as English-speaking evangelicals, making alasting impression on the Protestant scene, modifying, and at times transforming, prevailing attitudes towards the Jews. An exploration of the agenda of this movement,then, mayunveil arich picture of this highly complicated relationship.

The Rootsand OriginsofPietist Attitudes Towards the Jews

To acertain extent,Pietist attitudes towards the Jews recall those of the early Martin Luther.² Like the father of the Protestant Reformation, the Pietists be- lieved thatJews oughttobeopen to Christianity in its Protestant form. Pietists,

 On the rise, nature,and impact of German Pietism,see Peter E. Erb, ed., The Pietists:Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press,1983); Jonathan Storm, Hartmut Lehmann, and James Van Horn, eds., Pietism in Germanyand , 1680 –1820 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009); DouglasShantz, An IntroductiontoGerman Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe (: Press, 2013); Douglas Shantz, ACompanion to Ger- man Pietism, 1680 –1800 (Leiden: Brill, 2014).  Luther’scomplicated and changingattitudes towards the Jews have receivedconsiderable scholarlyattention. Foranupdated comprehensive studyofthe subject, see Thomas Kaufmann, “Luther and the Jews,” in Jews,Judaism, and the Reformation in Sixteenth Century Germany, eds.Dean PhilipBelland Stephen G. Burnett (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), 69 – 104;Peter vonder Osten-Sacken, Martin Luther und die Juden: neu untersucht anhand vonAnton Margar- ithas “Der gantz Jüdisch glaub” (1530/31) (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer,2002);Thomas Kaufmann, Luther’sJews:AJourney into Antisemitism (Oxfordand New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2017).

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-007 90 Yaakov Ariel however,carried Luther’stheological and practical positions afew steps further. In his earlycareer as areformer, Luther held hopes for the conversion of the Jews to Christianity,but stopped short of establishing amission or formulating specif- ic means of approaching them. Pietists institutionalized and systematized the agenda outlined by the young reformer.But,unlikeLuther,who was disappoint- ed that the Jews did not join his new Protestant church en masse, Pietists, and later on, evangelical missionaries, accepted thatmost Jews werenot interestedin converting to Christianity.Content to convert onlyalimited number of Jews, Pie- tists set their sights on thoseindividuals who werethus inclined. Pietist agendas werestrongly shaped by the ideas of Philip Jacob Spener (1635 – 1705), founderofHalle Pietism. In his PiaDesideria,the most influential work of German Pietism, Spenerpromoted an alternative attitude towards the Jews.³ There, the Pietist thinker expressedappreciation for the longstanding Jew- ish rejection of Christianity.Heblamed Christian for mistreatingthe Jews, and called upon his readerstoshow good will towards them. Promoting amessianic outlook, Spener, and the Halle Pietists whom he inspired, as well as anumber of other Pietist groups that followed them, wereconvinced that the Jews would again playadecisive role in the events thatwould lead to the materialization of the Kingdom of God on earth. Although Pietism developedmostlyinLutheran lands, the Reformed (often labelled ‘Calvinist’)wing of the Reformation influenced Pietist positions towards the Jews.⁴ Reformers of that school, such as Martin Bucer (1491– 1551), John Cal- vin (1509–1564), and (1519–1605), took with utterseriousness the messagesconveyedinthe Hebrew Bible, includingthe idea that their com- munitieswereincovenant with God.⁵ UnlikeLuther,who believed that the place of the Jewish people in history,asanentity distinct from Christianity, had come to an end, Calvin held that while God was angry with Jews as individ- uals, Jews might stillberedeemed as anation.⁶ Reformed thinkers in England,

 Philip Jacob Spener, Pia Desideria or Heartfelt Desirefor aGod-PleasingReform of the True Evangelical Church, trans.TheodoreG.Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,1964). The original text appeared in Frankfurt am Main in 1675.  Walter Beltz, “Gemeinsame kulturelle Codes in koexistierenden Religionsgemeinschaften, dargestelltund untersucht an Beispielen der Messiasdiskurse in den Reisetagebüchern des In- stitutum Judaicum et Muhammediacum J. H. Callenbergs,” in Sprache und Geist: Peter Nagel zum 65.Geburtstag,eds.Walter Beltz, UtePietruschka, and JürgenTubach (Halle: Martin-Lu- ther-Univ. Halle-Wittenberg, 2003): 1–29.  Cf. G. SujinPak, The JudaizingCalvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates Over the MessianicPsalms (Oxford and New York: OxfordUniversity Press,2010).  John Calvin, Commentary on aHarmonyofthe Evangelists,Matthew,Mark, Luke, translated from the original by the Rev.William Fringle,volume 3, Christian Classics Ethereal Library ANew Model of Christian Interaction withthe Jews 91

Holland, France, and Switzerland, as well as in thoseparts of the New World whereReformed theologygainedground, expressed hope for the Jews’ prospect of national restoration and conversion to Christianity.⁷ Pietism found parallels and support in Reformed communities,includingthe Puritan movement that de- velopedinEngland and New England.⁸ ManyPietists and viewed the Jews as heirsofhistorical Israel, and focused on the prospect of the return of the Jews to the HolyLand and their conversion to Christianity.⁹ Puritans and Pietistsadhering to aChristian messianic faith insisted that the biblical referen- ces to Israel, Judah, Zion, and Jerusalem should be read literally, and thatthe Old Testament prophecies about the rejuvenation of Israel weremeant for the

(Grand Rapids,MI: Baker Books, 2003), here27:25–26.Calvin starts the commentary along tra- ditional Christian lines,but then moves to promote the idea that God still upholds his promises to Israel and aremnant of the Jews shall be redeemed. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/cal com33.ii.xxxix.html?scrBook=Matt&scrCh=27&scrV=25#ii.xxxix-p11.1  Cf. Myriam Yardeni, and Jews (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Centerfor Jewish History,1998), 83 – 112; J. Vanden Berg, “Eschatological Expectations concerningthe Conversion of the Jews in the Netherlandsduring the Seventeenth Century,” in Puritans,the Millennium and the FutureofIsrael: Puritan Eschatology,1600 –1660,ed. Peter Toon (Cambridge:James Clarke, 1970): 137–53,esp. 137–9; Frank E. Manuel, The BrokenStaff: Judaism through Christian Eyes (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1992),92–8.  RichardF.Lovelace,The American Pietism of Cotton Mather:Origins of American Evangelical- ism (Grand Rapids, MI:Christian University Press,1979),32–5, 65 – 6.  Franz Kobler,The Vision was There:AHistory of the British Movement for the Restoration of the Jews to (London: Lincolns-Prager,1956); Peter Toon, “The LatterDay Glory,” in idem, ed., Puritans,the Millennium and the Future of Israel, 23–41;Carl F. Ehle, “Prolegomena to Christian in America: The Views of and William E. Blackstone Con- cerning the Doctrine of the Restoration of Israel” (Ph.D.Diss., New York University,1977), 47– 61; Mel Scult, Millennial Expectations and Jewish Liberties:AStudyofthe Efforts to Convert the Jews in Britain up to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1978); Robert M. Healers “The Jews in Seventeenth Century Protestant Thought,” Church History 46:1 (1979):63–79; David S. Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmissionofthe Jews to England, 1603–1655 (Oxford: Claren- don Press, 1982); BarbaraW.Tuchman, Bible and Sword: Englandand Palestine from the Bronze AgetoBalfour (London: Macmillan, 1983), 80 –101;Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth Century (London and New York: Penguin, 1994); Christopher Hill, “Till the Conversion of the Jews,” in idem, Religion and Politics in Seventeenth Century England (Brighton, HarvesterPress, 1986), 269–300;Mayir Verete, From Palmerstone to Balfour: Collect- ed Essays,ed. Norman A. Rose (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass,1992);Avihu Zakai, “The Poetics of History and the DestinyofIsrael. The Role of the Jews in English Apocalyptic Thought during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy5 (1996): 313–50;Eitan Bar-Yosef, The Holy Land in English Culture 1799–1917: Palestine and the Question of Orientalism (Oxfordand New York: Clarendon Press and OxfordUniversity Press, 2005). 92 Yaakov Ariel

Jews.¹⁰ With this ideological backdrop, these Christians were keen to seek out Jews for interaction. Pietists’ faith in the imminent return of Jesus to earth rendered their work among Jews pivotal to the unfoldingoftheir notion of the divine plan for salva- tion. They sought to educateChristians about the messianic role of the Jews and to instruct the latter as to what was, from the Pietist point of view,theirtrue his- torical mission. In their eyes, Jews werepoised to return to the HolyLand to pre- pare the ground for Jesus’ return and the eventual establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. This theme became acentral topos in Pietist literature intended for dissemination among Jews.¹¹ Other Protestant missions to the Jews that emergedinthe wake of the Halle Pietist mission, such as the London Society for PromotingChristianityamong the Jews, adopted or produced similar litera- ture. ¹²

The HallePietists and the Evangelization of the Jews

If the Jewishpeople weretasked with aspecial mission in God’splans for the messianic times, they merited time and resources:assuch, manyPietist groups prioritized their evangelization. Wishing to approach Jews effectively,Pietists equipped their evangelists with knowledge of Jews, Judaism, and Jewishculture. Eighteenth-centuryGerman Protestants took an increasinginterest in the Jews, their language, culture, and beliefs, as well as theireconomic and civicstatus.¹³ Halle offered an excellent infrastructure for training and supporting informed missionaries. Among other opportunities, the university,which Spener and other Pietists had established in that city,offered arangeofcourses in , includingHebrew,Aramaic, and Yiddish. In time,the University of

 Toon, “The LatterDay Glory,” 26–34.  Miktavahavahelkol asire ha-tiqwah ha-meyuhalim an ale bene goles Yisroel di oyf di geule vartn ihertslikherlibshaft geshribn/D.Jo. Mulleri Ecclesiastæ Gothani Ad Judæos plena caritatis epistola. recudi curavit … Jo.Henr. Callenbergius,Johann Müller (Halle: Institutum Judaicum, 1747).  Yaakov S. Ariel, Evangelizingthe Chosen People (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 9–21.  Yaacov Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes: Ethnographic Descriptions of Jews and Judaism in EarlyModern Europe (Oxfordand New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2012); AyaElyada, AGoy Who SpeaksYiddish: Christiansand the Jewish LanguageinEarlyModern Germany(Stan- ford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press,2012). ANew Model of Christian Interaction withthe Jews 93

Halle became an important center of research and teaching on Semitic languag- es, and Biblical and Near Eastern studies. Moreover,the town possessed printing presses thatpublished booksinthose languages. Headed by Johann Heinrich Callenberg(1694–1760), the new mission started at the University of Halle, whereCallenbergbegan teachingcourses for prospective missionaries in 1724, four years before the official foundingdate of the mission. The Pietist leader would hold adual position as auniversityinstructor and head of the mission. Callenbergwas in charge of the production of booksthat enhancedextensive missionary fieldwork that aimed to reach Jews in Central and , as well as in otherparts of the Jewish world.¹⁴ The Instituteyielded an impressive legacy: the comprehensive studyofJew- ish traditions, customs,and languages, as well as aproliferation of texts on and for Jews. It helpedshape dozens of other missions, includinginBritain, Scandi- navia, Holland, America,Eastern Europe and Palestine. Manyofthese missions emulated the Halle-mission tacticsand produced similar publications.¹⁵ The novelty of this approach merits amoment of appreciation. Traditional Christian theologyand popularopinion had long perceivedthe Jews as apeople frozen in time, practicing auniformand static tradition. Little attention had ever been paid to the actual customs of the Jews, includingtheir synagogue rites, home-based rituals, religious paraphernalia, and rites of passage. Interest would arise mostlywhen rumors spread of Jewish disrespect in texts and prayers towards Christianity.¹⁶ Likewise, Christians had previouslytaken scant notice of the diversity of Judaism and the differing ethnicgroups and languages of the Jews. In addition to the study of the Jews, their languages and , the In- stitutumJudaicum took upon itself to carry out itinerant visitsand discussions with thousands of Jews in dozens of different locales in Central and Eastern Eu- rope. Institute missionaries would regularlydispatch reports on routine life in the Jewishcommunities they visited.¹⁷

 Christoph Rymatzki,Hallischer Pietismusund Judenmission:Johann Heinrich Callenbergs Institutum Judaicum und dessen Freundeskreis 1728–1736 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2004).  Christopher Clark, The Politics of Conversion: Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prus- sia, 1728–1941(Oxford: Clarendon Press,1995); Albert E. Thompson, ACentury of Jewish Mis- sions (:FenningH.Revell, 1902).  Isak Nethanel Gath, The SorcererfromSchwabach: The Process of the Chief Rabbi of the -Ansback Principality,Hirsch Fränkel [hebr.] (Tel Aviv:Ha- ha-meuchad, 2013).  Rymatzki, Hallischer Pietismus und Judenmission; Thomas Müller-Bahlke, “Die Reisetage- bücher des Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum der Reisen durch Polen1730/31,” Kwartal- nik Historii Żydów (Jewish History Quarterly) 4(2006): 504–8. 94 Yaakov Ariel

Those representativesofthe Institute acted as ethnographers,touringJewish communities and recording theirimpressions.¹⁸ The Halle Pietists’ trademark was to enter Jewishspaces,includingsynagogues, privatehomes, and markets, and engageinconversations with individuals and groups,soliciting their opin- ions and eliciting theireverydayconcerns.¹⁹ Among other discoveries, Pietists found rampant among Jews, areality that stood in stark contrast to the prevailing about them held by contemporary Christians. The rise of Pietism and the earlyactivity of the Institutum Judaicum took place dur- ing the heydayof‘court Jews,’ ahandful of entrepreneurial Jews who served as aides, advisorsand managers to local rulers, includingMoses Benjamin Wulff (1661–1729), who acted as the lieutenant of the of Anhalt-Dessau, in whose territory the Halle Pietists operated. The Pietist missionaries soon discov- ered, however,that the Jewishmasses werefar removed from court life. In fact, most Jews livedindeprivation in comparison to Christian burghers,with no ac- cess to higher education, the professions,the military,orother economic oppor- tunities.²⁰ Jewishhistorians have givensomewhat short shrift to protective attitudes evinced by German Protestants, such as Pietist activists, towards Jews.²¹ Pietists have even been portrayedashostile towards them.²² However,while not shying away from criticism of Jews, Pietists defended them against what they consid- ered unfair condemnations, such as blood libels, which werestillprevalent in Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover,they advocated improvingthe civil and economic conditions of the Jews. Pietists and, later, evangelical missionaries, would militate against harassment of Jews all around the world, claiming good will towardsthe Jews as aChristian virtue, and condemningphysical and legal attacks against them.

 Ibid.  Christoph Bochinger, “Die Dialogezwischen reisenden Studiosi und Juden in religionswis- senschaftlicher Perspektive,” KwartalnikHistorii Żydów (Jewish History Quarterly) 4(2006): 509–20.  On Jews in in the EarlyModern Era, see ElishevaCarlebach, “The Death of Simon Abeles: Jewish-Christian Tension in 17th Century Prague.” The 3rd annual Herbert Ber- man memorial lecture, Center for Jewish Studies, College(New York, CUNY,2001); Dean Philip Bell, Jews in the EarlyModern World (Lanham, MD.: Rowman &Littlefield,2008).  Amongthe exceptions areBaruch Mevorach, “MessianicHopes within the Discourse on the Emancipation of Jews and EarlyReform” (Ph.D.Diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1966); Alan T. Levinson, Between Philosemitism and Antisemitism: DefensesofJews and Judaism in Germany, 1871– 1932 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press,2004).  Gath, Sorcerer fromSchwabach. ANew Model of Christian Interaction withthe Jews 95

While expressing sympathy with Jews and protecting them in the public arena, Pietist methods of did not share twenty-first century stand- ards of tolerance towards other people’sfaiths. Moving from one Jewish commu- nity to the next,missionaries used aggressive tacticsand did not hesitateto make provocative statements.Inthat manner,itinerant evangelists engaged Jews in debatesonthe appropriate manner of readingJewish sacred texts, and discussed with them whether the Messiah had alreadycome once before or not.There was certainlyan‘exchange’ between Pietists and Jews, but hardly in anycontemporarysense of interfaith dialogue. Pietist missionaries also did not always present themselvesaswhat they were. Thediaries of two studiosi, the itinerant missionaries GeorgWidmann (1693 – 1753) and Johann Andreas Manitius (1707– 1758), reveal that, relying on their remarkable knowledge of Jewish languages, culture, and teachings,some- times the missionaries wereabletoconceal theirChristian identities.²³ In the Widmann and Manitius cases, the Jews suspected that the visitors might not have been Jewish, but werenevertheless curious and therefore gave them the benefit of the doubt. Some wanted to learn more about the Pietist movement, and anumber of young Jews contemplatedconversion. Pietist evangelists, as well as evangelical missionaries who came on the scene in the Anglo-Saxon world of the nineteenth century,werecertain that their versions of Protestantism would be palatable to the Jews. It was, they be- lieved, apurist,fullyreformed Protestantism, which Jews should be able to relate to more easilythan other forms of Christianity.Bythe eighteenth century,the Protestant Old Testament had come to resemble the Jewish Tanakh. Protestants mostlyprinted their without the Apocrypha, thoseparts of the RomanOld Testament thatthe Jews had not canonized, such as the books of Judith and the .²⁴ This process, in which the Pietists playedacrucial role, would provevital to the messagesofthe Pietist missions. When approaching Jews, Pie- tist missionaries and their successors pointed to chapters and verses in the He- brew Bible as abasis for theological discussions. Pietists and, later,evangelicals who engaged in missionizing Jews, presented their church environments,litur- gies, and ministry as non-offensive to Jewish sensibilities, suiting Jewishstyles and concepts. Their houses of worship wereemptyoficonography; they did

 Bochinger, “Dialoge,” 514–8.  Luther removedanumber of texts from the and placed them under the rubric of Apoc- rypha, included in the Bible, but not carryingacanonical status. 96 Yaakov Ariel not perform the rite of the Eucharist,and their ministers,conducting services without vestments and preachingabout biblical passages, werenot priests. ²⁵ While sharing asimilar corpus of sacred scriptures with the Jews, Pietist mis- sionaries werecertain that theirs was the correct mannerofreadingthe Bible. ForPietists, their version of the Christian faith, which emphasized regeneration, would lead to salvation and eternal life, while Judaism lacked the ability to offer spiritual guidelinesand eternal salvation. Despite their ardent desire to interact with Jews, from the Pietists’ point of view,such meetingstook place between non-equals.²⁶ They alone possessed the correct understanding of God’splans for ,and it wastheir mission to share it with Jews. While Pietists, like manyPuritans and Reformed thinkers,and later on evangelicalones, devel- oped hopes for the revival of the Jews in arestored Davidic kingdom, they agreed with the traditionalChristian understanding that observanceofthe command- ments was purposeless after the of Jesusonthe cross.Onlyfaith in Jesuscould redeem the Jews.²⁷ Rather expectedly, Jews did not always welcome encounters with Pietist stu- diosi. Jewishleaders experiencedPietist overtures as intrusive,aviolation of their integrityaspeople upholdingtheir ancestral faith.²⁸ Often, however,the missionaries could relyonindividual Jews – particularlyyoung ones – to lend an ear.Intheir distance from majority-Christian groups,Pietists had greater emo- tional accesstoJews thantheir more established Christian brethren. Most Jews livedatthat time among Catholic, Uniate, or OrthodoxChristians, with the pat- terns of immigration giving growingpreference to Protestant lands, whereprevi- ouslyJews had been forbidden to settle. Jews often related to Christian author- ities as alien, but some of them felt thatthe Pietists weredifferent,friendlier and more well-meaning. While Jewish leaders considered missionaries athreat,they could not always grasp the ideas thatmotivated the Pietists and evangelicals to take an interest in

 Promotion of Protestantism as embodyingthe purity and authenticity of both Judaism and Christianityappear in anumber of the Institute’spublications; See [Institutum Judaicum et Mo- hammedaicum], Catalogus1748, was zum Gebrauch der Juden [Muhammedaner … alten orien- talischen Christenheit … Abendländer … Abendländischen Christen] herausgegeben (Halle: In- stitutum Judaicum,1748).  Bochinger, “Dialoge,” 509–20.  Preferringtoemphasize certain elementsofthePietist views and activities, David Dowdey claims that Pietists such as Callenbergre-humanized the Jews;see David Dowdey,Jewish-Chris- tian Relations in Eighteenth-Century Germany: Textual Studies on German Archival Holdings, 1729–1742 (Lewiston, NY.: Edwin Mellen Press,2006), especiallyintroduction and chapters IV and V.  Ariel, Evangelizingthe Chosen People, 55–68. ANew Model of Christian Interaction withthe Jews 97 the Jews. Jewish activists would approach Pietist or evangelical missionaries, such as Franz Delitzsch (1813–1890), who considered the mission he established in Leipzigtobeacontinuation of the InstitutumJudaicum; or William Black- stone (1840 –1935), founderofthe ChicagoHebrew Mission, asking for their help in combatinganti-Jewish accusations or,later on, promotingZionist activ- ities. Both Delitzschand Blackstone militated, in books and articles, against the and other forms of discrimination or harassment of Jews.²⁹ Delitzsch cooperated with Jewish scholars, such as (1813–1897), on literaryprojects,while Blackstone worked in tandem with Zionist leaders,such as Stephen Wise (1874 – 1949).³⁰ While promotingthe idea of the Jews’ centrality in God’splans and develop- ing protective attitudes towards them, Pietists often held stereotypical images of Jews as apeople. Contemporary historians who have examined Pietist and early evangelical views of Jews have sometimes been taken aback by these beliefs.³¹ Yetsuch sentimentsought to be analyzedwithin the context of their time and place, which often held opinions of Jews that had been percolating in European societies for centuries.Considering the Jews as God’sfirst – albeit temporarily cast-aside – nation, Pietists related to the Jews with more goodwill thanmany other Christians of the period.³² Concurrent with the Halle Pietists’ activities, some non-Pietist German writers, such as Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654– 1704), wrotevery different tracts, conveying outright hostility towardsthe Jews.³³ Naturally, one finds variation in Pietist attitudes towardsJews. Wuerttem- bergPietists related to them in adifferent waythan Halle Pietists did. Some WuerttembergPietists were not eschatologicallyoriented and did not envision aspecial role for the Jews in history.Still, for the most part,Pietist missionaries held to eschatological hopes and considered the Jews aspecial people, even if

 See, for example, Franz Delitzsch’scontribution in ChristlicheZeugnisse gegendie Blutbe- schuldigung der Juden, ed. Alois Müller (Berlin: Walther &Apolant,1882):12–8; on Franz De- litzsch’spublications in support of Jews and their culture,see Franz Curtiss,Franz Delitzsch: AMemorial Tribute(: T&T Clark, 1891), 70 – 80;onBlackstone, see Yaakov S. Ariel, On Behalf of: American Attitudes Towards the Jewish People, Judaism and Zionism (, NY:Carlson, 1991), 55–96.  Forexample,Franz Delitzsch and Moritz Steinschneider,EzHayyim (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1841).  Giuseppe Veltri, “Die Diarii des Callenberg-Instituts:Eine Quelle zur Jüdischen Kulturge- schichteinder erstenHälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Kwartalnik Historii Żydów (Jewish History Quarterly) 4(2006): 652– 61.  Peter Vogt,ed., Zwischen Bekehrungseifer und Philosemitismus:Textezur Stellungdes Pie- tismus zum Judentum (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2007).  Cf. Dowdey,Jewish-Christian Relations in Eighteenth-Century Germany, chapters IV and V. 98 Yaakov Ariel they did not always express positive views about Jewish ways.Although commu- nicated in very different political, cultural, and ecclesiastical settings, the atti- tudes of nineteenth-century English-speaking evangelical missionaries resem- bled thoseofeighteenth-century Pietists, aresemblancethat was evidentin their literature.³⁴

Literaturefor and about Jews

The Pietist mission produced books for Jews as prospectiveconverts. Likewise, the missionaries disseminated literature intended to increase knowledge of Juda- ism and Jews among Christian audiencesand interested laypersons.³⁵ The lead- ers of the Institutum Judaicum wished to present Jewish life, culture, and lan- guages in amannerthat would stir up sympathyand support.Pietist missions in continental Europe and evangelical missions would adopt,adapt,and in- crease the volume of publicationsand readers of such tracks.³⁶ These books and instruction manuals pointed to an acute interest on the part of Pietistsin the Jews and their culture, and awish to engagewith and influencethem.³⁷ The publications also allowed missionaries to give expression to their literary ambitions, includinginthe realms of translation and editing,demonstrating their knowledge of Jewish languages and texts.³⁸ In the eighteenth century,Yiddish (or rather Western Yiddish, as it is called today) was still the languageofthe German Jews, and hence apowerful tool in the missionary endeavors of the German Pietists.³⁹ The Institute’spublications included amanualfor the studyofYiddish (1733)and aYiddish-German lexicon (1736).⁴⁰ Christians had written similar manuals before, mostlytoassist mer-

 Yaakov S. Ariel, An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christiansand Jews (New York: New York University Press, 2013).  [Johann Heinrich Callenberg,] Catalogus1739. Waszum Gebrauch der Juden […]Muhamme- daner […]Christen] herausgegeben Halle, gedruckt in der Buchdruckerey des jüdischen Instituti, den 8. October.1739(Halle:Institutum Judaicum,1739). The titles of the Institute’spublications appear in different languages.  Forexample, Christopher Clark, The Politics of Conversion; Albert E. Thompson, ACentury of Jewish Missions.  Manuel, The Broken Staff, 249–92;Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes.  Elyada, AGoy Who Speaks Yiddish.  Ibid., Ch. 1: “Yiddish in the Judenmission.”  Afacsimile of both texts is included in Hans Peter Althaus, ed., Schriften zur jiddischen Sprache [von] Johann Heinrich Callenberg[und] Wilhelm Christian Just Chrysander.Faksimile- druck nach den Ausgaben von1733, 1736 und 1750 (Marburg:Elwert,1966). ANew Model of Christian Interaction with the Jews 99 chants who wished to trade with Jews. This, however,was the first time such a publication had been designed to convert Jews,⁴¹ and was the precursor of sev- eral Protestant manuals,mostlyPietist and evangelical, promotingknowledge of Jewishlanguages and cultures.Remarkably, the University of Halle, established in 1698, was the first to offer courses on Yiddish in its curriculum. By the same token, evangelicalinstitutions would become the first schools in the English- speakingworld to teach Yiddish. Secular or liberalinstitutions of higher learn- ing,includingJewishschools, would introduce Yiddish to their curricula only in the later decades of the twentieth century.⁴² The Institutepublished adiverse selection of books in Western Yiddish, rangingfrom translations of booksfrom the Bible and the New Testamenttopo- lemical tracts and Christian catechisms.⁴³ Manyofthe writingsintended for the Jews wereonprophetic themes. Pietists, and evangelicalmissionaries who fol- lowed in theirfootsteps,considered the messianic hope to be ameetingpoint between Pietist convictions and Jewishyearningsfor the realization of the mes- sianic times. From this common ground, Pietists set out to convince Jews that the Messiah had alreadycome once before and was about to return.⁴⁴ Pietists, and in the nineteenth centuryevangelical missions, thus tried to bring Jews to accept the truth of the Gospelbyutilizing Old Testament texts,which Jews knew and respected, and which pointed, so Protestants believed, to the appearance and .⁴⁵ Pietists peppered theirarguments with rabbinical idiomsinorder to heighten theircredibility in Jewish eyes.Atthe same time,theyrepudiatedthe Talmud as an unacceptable authority. In this respect, Pietists followed thetraditional, main- line,Christianunderstanding of theJewishOralLaw.TheyconsideredJewstobein need of Christianity fortheirself-fulfillmentashuman beings andasJews, and sawJewswho adoptedPietist Protestant Christianity as true Christiansaswell as ‘fulfilled’ Jews,athemethatlater Pietistand evangelicalmissionariesand con-

 With one sixteenth-century exception: Elias Schadäus (c. 1541–1593), was also the first to ex- plicitlypromotethe usage of Yiddish as part of a ‘friendly’ missionary approach. See his Myste- rium, Das ist GeheimnisS.Pauli Röm. am II. Vonbekehrungder Juden (Straßburg: s.n., 1592), esp. in the introduction. On earlymodern Yiddish manuals intended for Christian merchants and businessmen, see Elyada, AGoy Who SpeaksYiddish, Ch. 5.  Ariel, Evangelizingthe Chosen People, 93 – 100.  On the missionarytranslationsofbiblical texts into Yiddish, see AyaElyada’sarticle in the present volume.  Miktavahavahelkol asire ha-tiqwah ha-meyuhalim an ale bene goles Yisroel di oyf di geule vartn ihertslikherlibshaft geshribn.  Arno C. Gaebelein,The Prophet Daniel (New York: London and New York: Marshall Bros, 1905). 100 Yaakov Ariel vertswould further pursue.Theywerewilling to utilizerabbinicalwisdomtoach- ieve that goal.Atleast on some level, they treatedthe office of therabbinate and thoseholding thetitle with respect. They quoted rabbis when doingsosuitedtheir line of thought, andtookpride in rabbis whoconverted to Christianity,highlight- ingtheir rabbinical credentials. At times, themissionspromotedviews that corre- spondedtothe ideasofJewishthinkers of theirtime. In hisworkonthe mission’s writings,including thoseofHalle convert Immanuel Frommann,ElliotWolfson hasalerted us to similarities betweenthese andthe writingsofeighteenth-century . ThetoweringJewishrabbinicalfigure, Jonathan Eibeschütz (1690 – 1764), forexample,suggested aloosening of theboundariesbetween Christianity andJudaism in his Ve-avo HayomEl-haAyin.⁴⁶

From the Institutum JudaicumtoEvangelicals

The Institutum Judaicum inspired Pietists in other German locales.⁴⁷ Societies in Switzerland, Holland, , , and followed suite, creating their own missionary organizations,which adopted similar theologies, texts, and modes of operation.⁴⁸ While the Halle Pietists directed much of their atten- tion to the Jewish populations in Central and Eastern Europe, youngerPietist and evangelical missions in the nineteenth century carried out manyoftheiropera- tions in Western Europe and North America. If previouslythere werenot large communities of Jews in thoseareas,matters now began to change. The rise of new missions in the New World paralleled patterns of Jewish migration. Pietist, and later evangelical missions, targeted these cohorts. Pietism had anotable effect on the evangelical missions that sprung up in English-speaking countries at the beginning of the nineteenth century.LikePie- tists, evangelical Christians have emphasized the centrality of the Christian sa- cred scriptures,both the Old and New Testaments, and propagated amore literal readingofthe Bible. And, similar to Pietists, manyevangelical Christians adhere to amessianic faith, which has oftenassumedthe restoration of Israel to its an- cestralland.⁴⁹ Finally, similar to Pietists, evangelicals found mission an effec-

 Elliot R. Wolfson, “ImmanuelFrommann’sCommentary on Luke and the Christianizing of Kabbalah: Some Sabbatean and Ḥasidic Affinities,” in Holy Dissent: Jewish and Christian Mys- tics in Eastern Europe, ed. Glenn Dynner (Detroit: Wayne StateUniversity Press,2011): 171– 222.  On the mission in Berlin, see Clark, The Politics of Conversion.  Thompson, ACentury of Jewish Missions.  TimothyP.Weber,Livinginthe Shadowofthe : American Premillenialism, 1875 – 1982(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,1988). ANew Model of Christian Interaction with the Jews 101 tive avenue of approach to the Jews.⁵⁰ Evangelical missions further systematized and globalized the existing Pietist missionary networks.Evangelical groups that came after the Pietists built store-front missionary centers, which included read- ing roomsand book stores. Much of their literature was in Yiddish, the native languageofmost Jews, both in Eastern Europe and among immigrants to the New World, and in addition to books, they printed journals and distributed fly- ers. Missions recruited Yiddish-speaking evangelists, and at timesincluded the teachingofYiddish in training courses.Inthat,too, they followed the Institute’s example, attemptingtoreach Jews in theirown languages, and utilizing Jewish texts,hopes, and imagery.⁵¹ As impressive as the Halle Pietist literaryventures were, evangelical mission- aries would challengethem, seeing aneed to replace earlyPietist literature. While the Halle translations were more than adequate in the eighteenth century, evangelical missionaries in the nineteenth century, and even more so in the twentieth, found them unsatisfactory.⁵² By the time evangelicals werepreparing tracts and copies of the sacred scriptures for the Yiddish-reading audience, the Yiddish that the Institutum Judaicum labored with, namelyWestern Yiddish, was in rapid decline.Inthe earlynineteenth century,German,Dutch, Alsatian, and Swiss Jews abandoned theirYiddish in favorofHighGerman, or Dutch, or French. Eastern Yiddish thrivedamong East European Jews who, by the end of the nineteenth century, established new,often secular,venues of creativity in that language. These creative outletsincluded journals and belles-lettres,politi- cal and ideological tracts, as well as alivelytheatrical scene. With Eastern Euro- pean Yiddish alive and well, the gapbetween it and the by-now defunct Yiddish of eighteenth-centuryCentral and Western European Jews grew even greater.De- spite the exquisite quality of the eighteenth-century translations and the knowl- edge of Jewishtexts thatthey conveyed, they seemed archaic to latergenerations of Yiddish-reading missionaries and potential converts, who felt that disseminat- ing these earlymissionary tracts was counterproductive.⁵³ So, while the literary

 Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of : British and American Millenarianism, 1800 –1930 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,1970), 36–9, 53–60,62–4; Weber,Livinginthe Shadow,9–10.  On the program at the MoodyBible Institute, see Ariel, Evangelizingthe Chosen People, 93 – 100.  Henry Einspruch, “Literature for the Christian Approach to the Jews,” in Christiansand Jews: Report of the Atlantic City Conferenceonthe Christian Approachtothe Jews,ed. John S. Conning (New York: s.n.1931): 97– 102.  Einspruch, “Literaturefor the Christian Approach to the Jews”;Ariel, An Unusual Relation- ship, 126–41. 102 Yaakov Ariel initiativesofthe Institutum Judaicum served as amodel for dozens of missions that came after it,its actual publications werelater castaside. It is perhaps sym- bolic of the shifting map of Pietist and evangelical missionary hubs that the most comprehensive collection of materialsfrom the Institutum Judaicum is currently housedinthe Library of Congress in Washington, DC.⁵⁴

Conclusion

Pietistsrepresented anew development in the realmofProtestant interactions with the Jews. While some Pietist opinions on Judaism and Jews followed older Christian paradigms,the attitudes as awhole wereinnovative,ifnot revo- lutionary.Proposinganon-supercessionist understandingofthe Jews and their role in history,Pietists have mostlyperceivedthe Jews as apeople carryingaspe- cial mission. They werewilling to invest heavilyinsharing with Jews the Pietist readingofthe scriptures and messianic vision for the End-Times – regardless of the number of converts they could recruit.While they considered their version of Christianitytobesuperior to the Jewishfaith, they were also protective of Jews and argued for improvement in the Christian treatment of Jewishminorities. Pie- tists, and manyevangelicals whom they influenced by their example, encour- aged borderline Christian-Jewish expressions, resulting in individuals, commun- ities and literaturesthat bridge the two faiths. Evangelicals have expandedvarious ideas and attitudes that made their debut with the Pietists. Frommann’svision of blurringthe boundaries between Christianityand Judaism found heirsinevangelical writers and leaders such as Arno Gaebelein (1861–1945) and Ernest Ströter (1846–1922), Germanswho la- bored in Germanyand the United States in the late nineteenth century.Bythe turn of the twentieth century,attempts at creatingborderline bodies of faith and culturethat transformed older divisions between Judaism and Christianity had become more normative among evangelicals, resulting in hybrid communi- ties that soughttocombine the two traditions. Anew,postmodern spirit of inclu- sivity and choice allowed for the rise of Hebrew Christians,Messianic Jews, and JewishBelievers in Jesus, groups that attempt to meld Jewish identity and rites with Christian evangelical tenets of faith. This phenomenon traces its roots di- rectlytothe theology, agenda, and literature of Pietists and evangelicals.

 Naomi Seidman, “AGift for the Jewish People: Henry Einspruch’sDer Bris Khadoshe, Poetics Today35(2014): 303–23. AyaElyada The Vernacular Bible between Jews and Protestants

Translation and PolemicsinEarly Modern Germany

The longstanding Christian ambition to convert the Jews to Christianity received anew impetus with the Reformation and the beginning of the Protestant move- ment.Responding to Luther’scall from the early1520s regardingthe need to deal kindlywith the Jews and to instruct them carefullyfrom the HolyScripturesto encouragetheirconversion,¹ Protestant theologians and missionaries in the Ger- man lands soughtsuitable methods for successful mission. After realizingthat anti-Jewishpolemics in Latin, German, or even Hebrew,proved useless among the wider segmentsofthe German-Jewishpopulation, they decided to address the Jews in the Jewishvernacular,thatis, in Yiddish. During the Middle Ages and the earlymodern period, Yiddish served the Jewish communities in the Ger- man-speakinglands as the spoken languageand, alongside Hebrew,also as a written language. Known todayas‘Old’ or ‘Western’ Yiddish (as opposed to Mod- ern Yiddish, which evolvedinEastern Europe), the earlymodern German-Jewish vernacular was composed almost exclusively from German and Hebrew compo- nents, so that – at least from alinguistic perspective – it was much closer to Ger- man than modernYiddish.² The ambition of Protestant theologians and missionaries to use Yiddish as part of an assertive and competent mission among the Jews resulted in numer- ous missionary writingsinthe language, written and published in the German lands between the mid-sixteenthcentury and the second half of the eighteenth century.These included Yiddish translations of the Old and New Testaments (ei- ther in part or complete, and often after Luther’sGermanBible), the Catechisms, and various anti-Jewish (and pro-Christian) polemical writings. After initial pub-

 Martin Luther, “Daß Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sei” (1523), in D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 120vols. (Weimar:Böhlau, 1883–2009), vol. 11:307– 36 (henceforth: WA).  Modern Yiddish includes an additional Slavic component,absent fromearlymodernWestern Yiddish. On the history of Yiddish and the divide between Western and Eastern Yiddish see, in particular,Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, trans. Shlomo Noble, ed. Paul Glasser,2vols. (New Havenand London: Yale University Press, 2008) [originallypublished in Yiddish, New York: YIVO, 1973]. Throughout this paper, the term ‘Yiddish’ is used to designate WesternYiddish, the German-Jewish vernacular of the earlymodern period.

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-008 104 Aya Elyada lications of this kind duringthe latter half of the sixteenthcentury,³ the publica- tion of missionary tracts in Yiddish reachedits high point in the first decades of the eighteenth century,with the rise of the Pietist movement within Lutheranism and its renewed emphasis on Jewish conversion. In 1728,the devoted pietistand professor of philosophyand oriental languages at the University of Halle, Johann Heinrich Callenberg(1694–1760), established in the city the Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum,with the outright aim of spreading Christianityamong Jews and Muslims. In addition to the training of professional missionaries, the Insti- tute also had its ownprinting shop, dedicated to the publication and distribution of missionary writings; first and foremost,inthe German-Jewish vernacular.⁴ The missionary initiativeoftranslatingthe New Testamentand other Chris- tian works into Yiddish in order to make them accessible to aJewishreadership seems perfectlyreasonable. Less clear,however,are the attempts of Protestant missionaries to translate the Old Testament(i.e. the Hebrew Bible) into Yiddish for the benefit of Jewish readers. After all, the Jews had not exactlybeen waiting for the Christians to produce for them Yiddish translations of the Bible. At least from the fifteenth century, Ashkenazi Jews had in their possession Yiddish ver- sions of biblical books: first in the form of manuscripts, and, since the mid-six- teenth century,also in print.⁵

 Most notably,the Yiddish Pentateuch (with Haftarot and Megillot)ofthe Protestant Reformer Paulus Fagius and the Yiddish versions of the New Testament published by the convert Paul Helic (c. 1500 –c. 1560) and the Protestant theologian Elias Schadeus (c. 1541–1593). See: Paulus Fagius, ed., and [Michael (?)], trans., Hamishah Humshei TorahimHamesh Megillot veha- Haftarot /Die fünff bücher Mosis sampt dem Hohen lied Salomonis … (Constance: Fagius, 1544) (this translation appeared in twodifferent editions:one with aYiddish title and introduction, addressed to the Jewish reader,and one with aGerman title and introduction, addressed to the Christian reader);PaulHelic, ed., and [Johann Harzuge (?)], trans.,Das noyay Testyment das da wert ginent Evani[g]elyun … das ist … Besurah Toyveh (Cracow: Helic, 1540); Elias Scha- deus,ed. and trans, Fünff Bücher des Newen Testaments (Strasbourg:Schadeus,1592).  On the missionary activity of the Institute, see, especially, Christoph Rymatzki, Hallischer Pie- tismus und Judenmission: Johann Heinrich CallenbergsInstitutum Judaicum und dessen Freun- deskreis (1728– 1736) (Tübingen: Niemeyer,2004); Christopher Clark, The Politics of Conversion: Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in 1728–1941(Oxford: Clarendon Press,1995), Ch. 2. Foranelaborateddiscussion and analysis of the Instituteactivities in Yiddish, see Aya Elyada, “Yiddish – LanguageofConversion?Linguistic Adaptation and ItsLimits in EarlyMod- ern Judenmission,” LeoBaeck InstituteYear Book 53 (2008): 3–29,and eadem, AGoy Who Speaks Yiddish: Christiansand the Jewish LanguageinEarlyModern Germany(Stanford,CA: StanfordUniversity Press,2012), Ch. 1.  On pre-modern Yiddish biblical translations,see, especially, Chone Shmeruk, Sifrut Yidish – Prakim le’Toldoteha (Tel Aviv:Tel Aviv University,1978), Ch. 4, and Jean Baumgarten, Introduc- tion to Old ,ed. and trans. Jerold C. Frakes (Oxfordand New York: OxfordUni- The Vernacular Biblebetween Jews and Protestants 105

The literarytradition of translating biblical texts from Hebrew into Yiddish, culminatinginthe publication of two completeYiddish bibles in Amsterdam in the late seventeenth century,⁶ originatedfrom the traditional studyofthe Bible in the Ashkenazi kheyder,the religious primary school for Jewishboys.Since He- brew was no longer the children’smother tongue, the Bible lessons in the kheyd- er weremainlycomprised of the oral translation of each successive wordfrom Hebrew into Yiddish. The melamed,orteacher,recited with the children every Hebrew wordofthe text,followed by its Yiddish equivalent.From the Middle Ages onwards, an entire corpus of supportingliterature developed to assist in this form of Bible study. In the first stage, Yiddish glosses wereadded to Hebrew manuscripts, intended to clarify difficult terms in the biblical text and the com- mentaries. In the course of the sixteenth century,this medieval tradition further developedwith the publication of printed glossaries,concordances, and biblical lexicons.⁷ The gloss tradition also gave rise to the so-called taytsh-khumesh,aliteral translation of the Bible in which every wordorphrase in the Hebrew original is replacedwith acorresponding Yiddish one. These verbatim translations wereintended for use not onlyinthe kheyder,but alsointhe synagogue, as a

versity Press, 2005), Ch. 5, with further references.See also Chava Turniansky, “Reception and Rejection of Yiddish Renderingsofthe Bible,” in The Bible in/and Yiddish, ed. Shlomo Berger (Amsterdam:Menasseh ben Israel Institute, 2007): 7–20.  Yekuti’el b. Yitzhak Blitz, trans.,Hamisha humshe tora nevi’im u- bi-leshon ashkenaz … (Amsterdam: Uri Phoebus,1678) and Yosef bar Alexander Witzenhausen, trans., Tora nevi’im u-ketuvimmi-leshon ha-kodesh … (Amsterdam:Yosef Athias,1679) (2nd ed. 1687). On these - dish bibles,see, especially, Marion Aptroot, “‘In galkhes they do not sayso, but the taytsh is as it stands here’:Notes on the Amsterdam Yiddish by Blitz and Witzenhausen,” Studia Rosenthaliana 27 (1993): 136–58, and eadem, “Yiddish Bibles in Amsterdam,” in Berger, ed., Bible in/and Yiddish, 42– 60.  Here one should mention Mirkeves ha-mishne of Rabbi Anshel, aHebrew-Yiddish biblical con- cordance published in Cracowin1534, which is the first-known Yiddish printed book, and the two biblical dictionaries fromthe beginning of the seventeenth century:Moses ben Issachar Ser- tels, Seyfer beeyr Moushe (Prague: Moses ben Bezalel, 1604–5), which includes terms fromthe Pentateuch, and idem, Seyfer lekakh tov(Prague: Moses ben Bezalel, 1604), which includes terms fromthe Prophets and Hagiographa. See Baumgarten, Old Yiddish Literature,22–3. For an elaboratediscussion on the teaching method in the kheyder and its close relations to the Yid- dish lexicographical tradition see Chava Turniansky, “Halimud baheder ba’et ha’hadasha ha- mukdemet,” in Haheder:mehkarim, te’udot,pirkey sifrut vezihronot,eds.Emanuel Etkes and David Assaf (Tel Aviv:Tel Aviv University,2010), 3–35,esp. 22ff.; and see also Walter Röll, “Die Bibelübersetzungins Jiddische im 14.und 15.Jahrhundert,” in Die Vermittlunggeistlicher Inhalte im deutschen Mittelalter,eds.TimothyR.Jackson, NigelF.Palmer,and Almut Suerbaum (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996), 183–95. 106 Aya Elyada means for achieving abetter understanding of the Hebrew text,and in the Jewish home, as readingmaterial for the women and uneducated men.⁸ Protestant scholars, especiallytheologians,Hebraists, and Orientalists, were well acquainted with the Yiddish biblical translations that circulatedinthe Jew- ish communities. Bibliographical works of prominent theologians in which Jew- ish literature or different versions of the Old Testament are discussed oftenfea- ture informationonYiddish bibles, sometimes even entire reviews.⁹ Missionaries also read the Yiddish biblical translations – together with other Yiddish works that werepopularamong the Jews at the time, such as the Tsene-rene and the Mayse-bukh – mining them for information about contemporary Jewish beliefs (the famous ‘know your enemy’ stratagem). The idea, of course, was that famil- iarity with popularYiddish literature, includingbiblical translations and adap- tations, would achieveamore effective mission.¹⁰ Perhaps more surprisingly, Protestant theologians and Hebraists even used such Yiddish translations, orig- inallyprepared by Jewishauthorsfor the Jewish reading public, for intra-Chris-

 On the taytsh-khumesh tradition, see, especially, Chava Turniansky, “Letoldot ha-‘taytsh-khu- mesh’: ‘khumesh mit khibur’,” in Iyunimbesifrut: dvarimshene’emru be’erev likhvodDov Sadan bimlot lo shmonim ve’khamesh shana, ed. Chone Shmeruk (Jerusalem: Israel National ScienceAcademy, 1988), 21–51;eadem, “Halimud baheder,” esp. 22ff.; eadem, “Reception and Rejection”;ErikaTimm, Historische jiddische Semantik: Bibelübersetzungssprache als Fak- torder Auseinanderentwicklung des jiddischen und des deutschen Wortschatzes (Tübingen: Niemeyer,2005); and Baumgarten, Old Yiddish Literature, Ch. 5.  See, e.g.,Christian Kortholt, De variis scripturae editionibus tractatus theologico-historico- philologicus (Kiel: Richelius,1686); JacobLeLong, Bibliothecae sacrae pars altera(Leipzig:Gle- ditsch and Weidmann, 1709); Johann Christoph Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea, 4vols. (Hamburgand Leipzig:Liebezeit,1715 – 33), here: vol. II, 1721;Johann Gottlob Carpzov,Critica Sacra Veteris Tes- tamenti (Leipzig: Martin, 1728); Wilhelm Christian Just Chrysander,Unterricht vomNutzen des Juden-Teutschen (Wolfenbüttel: Meißner,1750).  As the ardent advocateofJewish mission in Yiddish, Wilhelm Christian Just Chrysander (1718 – 1788), noted, reading Yiddish literaturewould be beneficialfor Christians in that “one makes for oneself, from their own books,amoreaccurateand complete notion of the condition of present-day Jews,[…]their teachings, […]customs, prevalent ,motivations, most common/base sins,blasphemies […]etc.Consequently, one would be moreskilled to missionize them […]and would be abletobetter choose the most convenient means for winningthem over” (Chrysander,Unterricht vomNutzen, 20;unless mentioned otherwise,all translations through- out the paperare my own). With regardtospecific Yiddish works see, for instance, ibid., 7–8; Christoph Helvicus,ed. and trans., Jüdischer Historien oder Thalmuhdischer /Rabbinischer/ wunderbarlicher Legenden ….2vols.(Gießen: Chemlein, 1612),vol. 1, intro., n.p.; vol. 2, intro., n.p.; Johann Christoph Wagenseil, “Rabbi Mose Stendels nach Jüdisch-Teutscher Red- Art vorlängst in Reimen gebrachte Psalmen ,” in idem, Benachrichtigungen wegen einiger die Judenschafft angehenden wichtigenSachen (Leipzig: Heinichen, 1705), n.p. (here: intro., n.p.). The Vernacular Biblebetween Jews and Protestants 107 tian purposes; specifically, as ameans of assistance, or Hilfsmittel,for achieving an accurate readingand understanding of the Hebrew Bible. In some cases, wherenothing better could be found, the Yiddish translations wereevenused by Christians as substitutesfor Hebrew dictionaries and lexicons.¹¹ So far,wehaveseen that the Jews of the HolyRomanEmpire enjoyed along and substantial tradition of Yiddish biblical translations and that contemporary Christian theologians and missionarieswerewell aware of this tradition. So why did the latter consider it necessary to produce additional Yiddish translations of biblical texts for distribution among the Jews?One possible answer is that the Christian missionaries wereaware of the fact that the plain Yiddish biblical translations (accordingtothe pshat)werenot particularlypopular among the Jews, especiallyincomparison to other genres of biblical literature in the Jewish vernacular,such as the Tsene-rene,which contained large portions of aggadot and midrashim.¹² Hence, in the spirit of sola scriptura,they wishedtoenhance the dissemination of plainversions of the Bible in Yiddish among the Jews. An- other possibility,which stands at the focus of this essay, is that the Protestant theologians and missionaries were simplynot content with the existing Yiddish versions of the Bible, prepared for the Jews by Jewish translators.Intheir eyes, the Jewish Yiddish bibles wereinadequate as media for the transmission of re- ligious truth: instead of serving the Jews as ameans to draw nearertothe Word of God, these translations wereperceivedaspreventing the Jews from com- prehendingand accepting the divine message.

 Thus,for example, the influential theologian and Hebraist Johann Christoph Wagenseil ex- plained that,whenever he encounters an obscurepassage in the Hebrew Bible, he examines bib- lical translationsand interpretations in Yiddish and other languages, such as Aramaic, Greek and Latin, so as to achieveanaccurateliteral understandingofthe text.But,henotes, it is usu- allythe case “that the Jewish-German [i.e. Yiddish] translationofthe words and interpretation of asayingismorebeneficial for me than all remainingaids,and that Iremain with this [transla- tion]: how it then giveswordfor word, as clear as it can onlybe, regardless whether it sounds wellorfoul in the ”;Johann Christoph Wagenseil, Belehrungder Jüdisch-Teut- schen Red-und Schreibart (Königsberg: Rhode, 1699), intro., n.p. And see also idem, “Rabbi Mose Stendels,” intro., n.p.; Johann Buxtorf, Thesaurus grammaticus linguae sanctae hebraeae (Basel: Waldkirch, 1609), 652; Chrysander,Unterricht vomNutzen, 6, 19;and the editor’sintro- duction to the Biblia Pentapla, Das ist: Die Bücher der Heiligen Schrift …,Nach Fünf-facher DeutscherVerdolmetschung, 3vols.(Wandsbeck and Schiffbeck:Holle, 1710 –12),vol. 1, intro., n.p.; vol. 2, intro., n.p.  On the popularity of the various genres of biblical literatureinYiddish see, e.g., Turniansky, “Reception and Rejection”;see also Baumgarten, Old Yiddish Literature,Ch. 5. 108 Aya Elyada

Protestant CriticismofJewishBiblical Translations

What was it,then, in the Yiddish biblical translations, that aroused the ire of the Protestant scholars?Acentral motif in the Christian criticism was the Jewish practice of translating biblical works from Hebrew into Yiddish in astrictlyword- for-wordmanner. Emerging from apoint of deep respect for the sanctity of the biblical text,the Yiddish bibles aimed to keep the translation as close as possible to the literal meaning of the Hebrew original, leaving aside the syntactic and lex- ical rules of spokenYiddish, which werecloser to German. ForChristian schol- ars, the Jewish custom of translating verbatim from Hebrew into Yiddish, “unan- gesehen wieübel es im deutschen lautet” (regardless of how bad it sounds in German),rendered the Yiddish translations of the Bible stylisticallyinferior and barelyintelligible.¹³ Moreover,this methodoftranslation was commonly seen as indicative of ‘Jewish superstition.’ These severe condemnations appear clearlyinthe words of (1564–1629), the most influential Chris- tian Hebraist and Yiddishist of the seventeenth century.Discussing the Jewish custom of translating from Hebrew into Yiddish, Buxtorf opined that

this is, however,aflawcommon to them [the Jews] all: that whatthey translatefromHe- brew, they translate tooliterally. The Hebraisms are so persistent that they obscurethe Ger- man idiom. They superstitiously(superstitiose)hold so closelytopreservingthe extraneous and literal word that they sometimes leave no sense at all; sometimesthe sense is obscure, sometimes disagreeable. The moreignorant aperson is, the moresuperstitious he is in this regard.¹⁴

One frequentlyfinds such disparagement of verbatim translation (verbum pro verbo)as‘superstitious’ and inferior to translatingthe sense of agiven text (sen- sum de sensu)inearlymodern discussions on the art of translation.¹⁵ In the Jew- ish context,however,this notion also alluded to an enduringmotif in Christian anti-Jewishpolemics regarding the Jews’‘superstitious’ adherencetothe literal meaning of the biblical text at the expense of adeeper and more spiritual under- standing.The claim thatthe Jews werecaptivesofthe letter of the Bible and dis- regarded its spirit goes back to the , but it became especiallyevi-

 QuotefromFagius, ed., Die fünff bücher Mosis, intro., n.p. On this point see also below.  Buxtorf, Thesaurus grammaticus,652.  See Peter Burke, “CulturesofTranslationinEarlyModern Europe,” in Cultural Translation in EarlyModern Europe, eds.Peter Burkeand R. Po-chia Hsia (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2007), 7–38, hereat24ff. The Vernacular Biblebetween Jews and Protestants 109 dent in Protestant circles.Asanunshakeable expression of the Jews’ literal- mindedness, the Jewish practice of translatingthe Bible in aword-for-wordman- ner was presented in sharp contrast to the ‘spiritual’ interpretation of the Bible in Christian, mainlyProtestant,tradition. But Jewish superstition and ‘servitude of the letter’ (Buchstabendienst)ac- counted onlypartially, accordingtothe Protestant authors, for the literal trans- lation of the Bible into Yiddish. Asecond reason, from their perspective,was that the Jews weresimply not capable of producingbetter translations. Since the Jews read the Bible accordingtorabbinic interpretations, so ranthe argument,they cannot trulyunderstand the text,let alone correctlytranslate it.AsJewish ver- sions of the holytext,the Yiddish biblical translations were, as one eight- eenth-century Protestant scholarformulated it, “noch mit der Decke Mosis bele- get” (still covered with Moses’ veil), and thereforesurelyfalse and mistaken.¹⁶ In this regard, some authors quote from Martin Luther’s Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen (An Open Letter on Translating,1530), in which Luther criticizes aGerman trans- lation of the Prophets that was published in Worms in 1527. About this transla- tion, which was prepared by Christians with the assistance of Jewishscholars, Luther writes:

the art of translation is not asimple craft likeany other […]; It calls for arighteous, pious, true, hard-working,God-fearing, Christian […]heart.For that reason,Ibelievethat no false Christian or divisive spirit (rottengeist)can translatefaithfully, as is clear from the Prophets that were translatedintoGerman and published in Worms.There is no doubt that much effort was put in it,and it closelyfollows my own German; but there were Jews involved, whodid not show much respect for Christ; apart fromthat,itshows sufficient skill and hard work.¹⁷

Closelyrelated to the idea that the Jews, by virtue of being Jews, wereunable to correctlytranslate the Bible, was the claim of many Protestant Hebraists and Yid- dishists that the Jews could not translate in acorrect mannerbecause they had lost their mastery of the Hebrew language. “The Jews of our time are ignorant of the Hebrew tongue,” lamented the famous Hebraist Johann Christoph Wagenseil (1633 – 1705) in 1705,

and because of that,amongother things,the veil hangs in front of their eyes, which pre- vents them fromtrulyunderstanding the writings of Moses and the prophets;and so,

 See the editor’sintroductiontothe Biblia Pentapla, vol. 1, intro., n.p.; and vol. 2, intro., n.p.  Martin Luther, “Sendbrief vomDolmetschen” (1530), in WA 30 (2), 632– 46,hereat640.This quoteappears,for example, in Kortholt, De variis scripturae, 341–2; and Wolf, Bibliotheca He- braea, vol. II, 455 – 6. 110 Aya Elyada

amongmanyhundreds of Jews,not asingle one can be found, whocan clearlyexplain even one chapter of the [FiveBooks of]Moses, not to mention fromthe Psalms,Job, or the Prophets,and render it in acomprehensible and correct manner.¹⁸

This association between the Jews’ lack of proficiencyinHebrew and their insuf- ficient knowledge of the Bible alreadyappeared in the writingsofthe sixteenth- century reformer Paulus Fagius (1504–1549), who interpreted both disadvantag- es as God’spunishment of the Jewish people: “They are called the Hebrews (Hebreer), and yetthereisnootherpeople under the sun that has less under- standing of the true, proper Hebrew language.” Andheadds: “And so we can see how dreadfullythe Lordhas punished and afflicted them, in that he took from them not onlythe correct and true understanding of the HolyScripture, but alsothe means by which they could have attained such understanding.”¹⁹ Even worse than the Jewishpractice of translating word-for-wordfrom He- brew into Yiddish werethe passages in the Yiddish biblical translations that, from aChristian perspective,deviated from the literal meaning of the Hebrew sourcetext.Accordingtothe Protestant authors, the Jews aimedinthis wayto deliberatelyfalsify and pervert the Hebrew text,and especiallythe optimade Messia oracula,orthe places thatbear witness to the expected comingofChrist. Moreover,the Jewish translators were accusedofshamelesslyintegratingexten- sive passages of Jewishapologetics and anti-Christian polemic in the Yiddish texts, “by which the reader is led away from the beneficial use of the divine Word (asalutari verbi coelestis usu),”²⁰ and especiallyfrom the acknowledgment of Christ.

 Johann Christoph Wagenseil, “Die Hoffnung der ErlösungIsraelis,” in idem, Benachrichti- gungen, 1–125, hereat41.  Fagius, Die fünff bücher Mosis,intro., n.p. Similar statements regarding the loss of Hebrew amongthe German Jews appear in the writings of Protestant Hebraists and Yiddishists through- out the earlymodern period. See, for example, Sebastian Münster,Chaldaica grammatica (Basel: Froben, 1527),4;Johann JacobSchudt, Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten, 4vols. (Frankfurt a.M. and Leipzig:Hocker,1714– 18), herevol. 2, 281–2; Wagenseil, “Rabbi Mose Stendels,” intro., n.p.; Jo- hann Christoph Bodenschatz, Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigenJuden sonderlich dererin Deutschland(Frankfurt and Leipzig:Selbstverl., 1749),pt4,94; Johann Heinrich Callenberg, Neue summarische Nachricht voneinem Versuch, das arme jüdische Volck zur Erkäntniss und Annehmungder christlichen Wahrheit anzuleiten (Halle: Buchdruckerey des jüdischen In- stituti, 1735),65–6; and idem, Bericht an einigeChristliche Freunde voneinem Versuch, das arme Jüdische Volck zur Erkäntniß und Annehmungder Christlichen Wahrheit anzuleiten (Halle: Krottendorff, 1730), esp. DreyzehnteFortsetzung(1735),36, 54–5.  QuotefromJohann Heinrich Callenberg, ed. and trans., Genesis germanicelitteris judaico- germanicis (Halle: InstitutumJudaicum, 1737), intro., n.p. The Vernacular Biblebetween Jews and Protestants 111

Accusations of anti-Christian propaganda were often levelled at the first completeYiddish version of the Bible, translated by Jekuthiel ben Isaac Blitz (c. 1634–1684) and publishedinAmsterdam in 1678.The Lutheran theologian and Hebraist from Frankfurt am Main, Johann Jacob Schudt (1664–1722), was one such indicter.Inhis extensive ethnographic work, Jüdische Merckwürdigkeit- en (Jewishcuriosities) from the year 1714,Schudt related to this “foolish, taste- less, vicious Jewish-German translation of the Old Testament” (alber[n]e /ab- geschmackte /boßhafftigeJuden-Teutsche Übersetzung des Alten Testaments)as part of his discussion of Jewish life in Holland. Vehementlyattacking Amster- dam’sauthorities for the lack of adequate censorship in their city,Schudtconsid- ered this Yiddish bible decisive proof of the unwelcome resultsofthe overlyex- tensive freedom enjoyed by the Jews in Holland, as he formulates it,where “the Jews have their own printing shops, and there they mayfreelypublish their blas- phemous books at their liking […], in which they blasphemeand disgrace Jesus and our faith.” As an example of the waythe Jewish translator allegedlyfalsified and misinterpreted “the clearest prophecies of the LordMessiah” (die klahreste Weissagungen vom Herrn Messia), Schudt cites Blitz’stranslation of 7:14, acentral point of controversy between Jews and Christians over the centuries. Relating to the second part of the verse, “hineha’alma harave-yoledet ben” (The virgin will be with child and will give birth to ason), Schudt sharplycriti- cizes Blitz for translating the word alma not as a Jungfrau (virgin), but rather as a young woman), thus deliberatelypulling the rugout from; וי גנ פי ור אי ) junge Frau under afundamental Christian tenet.²¹ Accordingtothis and manyother examples,²² the ‘problematic’ places in Yiddish bibles werenot simply viewed as the outcome of some translation falla- cy,and certainlynot as alegitimate alternative to their owninterpretation, but as astrategic mistranslation, ideologicallymotivated by anti-Christian impulses. The old Italian adage, traduttore, traditore (a translator is atraitor), is thus im- bued in this case with additional meanings,taken not from the world of literary criticism but from that of Christian-Jewish polemics. The Jews, on this view,used

 Schudt, Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten, vol. 1, 284–5. Formoreattacks on Blitz’sYiddish bible, see, for example,Kortholt, De variis scripturae, 343–4; Carpzov,Critica Sacra, 759 – 78;Chrys- ander,Unterricht vomNutzen, 7–9; Anon., Nachrichten voneiner Hallischen Bibliothek, vol. 3(Halle: Gebauer,1749),106–8.  Fordenunciations of Jewish ‘blasphemies’ and anti-Christian expressions in other Yiddish prayerbooks and biblical translations see Kortholt, De variis scripturae, 342; Carpzov,Critica Sacra, 753 – 6; Wagenseil, “Rabbi Mose Stendels,” intro., n.p.; Chrysander,Unterricht vomNut- zen, 14. 112 Aya Elyada the medium of translation to manipulate the holytext and hence as aweapon in the war they wagedagainst Christian tenetsintheirJewishvernacular.

Protestant Criticismofthe German-Jewish Vernacular

The Christian chargesdiscussed thus far,namely, that the Jews wereincapable of fathoming the Bible correctly, that they translated the holytext tooliterally, and that they falsified biblical verses in order to conceal the places referringtoChrist were, of course,ancient in origin. Rooted in the teachings of the Church Fathers, they constituted central motifs in anti-Jewishpolemics duringthe Middle Ages and the earlymodern period, wherethey also came forward in Christian, mainly Protestant,discussions on the Yiddish Bible. Other points of critique, however, weredirected specificallyatthe Yiddish biblical translations, or,more precisely, at the languageand style of these texts. As far as the Christian authorswereconcerned, Yiddish was basically akind of German.Thus, in their eyes, the Yiddish biblical translations wereinfact Ger- man translations. The othercharacteristics of Yiddish – most notablythatYid- dish had aconsiderable Hebraic component,that manyofthe Germanwords werepronounced differently, and thatthe Jews alsoused ‘peculiarwords’ (son- derliche Wörter), namely,words from other languages as well as older German words – wereusually perceivedbythe Christian authors as mere deviations from or,indeed, acorruption of their own German language.²³ The prevailing assumption among Christian scholars, that Yiddish was no more than “incorrect,corrupted, unreadable, and incomprehensible German” (ein gantzfalsches /corruptes /unleserliches unverständliches Teutsch),²⁴ influ- enced theirperceptions of the Yiddish biblical translations. Thus, for instance, we read in the works of earlymodern Protestanttheologians likeChristian Kor- tholt (1633 – 1694) and Johann Gottlob Carpzov (1679–1767)that the Yiddish bi- bles of the Jews, “[have] an unrefined and barbaric style, […]highlyunsatisfac- tory for either Christian or for German ears.”²⁵ Depreciations of this kind appear

 Foranelaborate discussion on this point see AyaElyada, “‘Eigentlich Teutsch’?Depictions of Yiddish and ItsRelations to German in EarlyModern Christian Writings,” European Journal of Jewish Studies 4(2010): 23–42,and eadem, AGoy Who Speaks Yiddish, Ch 7.  Quote from Caspar Calvör, Gloria Christi, oder Herrligkeit Jesu Christi (Leipzig: Göze,1710), intro., n.p.  Carpzov,Critica Sacra, 751– 3(quote from 751), referring to the translation of Witzenhausen (1679); on p. 759hedirects the same criticism towards the translation of Blitz (1678). The Vernacular Bible between Jews and Protestants 113 in laterworks as well. In 1784,the professor of theologyinAltdorf and Jena, Jo- hann Christoph Doederlein (1745 – 1792), criticized the languageofYiddish bibli- cal translations in earlier periods, denouncing it as “utterlyimpure, barbaric, […] often ridiculous, and conducive to the maintenanceofthe language-barbarism (Sprachbarbarey)among the Jews.”²⁶ More egregious than the aesthetical problem was, from the vantage point of the Protestant authors, the problem of understanding,orrather misunderstand- ing,caused by the corrupted Yiddish language. The Lutherantheologian and Su- perintendant CasparCalvör(1650 –1725), for example, argued at the beginning of the eighteenth centurythat since Yiddish has no proper grammar or accurate or- thography, readers of Yiddish works,eventhe German Jews themselves, are un- able to reach atrue understandingofsuch texts.²⁷ The assertion that the Yiddish bibles were incomprehensible even to Yiddish-speaking Jews had, of course, se- rious theological implications:ifthe languageofthese bibles blocked the trans- mission of the holytruth, how would the Jews ever acquireit? The Christian notion thatthe adulterated languageofthe Yiddish bibles yielded textsthat lacked both clarity and purity was reinforced by the aforemen- tioned Jewishpractice of translating the Bible in aword-for-wordmanner. Since this translation method further contributed to the deviation of the languageof translation (the so-called khumesh-taytsh)from the syntactic structure of Ger- man, it was viewed as largely responsible for the fact that, “when one reads or hears it,one might think it is gibberishrather than German” (billicher Kauder- welsch als Teutsch).²⁸ Jewish translators,argued the theologians,

regardthe character and true essenceofthe German languageascompletelyunimportant, corrupting and falsifyingit, that it is sometimes difficulttounderstand the meaningofthe text […]sometimesthey clingsofirmlytothe Hebrewletters,sothat it becomes completely unintelligible in German.²⁹

At this point,itisinteresting to note that translatingaccordingtothe sense of the text and into idiomatic German,inorder to make Scripture as clear and compre- hensible as possibletothe broader population of German speakers,was ahall-

 Johann Christoph Doederlein, Theologische Bibliothek, vol. 3(Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1784), pt 1, 3.  Calvör, Gloria Christi, intro., n.p.  Fagius,Die fünff bücher Mosis,intro., n.p.; for similar notions see also Wagenseil, Beleh- rung der Jüdisch-Teutschen, intro., n.p. In 1705 Wagenseil referred to Mose Stendel’sYiddish translation of the psalms as aworkthat, “to tell the truth, should be called gibberish rather than German”;idem, “Rabbi Mose Stendels,” intro., n.p.  QuotefromCarpzov,Critica Sacra, 752– 3, whoalso provides lengthyexamples. 114 Aya Elyada mark of Luther’sown vernacular Bible. Thischaracteristic clearlydistinguished his translation from Catholic, pre-Reformation German versions of the Bible. These pre-Reformation German bibles were, in fact,translations of the Latin Vul- gate, and followed the Latin text in averbatim fashion, adapting the German languageoftranslation to the Latinsource. In his own translation of the Bible, Luther not onlyattempts to ‘purge’ the holytext from Catholic interpreta- tions and theological influences; he also rejects wholesale the accepted method of translation, famouslyasserting that “one does not have to ask the literalLatin how one is to speak German.” Instead, Lutheradvocatesanidiomatic, even col- loquial translation, explaining that “Iwanted to speak German, not Latin or Greek, since it was German Ihad undertaken to speak in the translation.”³⁰ In their criticism of the Jewish biblical texts in Yiddish, then, it seems that the Protestant authors followed Luther’sapproach regardingthe desirable style and methodfor biblical translation. Yetthe shifting of the discussion from the context of Protestant-Catholicpolemics to that of aProtestant-Jewish one brought to the foreground anew factor:the completeand utterrejection of Yiddish, the Jewish vernacular,bythe Protestantscholars and missionaries, as discussed above. Thus, in their ownYiddish biblical translations, such as those produced in the Pietist institute in Halle duringthe eighteenth century, Protestant missionaries werenot satisfiedwith merelymodifying the method of translation. Rather,they alsoattempted to ‘improve’ the Yiddish language by Germanizing it,that is, by reducingthe Hebraic component of Yiddish to a minimum,oreveneliminating it altogether, while retaining solelythe Germanic component of the Jewish language. The outcome was that some ‘Yiddish’ biblical translations, as well as other missionary works,wereinfact written in German with Hebrew letters,orinahighly ‘Germanized’ version of Yiddish. Whether this was the most appropriate medium for missionizing among the Jews is, of course, open to debate.³¹

 See Luther, “Sendbrief vomDolmetschen” (1530), quotes from WA 30 (2), 637. On Luther’s translation of the Bible see, for example, Stephan Füssel, “Introduction,” in The Bible in Pic- tures: Illustrations from the Workshop of Lucas Cranach (1534) (Cologne: Taschen, 2009), 4–32;Mark U. Edwards,Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther (Berkeley,CA: University of California Press,1994), Ch. 5; Eric W. Gritsch, “Luther as Bible Translator,” in The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther,ed. Donald K. McKim (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003), 62– 72.  On this point see, especially, Elyada, “Yiddish – LanguageofConversion?”;eadem, AGoy Who SpeaksYiddish, Ch. 8. The Vernacular Bible between Jews and Protestants 115

Conclusion: The Vernacular Bible Between Jews and Protestants

The vernacular Bible was arguablyone of the greatest achievements of the Prot- estant Reformation, and amajor forcebehindits success. Luther’steachings of sola scriptura and the ‘priesthood of all believers,’ as formulated in his early writings, inevitablyled to the Protestant assertion that the HolyScripture should be made accessible to every man and woman, who would be able to read and understand the holytext in his or her native tongue. It is no surprise, therefore, that translatingthe Bible into German wasone of the first and most important tasks of Luther as areformer.Thus, while the LatinVulgateremained – at least officially – the ultimateBible of the Catholic Church, the vernacular Bible became the staple of the Protestant movements, resulting in the rapid translation of the holybook into the various European from the six- teenth century onwards. Within the Jewish-Ashkenaziworld, vernacular – that is, Yiddish – transla- tions of the Hebrew Bible existed alreadybefore the Protestant Reformation. These Jewish, Yiddish translations shared an important characteristic with Lu- ther’sand the otherProtestant vernacular bibles: they,too, weremeant to make the Bible accessibletothe broader population, beyond the narrowreli- gious and intellectual elite. In other respects,however,the earlymodern Yiddish translations of the Hebrew Bible resembled the Catholic, pre-Lutheran German translations of the Latin : they producedaverbatim translation of the text,following closelythe grammatical rules of the sourcelanguage, at the ex- pense of an idiomatic translation. Moreover,unlikethe Protestantvernacular bi- bles, which weremeant to replace the Vulgateasthe canonical text,neither the Catholic nor the Jewishvernacular translations wereintended to present an al- ternative to the hegemonic, sacred text – either in Hebrew or in Latin. Instead, they wereseen mainlyasinferior substitutes,auxiliary tools to better understand the one and onlycanonized text. As this essayaimedtoshow,Protestant Hebraists and theologians dispar- aged the Jewishvernacular bibles preciselybecause of these ‘Catholic’ character- istics, in addition to their antagonism towardsthe Jewish religion and the Yid- dish languageand culture of their Jewish neighbors. Loyal to the Protestant teachingthatanindividual readingand understanding of the Bible is indispen- sable for gainingaccess to religious truth, they soughttoprovide contemporary Ashkenazi Jews with ‘improved’ texts of the HolyScriptures: textsinwhich rab- binic interpretations werereplaced by Christian ones and in which the Yiddish 116 Aya Elyada languageunderwent aprocess of Germanization; atrue ‘kosher’ Christian Bible – in language, style, and content.

Epilogue:Yiddish Bibles, Protestant Criticism, and the German-Jewish

The earlymodernProtestant mission to the Jews failed to achieveits goal. Despite the diligent publication and distribution of Yiddish missionary writings, includingnew,Protestant versions of Yiddish biblical texts,the Jews did not con- vert en masse to Christianity.Yet it seems that the Protestant theologians’ and missionaries’ critique of the Jewish vernacular Bible, and their attempts to ‘im- prove’ it,did have acertain impact – if not areligious or theological one, then at least in the linguistic and culturaldomain. In 1783, (1729–1786), the leading figure of the German- Jewish Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), published his owntranslation of the Pentateuch under the title Sefer NetivotHashalom.³² As was the case with earlier Yiddish translations, Mendelssohn, too, designated his translation languageas leshon Ashkenaz.Bythis, however,Mendelssohn did not mean the Yiddish lan- guageofhis predecessors, but indeedapure, clear Hochdeutsch,transliterated with Hebrew characters.³³ In theintroductiontohis Pentateuch, Or Lintivah,Mendelssohn criticized ear- lier Yiddishtranslationsofthe Bible, such as thetwo seventeenth-centuryAmster- dambiblesofYekutielBlitz andJosel (Joseph) Witzenhausen (c.1616 – c. 1686), both fortheir method of verbatim translation whichMendelssohn vehemently re- jected,and forthe ‘badGerman’ in whichtheywerewritten.Referring to Blitz, for example, Mendelssohnclaimed:

Even if his intention was good […]his actions arenot welcome at all, for he did not know the nature of the holylanguage, nor the depth of its idiom. What he garneredfromit, he translated into astammering, distorted and corrupt language, loathsome to the of

 Moses Mendelssohn,Sefer netivothashalom: ve-hu hibur kolelhameshet humshei ha-tora im tikunsofrim ve-targumAshkenazi u-be’ur (Berlin: Starcke, 1783).  On Mendelssohn’sBible translation see, e.g., Werner Weinberg, “LanguageQuestions Relat- ing to Moses Mendelssohn’sPentateuch Translation,” HebrewUnion CollegeAnnual 55 (1984): 197–242; Nils Römer,Tradition und Akkulturation: ZumSprachwandel der Juden in Deutschland zur Zeit der Haskalah (Münster and New York: Waxmann, 1995), Ch. 8; and, recently, Abigail Gill- man, AHistory of German Jewish Bible Translation (Chicago,IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017), pt 1. The Vernacular Biblebetween Jews and Protestants 117

.( גת לע הב פנ הש וק אר יה דו לע בד צר תוח )the readerwho knows how to speak [German] correctly And since fromthen until now nobodyhas endeavouredtostraightenthe crooked and to translatethe holyTorah into the refined language[i.e. German], the wayitisspoken in our generation, […]Itookitupon myself to translatethe Five Books of the Torahintodecorous […] ,such as that spoken in our time ,( לב וש אן כש זנ מה וס סל ול מה ות ןק ) and refined German sometimes after the word and sometimes after the sense, to educate [the children] in the correctness of the text and in the idiom of the tongue.³⁴

This sort of assessment of the traditional Yiddish translations of the Bible and other religious texts was quite common among the German-Jewish maskilim, who attempted to provide the Jewish community with ‘decent’ (i.e. maskilic)sub- stitutes in pure Hochdeutsch.³⁵ What motivated Mendelssohn and his followers to offer the Jews pure Ger- man biblical translations has been debated intensively in historicalresearch over the past two centuries: did the maskilim expect the German Jews of their time to understand the German languageoftheir translations?Did they hope to utilize these translations to promotethe learning of Hochdeutsch among their correligionists? Or did they simplywish to establish amodel of the Jewish Bible in the German vernacular?Inlight of the present essay, it seems that some additional, related questions are warranted: Were Mendelssohn and his maskilic disciples influenced in their translation project not onlybyprevious Jewish criti-

" או אם לו כי וו תנ הו יי הת צר היו / לו ךכ סה יכ ומ עב וד מכח הי וד הר אוה / בא מל שע וי לב ית צר יו םי ללכ / יכ אל  די בע יט לב וש הן וק שד / לו הא יב ען מו מק יל וצ הית / מו שה שה גי ממ הנ רת םג לב וש ען גל םי קמ לו לק מו חש מת דוא . גת לע הב פנ הש וק אר יה דו לע בד צר תוח . מו זא עו עד הת יא אן שי םש לע בל תל ןק מה וע תו / לו רת םג תא תה הרו קה וד הש לב וש הן תמ קו הן הנ גו גרומו בל וד נר ו / … וה לא ית תל גר אם חת שמ חת שמ הי ות הר לב וש אן כש זנ מה וס סל ול מה ות ןק / פכ אי רש וה נא וה בג מי וני / … עפ תם בי בה ית הב / פו םע פכ הי וכ הנ הו שמ הך נע ןי / חל םכנ [ תא יה דל םי ] כנ נו הת תכ בובו למ צי תו לה וש ן " Moses Mendelssohn,Orlintivah:ve-huhakdama lahibur netivothashalom … (Berlin: [s.n.], 1783), n.p. English translation largely after Weinberg, “LanguageQuestions,” 222, 229. And see also the introductionbyMendelssohn and SolomonDubno to Alim litrufah (1778): “[…]the books of the Bible have been translatedinto German by Yekutiel ben Isaac Blitz of Witmundt […]but the translator, though motivated by good intentions,did apoor job, for not onlywas he ignorant in Hebrew,hedid not know German either,and so ‘with stammering lips did he speak to his people’!” (English quotefromWeinberg, “LanguageQuestions,” 229).  On the maskilic discourse on Yiddish languageand literature in late eighteenth-century Ger- many, includingthe maskilic German translationsofbiblical and other Jewish religious texts, such as the Haggada or the -book, see, especially, Shmeruk, Sifrut Yidish, Ch. 5; Römer,Tradition und Akkulturation, Ch.8. And see also Jeffrey A. Grossman, The Dis- course on Yiddish in Germany: From the Enlightenment to the Second Empire(Rochester,NY: Camden House, 2000), Ch. 2. 118 Aya Elyada cism on the Yiddish biblical translations³⁶ but alsobyearlymodern Christian discussions on the Yiddish Bible? Did the maskilim wish to present an alternative not onlytothe Protestant,German Bible, but also to the Yiddish versions pro- duced by the Protestantmissionaries?Did they internalize the centuries-long Christian criticism on the Yiddish Bible, sympathize with it,orrespond to it in anyway?Did they wish to provethe Christians wrongand show that Jews were, in fact,capable of producing adecent Ashkenazi Bible? To date, these re- main open questions. Yetthere is no doubt that the mere possibility of such an influencecan shed new light on the extent and dynamics of Protestant-Jewish culturaltransferinthe realm of the vernacular Bible, and the translation of re- ligious texts,onthe very threshold of modernity.

 This internal Jewish criticism appears,for example, very clearlyinthe introduction of Yeku- tiel Blitz to his own Yiddish Bible from 1678,where he completelyrejects the entireAshkenazi tradition of biblical translationsthat preceded him, presentinghis own translation as anew and improved Yiddish Bible in both languageand style. Althoughpresent-day research confirms the novelty and modernizingtendencies of Blitz’stranslation, it was not perceivedthis wayeither by Christian scholars or by lateeighteenth-century maskilim,aswas demonstrated in this essay. Ofri Ilany Christian Images of the JewishState

The Hebrew Republic as aPolitical Model in the German Protestant Enlightenment

The past two decades have witnessed aburgeoning interest in political Hebra- ism, namely,Christian, and especiallyProtestant,scholarship on the political model of the Old Testament.¹ While Greek democracyand the Roman Republic have long been considered the main sources for modern political thought, recent research has highlighted the crucial role that “the Hebrew republic” playedin European thinking. This inquiry has awarded agreat deal of attention to philo- sophical and political writingsdealing with the alleged Hebrew constitution and state as they are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Thebulk of these studies have treated earlymodern Hebraist textsbyDutch, English, and American writers. In this article, Ipresent the Hebrew state as it appears in the works of several writers of the German Protestant Enlightenment,first and foremost among them the renownedBible scholarJohannDavid Michaelis (1717– 1791). In what follows, Iidentify the political themes and ideological contrasts in these descrip- tions of the Hebrew regime, afterwhich Idemonstrate their relation to the mid- to-lateeighteenth-century German-European political agenda. Writingsonthe Hebrew republic [respublica Hebraeorum]drew on an an- cient tradition, inaugurated with ’sreferenceto“Moses’ politeia” al- readyinthe first century CE and continuingwith Renaissance and Baroque political . The rise of German Enlightenment , however,refashioned the political portrait of the Hebrew state, imbuing it with additional hues. Unlikeearlier depictions, which tendedtoabstract the He- brew regime into apolitical-philosophicalmodel, Michaelis and his students foregrounded the historical dynamics of the Hebrew state’scoming-into-being, focusing on relations between regime, society,and culture.

 See, especially, Stephen G. Burnett,Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era(1500 –1660): Authors,Books, and the TransmissionofJewish Learning(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012); Alli- son Coudert and JeffreyS.Shoulson, eds., Hebraica Veritas?: Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in EarlyModern Europe (Philadelphia, PA:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Christoph Bultmann and Lutz Danneberg, eds., Hebraistik – Hermeneutik – Homiletik: Die “Phi- lologia Sacra” im frühneuzeitlichen Bibelstudium (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2011).

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-009 120 Ofri Ilany

Hebraism and the Protestant Tradition

Manyforms of collective identity that developed in the Christian world took in- spiration from the Hebrew model – apolitical phenomenon that Hans Kohn has termed Hebraic .² Adrian Hastingshas suggested that the Bible, by supplying an earlyand influential model of the divinechosenness of aparticular people, was “amirror allowing the imagination and creation of Christian na- tions.”³ Politicaluse of the Old Testament was expressed as earlyasthe Middle Ages in Ethiopia,Byzantium and the Frankish kingdoms, among manyother re- gions. It was in Protestant Christianity, however,that the biblical idea of divine chosenness became especiallydominant. Martin Luther’s(1483 – 1546)relation to political ideas in the Bible contained several fundamental features that influenced the development of later German Hebraism. Unlikecontemporary humanists such as Erasmus (ca. 1466–1536), Lu- ther granted real significance to the Old Testament,particularlythe Psalms and the Prophets, as well as – albeit to alesser extent – the Mosaic law.⁴ Luther also went further than Catholic theologians in ridding Christianity of the element of the “law,” as embodied in Moses, in favorof“revelation,” as embodied in Jesus. Diverging from radical reformers who soughttoreinstateMosaic law, Luther in- sisted thatthese laws pertain to the Jews alone, unless they accord with . ForLuther,Jewish lawhad no religious or political validity:while Christian rulers should govern “accordingtoMoses’ example,” they certainlywerenot be- holden to it. Accordingly, Luther left no real space for political Hebraism, the political use of the idea of the Hebrew state. In his view,the kingdom of the Jews had been supplantedbyJesus’ universal kingdom of heaven, and the prophetic promise of areturn to Zion had likewise lost its earthlyvalidity.Luther reinterpreted al- legoricallyand in relation to the Christian gospel geographical terms found in Psalmsand the Prophets such as ‘Zion.’ The Jews, then,weremistaken in their desire to reinstate theirkingdom of old rather than to aspire to the new kingdom Jesus gave to the world.⁵ Nevertheless, during Luther’slifetime and

 Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: AStudyinits Origins and Background (New York, NY: Macmillan,1944), 41– 7.  Adrian Hastings,The Construction of Nationhood:Ethnicity,Religion, and Nationalism (Cam- bridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 18.  See, for example, Siegfried Raeder, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Lu- ther,” in Hebrew Bible /Old Testament: The History of ItsInterpretation – fromthe Renaissance to the Enlightenment,ed. Magne Saebø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2008): 363–406.  Ibid., 391. Christian Images of the JewishState 121 even more so after his death, German Protestant preachers began attributingbib- lical significations to local events as well as interpreting the Bible through con- temporary political entities.

PoliticalTheoryand the Hebrew Model

As previouslymentioned, discussions of the “Hebrew republic” wererooted in an ancient tradition that goes back to Josephus’sreference to “Moses’ politeia” in his Against Apion.⁶ Beginning in the Renaissance,and especiallyfollowing the Reformation, some of Europe’smost influential political thinkers,including the seventeenth-century philosophersThomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Baruch Spi- noza (1632–1677), and (1632–1704), discussed the Hebrew regime. Several jurists even devoted whole bookstosingingits praises. Both Hugo Gro- tius (1583–1645), in his De republica emendada (1599) and (1586–1638), in his De Republica Hebraeorum (1617)promotedwhat they termed “the Hebrew ” as an ideallytemperate regime: not democratic, oli- garchical, or monarchical.⁷ The historian Frank Manuelhas claimedthat the corpus of Hebrew republic literatureinthe seventeenth century was marked by asecularizationofthe discourse on the Hebrew constitution. According to Manuel, duringthe Renais- sance and the Baroque period, forms of humanist readingthat had originated in Greek and Roman Classical Antiquity percolated into arealm previouslyre- served for theologians. He further argued that,since the Renaissance,scholars have turned the Old Testament into aconsecutive secular story.The political vo- cabulary of ’s Politics,inthis line of thinking, was the seedbed for con- ceptualizations of the Hebrews’ political history.⁸ Recent research, however,has undermined Manuel’ssecularization model. Eric Nelson, for example, has claim- ed that,quitetothe contrary,seventeenth-century Protestant-European political

 Josephus,Against Apion, trans. John Barclay(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), 263; Hubert Cancik, “Theokratie und Priesterherrschaft:Die mosaische Verfassung bei Flavius Josephus, c. Apionem 2, 157–98,” in Religionstheorie und Politische Theologie, ed. JacobTaubes, vol. 3: Theokratie (Munich and Paderborn: Fink, 1987): 65– 77.  See Guido Bartolucci, “The InfluenceofCarlo Sigonio’s ‘De Republica Hebraeorum’ on ’‘De Republica Emendanda,’” Hebraic Political Studies 2(2007): 193–210.  Frank E. Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism throughChristian Eyes (Cambridge,MA: Press, 192),118–120. And see also Kalman Neuman, “Political Hebraism and the Early Modern ‘Respublica Hebraeorum’:OnDefiningthe Field,” Hebraic Political Studies 1(2005): 57–70. 122 Ofri Ilany discourse underwent aprocess of sacralization and theologization.⁹ In Nelson’s view,the Reformation’sreligious zeal brought theologyinto the mainstream of political thought.Accordingly, the Bible became increasingly important as an au- thoritative sourceofthe divine constitution. ForNelson, the biblical model of the Hebrew republic influenced several key aspects of seventeenth-century political theory,not least among them the loss of the legitimacy of the monarchic regime and the promotion of the idea of agrarian reform for the redistribution of wealth.¹⁰ Nelson went so far as to suggest that seventeenth-century political thinkers celebrated the Hebrew regime’stheocratic aspect.¹¹ It seems to me that readingsofthe Hebrew Bible facilitated the development of the modern political vocabulary.Political conceptslike ‘,’‘the- ocracy,’‘,’ and ‘agrarian reform’ shaped the interpretationofbiblical history and, in turn, wereshaped by it.AsAnthonySmith argues, the transition from religious to modern national self-identification wastortuous but continu- ous, with biblical images resonatinginthe self-perceptions of modern nationalist movements.¹²

The Debateon“Hebrew Theocracy”

The term “theocracy,” one of the most controversialwords in earlymodern po- litical theory,has been tied to the discussion of the Hebrew republic ever since it was coined by Josephus. AccordingtoJosephus, rather than choosing to confer governance on asingle ruler,asinmonarchy, or on anumber of rulers, as in oligarchy, Moses chose “ascribing to God the rule and power.”¹³ It is hard to tell whether Josephus meant arule of the priestsoraregime in which control is, in fact,inthe hands of God himself.¹⁴ The idea of theocracy preoccupied European political philosophythrough- out the earlymodern period. After the Reformation, certain Protestant political writers in England and the Netherlands leveraged the ideal of Hebrew theocracy

 Eric Nelson, The HebrewRepublic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Polit- ical Thought(Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 4–5.  On this point,please see below.  Nelson, The HebrewRepublic, 4–5.  AnthonyD.Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxfordand New York: OxfordUniversity Press,2003), 9–19.  Josephus,Against Apion, trans. John Barclay, 263.  Cancik, “Theokratie und Priesterherrschaft,” in Taubes,ed., Religionstheorie und Politische Theologie, vol. 3: 65 – 77. Christian Images of the JewishState 123 as acritique of monarchyaswell as adesirable model.¹⁵ Other seventeenth-cen- tury philosophers analyzed Hebrew theocracy politically without positing it as an ideal. John Locke, for example, referred to this regimeinhis discussion of re- ligious toleration. Lockecharacterized Judaism as areligion based on submis- sion to law, in contrasttoone basedonconscience. This feature, he claimed, was an outgrowth of the Hebrews’ ancient regime, which knew no separation be- tween state and religion:

[T]he Commonwealth of the Jews,different in that from all others,was an absolute Theoc- racy:Nor was there, or could therebe, anyDifferencebetween that Commonwealth and the Church. The Laws established there concerning the Worship of one Invisible ,were the Civil Laws of that People, and apart of their Political Government, in which God himself was the Legislator.¹⁶

Lockewas neutral on the general notion of Hebrew theocracy,onlyasserting its inapplicability as apolitical model for Christians: aChristian commonwealth was impossible, as it would counter the separation of church and state inherent to Christianity itself.¹⁷ At the sametime,Enlightenment criticism of organized religion led to much less favorabledepictions of Hebrew theocracy. Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico- Politicus offers one such expansiveanalysis of the Hebrew regime.According to Spinoza, Moses’ constitution was aworldlypolitical one, with no special reli- gious significance.The Israelites,who weremired in the state of nature following their Egyptian bondage, elected God as theirsovereign in aprocess similar to the signingofasocial contract.Thus, God became the Lordofthe slaves, and His laws became the statutes of the state.¹⁸ Spinoza went on to enumerate the advan- tages of the Hebrews’ theocratic model but stressed the corrosive influenceofthe priestsand in its actualization, aclear jab at his owncountry’sCalvinist

 See Adam Sutcliffe, “The Philosemitic Moment?Judaism and Republicanism in Seventeenth- Century European Thought,” in Philosemitism in History,eds.Adam Sutcliffe and Jonathan Karp (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,2011): 67– 90;Miriam Bodian, “The Bib- lical ‘Jewish Republic’ and the Dutch ‘New Israel’ in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Thought,” He- braic Political Studies 1:2(2006): 186–202.  John Locke, ALetter ConcerningToleration (London: Awnsham Churchill, 1690), 39.  Ibid., and see, for example, Allan Arkush, Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment (Al- bany, NY:SUNY Press, 1994), 252–3; on political Hebraism in Locke,see also Fania Oz-Salzber- ger, “The Political Thought of John Locke and the SignificanceofPolitical Hebraism,” Hebraic Political Studies 1(2006): 568–92.  BenedictusSpinoza,Theological-Political Treatise, ed. Jonathan Israel and trans. Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,2007), 74. 124 Ofri Ilany establishment.Heevenwentsofar as to claim that God himself established the clerics’ rule to chastise His people following the sin of the Golden Calf.¹⁹ Spinoza’smultifarious impact on the Enlightenment’sRepublic of Letters has been extensivelyinvestigated.²⁰ His twentieth-century commentators are at odds as to whether his account ought to be read as awholesale negation of He- brew theocracy or as an ambivalent – or even favorable – one.²¹ Be that as it may, in Spinoza’stime, Hebrew theocracywas being reevaluated in away that would sever this term from its earlier meanings within the .²² In the writingsofDeists and radical Enlightenment authors, theocratic rule went from being avaunted humanistic ideal to being apolitical slur.Assworn ene- mies of the clergy on the one hand,and of the Old Testament on the other, these writers considered theocracy the worst of all possibleregimes,one in which the state was abandoned to the hands of corrupt clerics.²³ Following attacks in the 1730s by anti-clerical and Desist writers, European scholars began composingapologies of theocracy.²⁴ Prominent among these texts was TheDivine Legation of Moses,published in 1737 by the English William Warburton (1698–1779). In the book, Warburton claims that God himself established theocracy to deter the Israelites from practicing idol worship. Be- cause the Israelites were used to Pharaonic rule in Egypt,heexplained, God

 Ibid., 226.  On German reactions to Spinoza, see Jonathan Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philoso- phy, Revolution, and Human ,1750 – 1790 (Oxfordand New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2013), 690 – 703; Willi Goetschel, Spinoza’sModernity:Mendelssohn,Lessing, and Heine (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press,2004), 147– 69; MenachemLorberbaum, “Spinoza’sTheological-Political Problem,” in Political Hebraism: Judaic Sources in EarlyModern Political Thought,eds.Gordon J. Schochet,Fania Oz-Salzberger, and Meirav Jones (Jerusalem: Shalem Press: 2008): 167–88;David Bell, Spinoza in Germanyfrom1670tothe AgeofGoethe (London: University of London, 1984).  See, for example, RichardPopkin, “Spinozaand the Three Impostures,” in Spinoza: Issues and Directions,eds.Edwin Curley and Pierre-FrançoisMoreau(Leiden, New York, and Købnhaven: E.J. Brill, 1991): 347–58;Theo Verbeek, “Spinoza on Theocracyand ,” in EverythingConnects:InConferencewith RichardH.Popkin. Essays in His Honour,eds. James E. Forceand David S. Katz (Leiden: Brill, 1999): 325–38;Ronald Beiner,: ADialogue in the HistoryofPolitical Philosophy(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2010), 133–40.  See Ernst Michael Dörrfuß, Mose in den Chronikbüchern (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1994), 28–29.  Foradetailed survey,see Reiner Hülsewiesche, “Theokratie,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, eds. Joachim and Karlfried Gründer (Basel: Schwabe &Co., 1984), vol. 10:1075 – 80.  Wolfgang Hübener, “Die verlorene Unschuld der Theokratie,” in Taubes,ed., Religionstheor- ie und Politische Theologie, vol. 3: 29–64,here at 55–6. Christian Images of the JewishState 125 took on the title of alocal deity,ruling over Judah.²⁵ Theocracy thus transposed : instead of monarchs becomingdeities, the deity became amonarch.²⁶ Eighteenth-centuryEnglish texts dealingwith the Hebrew state tended to follow the conventions of the Renaissance-Baroque Respublica Judaica tradition, the chronologicalperiodization of the different forms of Israelite governance in accordancewith astructure originating in Aristotle’s Politics. This traditional scheme divided the period between the birth of Abraham and the Babylonian exile into four epochs: patriarchyinthe pre-Mosaic period; republic or theocracy duringthe time of Mosesand Joshua; aristocracy duringthe time of the Judges; and monarchyfrom to the destruction of the First Temple.²⁷ As Ishow later in this article, this periodizationwas maintained in manymid-to-lateeighteenth- century texts. The rise of Enlightenment-erahistorical-ethnographic criticism, however,shifted the political characterization of the Hebrew state, adding new elements to the debate.

The Image of MosesasLawgiverinMichaelis

JohannDavid Michaelis was the leading Bible scholar of eighteenth-century Ger- many. His Mosaisches Recht (1775) crystallized anew narrative regardingthe Is- raelites’ origins.Michaelis and his followers replaced the typological interpreta- tion of the Old Testamentasasymbolorpresaging of Jesus’ arrival with a historicist interpretationthat situatedthe Hebrew people within the concrete context of an ancient oriental people. Significantly, critical-historical investiga- tion was not meanttoundermine the Bible’sauthority but rather to buttress its authenticity on new grounds.²⁸ In Michaelis’ work, the juridical-historical analysis of Mosaic lawwas inter- woven with acomprehensive debate on the Hebrew regime and the figureof Moses as apolitical personage.AsDavid Wisnerhas noted, the Enlightenment worldview prominentlyfeatured “the of the legislator,” who appears in con- temporary essays as ahero and afounderofthe nation.²⁹ During the course of

 William Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated on the Principles of aReligious Deist (London: Gyles,1738), vol. 5: 51;and see also Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment,44–5.  Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses,vol. 5: 37.  See, for example, Adam ErdmannMirus,Politica Sacra (: Zimmermann, 1717).  See also Ofri Ilany, In Search of the Hebrew People:Bible and Nation in the German Enlight- enment (Bloomington, IN:Indiana University Press, 2018).  David AWisner,The Cult of the Legislator in France, 1750 –1830:AStudyinthe Political The- ology of the FrenchEnlightenment (Oxford: Foundation, 1997), 36–8. 126 Ofri Ilany the eighteenth century,however,the debate went from beingabout laws’ ration- ality and morality to centering on its efficacy. Agood legislator was one who suc- ceeded in imposing his judicial system upon his people, demonstrating political aptitude.³⁰ As noted above, prior to Michaelis, the Hebrew regime was perceivedasa stable political-philosophical model. Taking adifferent approach, Michaelis stressed the coming-into-being and the dynamism of the Hebrew state as well as the narration of the shifting relation between regime, society,and culture. In- fluenced by the figure of the enlightened legislatorinMontesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws,Michaelis fashioned Moses as apolitical genius, designing laws that suited his people’snational character,customs,and traditions. Moses himself, however,inMichaelis’sdescription, was not the subject of these national traits. As alegislator, he towered abovethe limitations of the peo- ple’snational sentiments. While the Hebrews’ beliefs and practices werecondi- tioned by national character as well as by constraints of time and space, Moses formulated his ordinances from an absolute, rational point of view.Moses, we recall, wasnot aregular Hebrew but one educated in the Egyptian kingdom. The Egyptians weredepicted as amature, prosperous people quite unlike the childish Israelites. Moses’ perspective was thus afunction of his higher vantage point: he looked over his people from the heights of the largest and most power- ful oriental civilization, aculturefamed for its sophistication and refinement.Jan Assmann has shown that European scholars of the period presented Egypt as the fount of all oriental wisdom and the birthplace of all other oriental people’spo- litical philosophy.³¹ Thus, as scholars began to turn away from the Bible and to- ward the of otherancient peoples, alternative genealogies that soughtdifferent,pre-Mosaic sources for wisdom and religion began to appear. The sourceofwisdom was identifiedwith, among other peoples, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Chaldeans – and, of course,with the Egyptians.³² Michaelis positedtwo distinct elements as workingintandem within Mosaic law: ahigher stratum of Egyptian juridicalprinciples and alower stratum, orig- inating in customs developed in astate of natural law. Each of these realms re- quired its own interpretive toolkit,and each wastobecarefullycontextualized. The Egyptian stratum of Mosaic lawwas an edict imposed upon the Hebrews from without.Incontrast,the ancient customs could be construed through the

 Ibid., 51–5.  JanAssmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cam- bridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press,1997), 94–111.  On this,see Frank E. Manuel, The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods (New York, NY: Atheneum, 1967), 70 – 1. Christian Images of the JewishState 127 prism of the mindset of the – who supposedlydescended from the ancient Hebrews. Ethnographic reconstruction of the Hebrews’ ancient wayoflife,based on travel descriptions by European travelers, thus served as an aid for under- standing the text.

Moses’ Farmer Republic

In Michaelis’ thought,the constitution of Moses, that Hebrew-born Egyptian scholar, was not rooted in the negation of imperial-universalEgyptian lawbut rather in its mixing [Mischung]with nomadic customs.One further notes this ten- dency to combine and assimilate opposing political elements in Michaelis’s characterization of the Hebrew constitution’scontent and goals. In his view, the two fundamental elements of the Mosaic constitution, namely, the suppres- sion of contact with other nations and the outlawingofidol worship, represented awise melding of the ideal and the practical. Moses realized the first principle through agrarian reform and the second through theocratic rule. The effort to curb mixing with other nations sprang,according to Michaelis, from afundamental principle of sovereignty:the main goal of the “Israelite state” was to secure the interests and property of its natal citizens. This was cou- pled by asecond goal: ensuring the Israelites’ might as acollective.Accordingto Michaelis, the entrance of foreigners into the land hindered the achievement of the first goal, but the main threat to the people’spower was the migration of in- dividuals and groups beyond the boundaries of the land.³³ Michaelis argues that Moses took two steps to stop the Israelites from inter- mingling with other peoples: first,helegislated asystem of laws meant to dis- tinguish the state’scitizens’“wayoflife” [Lebensart]from thoseofthe surround- ing peoples. To do so, he turned into lawmanyofthe Hebrews’ distinguishing customs [Gewohnheiten]. In Michaelis’sunderstanding, this was the sourceof the dietary and impurity laws, meant to discouragecommunal life with other peoples. He supported this idea with the verse “for Ithe Lordamholyand have severed youfrom other people” (Leviticus 20:26), which appears in textual proximity to the dietary laws. Thesecond step, which was intended to firmlyim- plant the Hebrews in their land, granted each head of household an estate. For Michaelis, agrarianreform, which aimed to transformthe Israelites from mi- grants to peasants, layatthe very coreofMoses’ political revolution. It was pre-

 Johann David Michaelis,MosaischesRecht,vol. 1(Frankfurt a.M.: J. Gottlieb Garbe, 1775), 176 – 7. 128 Ofri Ilany ciselybecause the Israelites had been apeople without aland that their legisla- tor sought to forge an exclusive,irreversible, and reciprocal bond between them and the land they wereabout to conquer.Inthis move,each of the Israelites was to receive an estate thathewas barred from selling permanently.According to Michaelis, this land-based constellation was unknown in otherstatesduring Moses’ time, when sovereigns would regularly invite foreigners to settle uninhab- ited tracts of land. However,Michaelispointed out,itwas similar to the situation of the Teutonic tribes at theirarrival in Germany.³⁴ Thus, in Michaelis’ work, the itinerant Hebrews become akind of national precursor of the Germanic tribes. Moreover,Michaelis uses this notion of apri- mordial political structure as ameans to criticize the absolutist state of his own time. In his view, “the goal of the state thatMoses established wasthe hap- piness of the people [die Glückligkeit des Volks], and not the prince’saccomplish- ments.” Moses, then, functioned as areal father to his people – recalling the na- tion’sancient , Abraham,Isaac, and Jacob.³⁵ Absolutist mercantilism, which subjugated the economyand society to the needsofthe , wasMi- chaelis’ manifest target.Asagainst this policy,heposited the model of an organ- ic-patriarchal economy, in which the society as awhole functions as an extended household and acts for the greater good.³⁶ In Enlightenment-era social theory,anagricultural lifestyle was deemed more advanced than that of nomadic herding. One findsinmanyGerman essays on the Hebrew state the idea that the course of Hebrew history featured dynamic sociopolitical development.³⁷ Just as the history of humanity wasdepicted as a gradual development from barbarism to political and cultural organization, He- brew history was portrayedasunfolding in aseries of stations along the people’s Bildung. Historicalprogress took place in the transition between social stages of development,from hunting to herdingtoagriculture and then to commerce.³⁸ Importantly, the discussion of peasants’ legal and economic standingwithin the state alsotouched on contemporary issues. The question of agrarian reform was on the intellectual agenda in German states as earlyasthe 1760s, becoming

 Ibid, 177.  Ibid.  See for instanceHelen Liebel, Enlightened Bureaucracyversus EnlightenedDespotism in Baden 1750 –1792(Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society,1965), 9.  See Ilany, In Search of the HebrewPeople, 59–62.  Ronald L. Meek, Social Scienceand the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1976); John Greville AgardPocock, Barbarism and Religion: Barbarians, Savagesand Em- pires (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 99–110. Christian Images of the Jewish State 129 acentral topic of discussion among the educated classes.³⁹ Ruralpoverty and backwardness prompted clerics, bureaucrats, and scholars to discuss the better- ment and education of the peasantry.Fierce criticism was levelled at the eastern ,who still employed the infamouspolicy of peasant smallholding expro- priation[Bauernlegen].⁴⁰ In the lastquarter of the eighteenth century,the idea thatonlythrough the modernization of its agricultural farming structure and the acculturation of the peasants could acivil society emerge in the German municipalities began to gain ground among the educated classes. As Rudolf Vierhaushas shown, significant efforts wereput into the foundation of commoner and peasant “patriotic societ- ies,” meant to transformthe peasants into citizens [Bürger]. Formanyeducated members of the , onlyawell-established class of freecitizenswould feel patriotic pride and fight for its homeland.⁴¹ It is against this background that we oughttoread the portion of Mosaisches Recht dealing with the “ways of life” [Lebensarten], upon which the Israelite state wasallegedlydependent.Inthis sizeable section, Michaelisjuxtaposed the structure of Hebrew society to that of contemporary Germany. UnlikeGerman society,hestated, the social organization of the Israelites was not basedona class of independent craftsmen [Handwerker]. Thus, the Hebrew state had no real citizen class [Bürgerstand].⁴² Michaelis’sanalysis of the Mosaic lawdetected no division of labor among freeborn . In fact,this was the case in all of the Bible’shistorical narratives. Such asituation was expresslyset up by Moses: by giving every male memberofthe people ahereditary estate,tobepassed on to his descendants, the legislatorsoughttoprevent them from practicing anyoc- cupation but agriculture.⁴³ By the sametoken, Moses tried to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, commerce with other lands. The autarkic ideal and opposition to anyeconomybasedonforeign com- mercewere, yetagain, acontemporaryconcern. One notes these themes in es- says by other contemporary writers,among them (1744 – 1803).⁴⁴ Like Michaelis, Herder claimedthat, of necessity,externalcom-

 See Werner Troßbach, Bauern, 1648–1806 (Munich:OldenbourgVerlag,1993), 47– 50.  Walther Hubatsch, Das Zeitalter des Absolutismus:1600 –1789 (Braunschweig: Wester- mann, 1975), 186.  Rudolf Vierhaus,Germanyinthe AgeofAbsolutism (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1988), 20.  Michaelis,MosaischesRecht,vol. 1: 179.  Ibid., 180.  See for instanceHarold Mah, Enlightenment Phantasies:Cultural Identity in Franceand Ger- many, 1750 –1914(Ithaca, NY:Cornell University Press, 2004), 24–5. 130 Ofri Ilany mercebrought about agrowinginfluencefrom abroad,encouraged citizens to leave their lands, and finallyaccustomed the people to luxuries, thus throttling their bellicose spirit.⁴⁵ AccordingtoHerder,the citizens of the Israelite state re- nounced luxury and supplied their ownnecessities;traders enjoyed no special privileges; and craftsmanship, handledinthe houses of the rich by slaves, was deemed alowlyoccupation. Therefore, no distinction between peasants, citizens, and noblesexisted among the Israelites. Discussion of Moses’ agrarian law[leges agrariae]appeared as earlyasthe seventeenth century in Hebraists’ work. Cunaeus, who explicitlybased his book De Republica Hebraeorum (1617)onMaimonidesand even praised the me- dieval Jewishsage, is an excellent example of this trend. Following the Jewish philosopher,the Dutch Hebraist stressed the fact that the lawofthe , which ordered the return of land to its original owner every fifty years, prevented the acquisition of large swaths of land by asingle person.⁴⁶ He also claimedthat the Mosaicconstitution managedtodistance citizens from trade, laying the groundwork for an agrarianrepublic. In his opinion, these agrarianlawsresult- ed in stability,thus contributing more than anyother regime to the ideal society depicted in the sixth chapter of Aristotle’s Politics. While Michaelis made no explicit reference to Cunaeus, it is likelythat he was influenced by the latter’stake on agrarian law. Michaelisargued that agri- culturewas the sole basis on which Moses sought to construct the Israelite state, understood by bothscholars as asmall-landowner peasant republic.⁴⁷ Cel- ebrating the model of freepeasantsloyal to their homeland,Michaelisheld that Moses’ agrarian state safeguarded not simplyits citizens’ loyalty but also their equalityand social cohesion. The Germans distinguishedstronglybetween the aristocratand the peasant but,asthe Hebrews had no such division, the word ‘peasant’ [Bauer]was not aderogatory one in the Hebrew political culture. The Israelites knew neither lowlypeasantry nor higharistocracy:all wereof equal stature. Individuals mayhaveexperiencedstratification by virtue of status and wealth, but there was no estate of hereditary aristocracy that enjoyed priv- ileges abovethe rest of the people. This structure endowed the Hebrew state with a “tendency to democracy” [Hang zurDemocratie].⁴⁸ Michaelis certainlystopped short of positing Moses’ agrarianlaw as amodel for the German state.Throughout his discussion of the matter,and in keeping

 Michaelis,MosaischesRecht,vol. 1, 183–9.  See Jonathan R. Ziskind, “Petrus Cunaeus on Theocracy, Jubilee and the Latifundia,” The Jewish QuarterlyReview,New Series,68:4(1978): 235–54;Nelson, The HebrewRepublic, 57–87.  Michaelis,MosaischesRecht,vol. 1: 192.  Ibid., 163. Christian Imagesofthe Jewish State 131 with his work’sgeneral system, he scrupulouslydistinguishedbetween Moses’ and modernlegislators’ starting points. However,itishard to overlook the fact that he used Moses’ politics to castigate the social institutions of the German principalities. Against the backdrop of the contemporary debate regardingthe peasants’ civilbetterment,hepresented amodel of acivil society not based on the urban classes but constructed as an agrarian republic. The depiction of the Hebrew regime as a “peasant republic” [Ackerbaurepu- blik]was assimilated into Germanpolitical discourse via, among otherchannels, Michaelis’sinfluence. Moses’ agrarianlawsalso inspired other important polit- ical thinkers of the period, especiallyJustusMöser (1720 –1794). In an extensive discussion on the subject of defense, included in his Patriotische Phantasien (1775), Möser claimed thatMoses, “the great legislator,” put in place the best legal system to safeguard liberty and property.Nonetheless, he presented Moses’ political model differentlythan Michaelis did. While the latter sawthe distribution of land to citizensasthe basis of the Hebrew state, Möser stressed that Moses strove to make all land the property of God, i.e. of the theocratic state.

Hebrew Theocracy in the German Enlightenment

Michaelis identifiedEgyptian traces in both Moses’ agrarian lawand other legal fundamentsofthe Old Testament.Heclaimed that Egypt was the model of an autarkic state that did not trade with foreign lands. As Jonathan Hess has shown, Michaelis was censuringthe imperialism of his contemporaryWestern European superpowers and preachinganautarkic politics, that is, aself-sustain- ing state model.⁴⁹ Egypt,heclaimed,did not seek to conquer foreign lands but rather based its residents’ income on the tilling of their own lands. Michaelis, in fact,bemoanedthe fact that his contemporaries wereunaware of the Egyptians’ advanced legal philosophy, which he thought could aid in modern politics. Michaelis recognized Egyptian influenceinMoses’ political strategy [Strata- gem], namely,the methodsheusedtomake his ideas areality – by which he meant the wayMoses combined religion and politics.Harnessing his political know-how,thus Michaelis, Moses used his people’sreligious beliefs to put them on the road to sustainable freedom.⁵⁰ Thismarked the birth of aregime

 Jonathan Hess, Germans,Jews and the Claims of Modernity (New Havenand London: Yale University Press, 2002), 64.  Michaelis,MosaischesRecht,vol. 1: 36. 132 Ofri Ilany identifiedasa“theocracy”–as alreadynoted, aloadedterm in Enlightenment political thought. PresentingtheocracyinMosaisches Recht,Michaelis wrote that the term “has been discussed manytimes in the past but has never been properlyunder- stood.”⁵¹ His readingofitfits his general understanding of Mosaic law. More than as aform of regime, Michaelis regarded of God’srule as the main political move Moses had taken to eradicate idol worship, which had been so deeplyrooted in the people. By crowningJehovah as over the peo- ple, Moses made idol worship arevolt against the monarchy:

Moses represented this matter to the Israelitesinyet another point of view,which givesit peculiar importance in their polity.Bytheir own free consent,hemade God their king; and thus idolatry became adirect rebellion against the state. God was the founder of their state, havingdeliveredthem out of Egypt and led them by works of wonder into his own sacred land. He thereby acquired all possible right to be their peculiar sovereignthat anyman could have had.⁵²

The invention of theocracy,likeMoses’ other moves, was intended to overcome the Hebrews’ recalcitrance and limited reason. Knowing his people intimately, Moses understood that they would not be able to comprehend the idea of an ab- stract God.⁵³ He therefore described as the godoftheIsraelites but never deniedthe existenceofother gods. Michaelis further claimed that the command- ment of aimed to turn the Israelites into Jehovah’s “kingdom of priestsand holynation”–like Egyptian priests, who werealso circumcised as part of the dedication to their god. Moses even declaredCanaan as the land holytothe godJehovah, taking advantage of the fact that worship of that deity was alreadybeing practiced there. The religious characteristics of Mosaic lawwerethus subjugated to the lawgiver’spragmatic political considerations, and the Hebrew religion wasdepicted as akind of state-ideology. As historian Ernst Michael Dörrfuß has shown, this description of the He- brew regime was an answer to the Deists’ and Philosophes’ attacks on theocratic rule.⁵⁴ ForMichaelis, since Josephus, the Jewish state had been incorrectlyclas- sified aspecial priestly regime. The storied theocracy was nothing but acamou- flage – anational rite or anationalreligion enacted by the legislatortoenable

 Ibid., 165; and see also:Dörrfuss,Mose in den Chronikbüchern, 30 –32; Rudolf Smend, Die Mittedes Alten Testaments:Exegetische Aufsätze (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002), 57–8.  Johann D. Michaelis,Commentaries on the Laws of Moses,trans.Alexander Smith (London: Rivington,1814), 188.  Ibid.  Dörrfuss,Mose in den Chronikbücher,32. Christian Images of the JewishState 133 the establishment of aunified, autarkic state. By establishingthe communal worship of Jehovah, Moses wasable to transcend the divisions among the tribes, bringingthem together under asingle political rubric. In Michaelis’saccount, the Hebrew republic was made up of twelve tribes, each of which operated in accordancewith its owngoals but which wereunifiedthrough ashared cove- nant.Michaelis compared this structure to the Troglodytes’,Arabs’,Scots’ and ancient Germans’ tribalchieftaincies, as well as to the Swiss confederacy, wherethirteen cantons wereunified into one republic but were allowed to wagewar independently. He called the tribes’ council a Landtag – like the Ger- man Reich’srepresentative assembly.⁵⁵ And he further statedonthe subject:

Amongtwelverepublics connected with each other,jealousies could not but sometimes arise; and lesser interests thereby stand in the wayofthe general .The examples of Holland and Switzerland authorize us to believethat such would be the case; and I need not appeal in of it to the constitution of the German empire, which, from the inequality of its constituent parts, is perpetuallydistracted by divisions,and often the sceneofintestine hostilities.Itwill then be granted that this jealousy was at anyratepoliticallyprobable.⁵⁶

Michaelis identifiesthe main weakness of the federative Hebrew structure as the power imbalance of the different political units, namely,the tribes. This, he held, was well-known to everyone familiar with German Reich politics. Asimilar com- parisonappeared in abook by the Helmerstadthistorian Julius August Remer (1736 – 1802), Handbuch der algemeinen Geschichte. It contained few original ideas but was publishedinmultiple editions, and it allows us to follow the changingimageofthe Hebrew regime. In the first editions of his book,published in the 1780s, Remer characterized the Hebrew regime as aristocratic.⁵⁷ In later ed- itions, however,basing himself on Michaelis, he portrayed the regime as aunion of twelve tribes under Jehovah’srule.⁵⁸ It seems that this spotlighting of the He- brew state’sfederative structure was not incidental. Juxtaposingthe Hebrew the- ocracy to the political organization of the ancient Germans, Remer claimed that the German nations’ [die Deutschen Nationen]form of government was identical to that of the Hebrews, the sole distinguishing factor being that the former did not receive acode of written lawfrom their gods.⁵⁹

 Michaelis,MosaischesRecht,vol. 1, 258.  Michaelis,Commentaries on the Laws of Moses,237.  Julius August Remer,Handbuch der allgemeinen Geschichte vol. 1(Braunschweig: Fürstl. Waisenhaus-Buchhandlung,1783), 54.  Remer,Handbuchder allgemeinen Geschichte vol. 1(Braunschweig:Schul, 1802),102.  Ibid. 134 Ofri Ilany

The use of the Old Testament as apolitical model was one of the most im- portant aspects of German Bible reading in the eighteenthcentury.German his- torians and political thinkers extracted central elements in the Hebrew Bible to leveragefor their purposes apolitical system integratedwith religion; aconser- vative constitution basedonthe people’sorganic traditions; and afederative regime maintaining the liberty of its constituent tribes. PoliticalHebraism con- stituted one of the means they employed to integrate and fashion apolitical identity in the German-speaking space.

Conclusions: Old-New Nation

Eighteenth-centuryGerman biblical scholarship pursued atwo-prongedproject: to reform methodsofBible research, particularlythrough the historicization of interpretive methods, and to reassert the authority of the Bible in responsetoat- tacks by the radical Enlightenment.The power of theologyfaculties waned, and fields of studythat had earlier been undertheir jurisdiction weretaken up by other faculties. From auxiliary subjects in support of theology, history and phi- lologybecame independentfields of knowledge.Subsequently,evenquestions pertainingtothe Bible were increasingly addressed through the use of historical and juridical tools,whereby biblical events wereexplained in circumstantial and natural terms. Michaelis and his students strovetodemonstrate thatthe Hebrews’ customs and laws werenot uniquebut rather had developed in anatural manner, in a similar fashion to those of other nomadic peoples. Yet, it is not the case that Mi- chaelis viewed biblical lawashaving merelyarchival value and nothing more. In fact,the German scholar’sinterpretation oscillates between the biblical world and European society of his own time. In the comparisons and analogies he draws, biblical customs are paralleled with European ones. Biblical lawisnot necessarilyinterpreted as an “archeologicalremnant” of adifferent time and place; the dilemmasraised by biblical laware at times debated as issues on con- temporary European and Germansociety’sagenda. Biblical exegesis serves here as amedium for debating timelyquestions; investigation into Mosaic lawbe- comes asort of debate on social reform in which Moses is construed as siding with enlightened social reformers. In fact,Mosaic lawistouted as the model of alegal codex perfectlyadapted to the “national concept” of its subjects. Michaelis’sportrait of the Hebrew regime is mainlydrawn from earlier texts dealing with this subject – from Josephus to Warburton. However,hestands apart from his predecessorsinhis portrayal of Moses as the quintessential polit- ical reformer.Inthis understanding,Moses undertook to transformthe Hebrews Christian Imagesofthe Jewish State 135 from apopulation of lawless migrants into asedentary people whose livesare organized around agriculture, autocracy, and monotheism. Although national identity was not Michaelis’sfocal point,nationaland eth- nic categories do feature in his writing.Asopposedtoearlier Enlightenment legal interpreters,hecontendedthatthe substance of the state was not the lawbut rather the people. Under the influenceofMontesquieu, Michaelis makes ethnographical distinctionsbetween various peoples, taking into account local variables – aboveall, climate.Yet these distinctionsservetoindicate the relativity of all laws and to demonstrate that they are suited to the conditions of their legislation. Every legal system is preceded by the entity that establishes and cultivates it: the people itself. And, as much as he tries to identify the char- acteristics of an ‘Oriental mentality’ in the Mosaic law, Michaelis seeks to deci- pher in this lawthe signs of national mentality or,more generally, the traces of its people.

Johannes Gleixner Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization?

Czech Jews and Protestants Competing and Cooperating for the Religion of the Future, 1899–1918

Introduction: Czech Jews and Protestantsas PoliticalAllies and Avant-gardeofCzechness

In 1932,the “Svaz Čechů-židů vCeskoslovenské republice” (Union of Czech-Jews in the Czechoslovak Republic) published asmall booklet on the history of its movement.The text opened with the common ground of Jews and in the Bohemianland:bothwereheirs of the Czech reformation, struggling against Catholic Habsburgrule and its attempts at Germanization. Even more than the Czechs, the author claimed,the Jews had to overcomeGerman influences to find their place within the nation. In the end, he concluded, they succeeded, and the democratic and tolerant Czechoslovak republic exemplified this success- ful Czech-Jewishtrajectory.Itwas strikingly obvious to the author that,although heavilyreferencing the Czech reformation as an overall concept of the national history,this path did not end in the emergence of aProtestant nation, but in an entirelynew religious and national entity.¹ In asimilar vein, František Žilka (1871– 1944), aprominent Czech Protestant clergyman, praised the republic’sfounding president,Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850 –1937), calling him the embodiment of the religious foundationsofthe Czechoslovak state. Guiding Žilka’sreligious vision was “humanity,” an idea at once Protestant and universal.² Onlybybeing religious in this waycould ana- tion succeed.³

 Dějiny českožidovského hnutí (Prague: Svaz Čechů-židů vCeskoslovenskérepublice, 1932), 1–2.  The Czech word used for humanity, “humanita” was aneologism, describingahumanitarian political concept.  František Žilka, “MasarykaProtestantism,” in MasarykůvSbornik. Časopis proStudium Živo- ta aDíla T. G. Masaryka. Svazek čtvrtý:T.G.Masarykovi k šedesátým narozeninám. Redigovali EdvardBeneš,František Drtina, František KrejčíaJanHerben, eds. Vasil K. Škrach and Druhé

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-010 138 Johannes Gleixner

In the present article, Idonot wish to dwell on the peculiarities of Czech- Jewishassimilation.⁴ Taking adifferent course, Iseek to signal the strongparal- lels between the positions of two influential groups,one consistingofCzech Protestants and one of Czech Jews, when faced with the question of integration or assimilation into aCatholic or secular vision of society without repudiating one’sreligious and cultural identity.Atthe turn of the twentieth century, the two communities were similarlypressured to assimilate into mainstream society, and they formulatedanalogous answers to the question of their place in afuture Czech nation. Thus, they werenot onlyallies out of necessity in thatthey repre- sented religious minorities in an overwhelminglyCatholic society;rather,they successfullyshaped aprogressive religious counter-narrative of the modern Czech nation, opposing the position thatmelded traditionalist religion with sec- ular nationalism.⁵ Ultimately, Czech Protestants and Jews drew on avision of religious progress that could incorporate different identitieswhile remainingCzech in its essence. In doing so, theyjoined forces with other progressive activists. Givenits size, this religious-political coalition was surprisingly successful in the 1907Austrianelec- tion, the first under universal male . Moreover,itmanaged to critically shape the discourse of the new Czechoslovak republic in 1918.

The Czech NationalNarrative in the 19th Century

The Czech national movement of the nineteenth centuryprided itself on being a large tent.Unlikeother contemporary collective narratives, proponents of the Czech “national rebirth” did not tie theirnational identity to an existing religious

Vydání, MasarykůvSborník 4(Prague: Čin, 1930): 106–19,hereat108–9. Of course, thereisa multitude of similar sourcesbetween 1918 and 1938.  This had alreadybeen done in comprehensive fashion by several scholars.See Hillel Kieval, The MakingofCzech Jewry:National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870 – 1918 (Oxford and New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1988); Martin J. Wein, History of the Jews in the Bohe- mian Lands (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015); Michal Frankl, “Prag ist nunmehr antisemitisch”: TschechischerAntisemitismus am Ende des 19.Jahrhunderts,Studien zum Antisemitismus in Europa 1(Berlin: Metropol, 2011); Kateřina Čapková, Czechs,Germans,Jews?National Identity and the Jews of Bohemia (Oxfordand New York: Berghahn Books,2012); for an earlier account, see also Martina Niedhammer,Nur eine “Geld-Emancipation”?Loyalitäten und Lebenswelten des Prager jüdischen Großbürgertums 1800 –1867, Religiöse KulturenimEuropa der Neuzeit 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2013).  To acertain extent,this was an attempt to incorporate the vision of the first Czech awakeners, from acentury earlier,into modern society. Standard-bearers of Hussitism or AgentsofGermanization? 139 denomination, but rather to ahistoricalone. They managed to do so by pitting themselvesagainst adecidedlyCatholic monarchyand invoking aunique Czech tradition of religious tolerance, dating backtothe Czech reformation and its mar- tyr JanHus (c. 1370 –1415). At the same time, there remained an abiding tension between this vision of an historicallytolerant nation and moreexclusivist no- tions of the Hussite past,which could at times be virulentlyanticlerical and anti-Semitic. Still, until the late nineteenth century,nationalist ideologywas re- stricted largely to the upper strata of society,making it amatter of asmall elite. Alongsidethe Czech languageand the historical rights of the Bohemian es- tates,Hus and the community of Czech brethren, as well as the whole period of the Bohemianreformation through the battle of White Mountain, became sym- bols of the growingnational consciousness. While the Czech nationalimagery – like manyothers – had adistinctlyreligious ring to it,itdid not align with asingle religious denomination. In the aftermath of the 1848 revolution, mem- bers of the reformed Church had seen themselvesasthe embodiment of aProt- estant nation, but Lutherans stayedwithin atransnationalframeworkupuntil 1900.⁶ And although manyofthe fathersofthe Czech national rebirth had in- deed been Protestants of either the reformed or the Lutheran church,the bulk of the Czech-speaking population remained Catholic.⁷ Theemerging nationalist framework of the late nineteenth century, therefore, was not that of aProtestant, but rather anon-Catholic (and non-German) nation.⁸ This allowed not only Czech-speaking Lutherans and reformed Protestants,but alsoCzech-speaking Jews, to portray themselvesaspart of the nation and to craft asingular spiritual

 The Czech-speakingLutheran community nationalizeditself much later than the reformed church because the latter encompassed most of the Czech Protestants.Itwas also the reformed church several nationalist intellectuals convertedto. Nonetheless, the notion of one existingna- tional denominationnever gained much traction. See Ondřej Matějka, “Čeští luteráni 1861–1918: od emancipace kunii,” in Luteráni v českých zemích vproměnách staletí, eds.JiříJust,Zdeněk R. Nešpor,and Ondřej Matějka (Nakladatel: Lutherova Společnost,2009), 219–309;ZdeněkR. Nešpor, “Evangelickécírkve,” in Náboženství v19. století: Nejcírkevnějšístoletí nebo období zrodu českého ateismu?, eds. ZdeněkR.Nešpor and akol. (Prague: Scriptorium, 2010): 116–68.  Patrick Cabanel points out some interestingsimilarities to French nationalists of the time; see Patrick Cabanel, “Protestantism in the Czech Historical Narrative and Czech Nationalism of the Nineteenth Century,” National Identities 11:1 (2009): 31–43.  Martin Schulze Wessel, “Die Konfessionalisierungder tschechischen Nation,” in Nation und Religion in Europa: Mehrkonfessionelle Gesellschaften im 19.und 20.Jahrhundert,eds. Heinz- GerhardHaupt and Dieter Langewiesche(Frankfurt am Main: Campus,2004): 135–50. 140 Johannes Gleixner symbiosis under the banner of arather vagueand purposely ahistorical Hussite tradition.⁹ The liberalgovernments in the 1860s had provided legal security and eman- cipation to both Protestants and Jews in the Habsburgmonarchy.¹⁰ Religious communities werestrengthened and showed signs of what could be called ‘con- fessionalization,’ when attemptingtounify (and nationalize) their services in churches and synagogues as well as establishing control over more outlying communities in the Bohemianlands.¹¹ It was the situation in these smaller towns that might be said to have driventhe changes within each community. This was particularlytrue for the Protestant and Jewishminorities, whose more progressive wingsestablished themselvesintowns like Kolín and Pardu- bice. In both Czech Protestant and Czech Jewish communities,this development originated within similar socio-cultural groups of intellectuals, whose vision was to integrate into the Czech mainstream nationalidentity by retaining their own spiritual identity. By the late nineteenth century,amodern society with all the signs of social differentiation and amasspublic had begun to emerge in the region. Czech elites had long agoemancipatedthemselvesfrom what they perceivedasaneffort to Germanize theirculturewithin the HabsburgEmpire. By the late 1880s, within an expanding public, abourgeois liberal national party – Česká strana svobodmysl- ná,referred to as the ‘Young Czech Party’–started to dominate the national dis- course as well as elections to the Vienna chamber of deputies.¹² Jews and Prot- estants alike perceivedtheirfatelinked to that of liberalnationalism. This

 Kateřina Čapkováand Michal Frankl, “Diskussionen über die ‘Judenfrage’ in den böhmi- schen Ländern,” in Die “Judenfrage” in Ostmitteleuropa: Historische Pfade und politisch-soziale Konstellationen,eds.Andreas Reinke et al., Studien zum Antisemitismus in Europa 8(Ber- lin: Metropol, 2015): 183–247, here at 184–6.  Although the main Protestant churches were recognized by the Austrian statealreadyinthe lateeighteenth century,itwas the “Protestantenpatent” of 1861which restrictedthe (renewed) legal influenceofthe Catholic church in religious matters for good.  The use of the term “confessionalization” in this contextisrightfullydisputed. Forthe sake of this argument,itshould simplydefine attempts of intensified institutionalization and homog- enization of religious communities.See Wolfgang Häusler, “Die österreichischen Juden zwischen Beharrungund Fortschritt,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, vol. IV:Die Konfessionen, eds.Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985): 633 – 69,hereat655;ZdeněkR.Nešpor, “Náboženskéoživení vevangel- ických církvích ve druhé polovině 19.století,” in Christianizace českých zemí vstředoevropské perspektivě,ed. JiříHanuš (:MaticeMoravská, 2011): 268–87.  See Bruce M. Garver,The YoungCzech Party 1874 – 1901 and the EmergenceofaMulti-Party System,Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany111 (New Havenand London: Yale University Press, 1978), 190 –8. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 141 integrative nationalist consensus held until the late 1890s, despite the increas- ingly overt anti-Semitism and anticlericalism of an influential wing of the Young Czechs.¹³ By the turn of the century, the two Protestant churches found themselvesin parallel positions. Although by and large they had nationalizedthemselves, they remained minority denominations. Moreover,advocating aProtestant nation placed Czech patriots uncomfortablyclose to pan-German nationalism and its attacksagainst the Catholic Habsburgmonarchy. In response to this political cli- mate, agroup of younger clergymen, advocating an independent,unified, and politically active Czech Protestant church, became increasingly influential. In 1919,this unified “Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren” (Českobratrskácír- kev evangelická)became areality.¹⁴ Amongst Jews in the Bohemianlands, aCzech-Jewish assimilationist move- ment appeared during the late 1870s. They likewise appealed to the national symbolism of the Czech nation and condemned anti-Semitism as aGerman, rather than Czech, trait.Within the Jewishcommunities,these “Czecho-Jews” called upon others to speak Czech and integrate into the Czech nation, whose historical character was one of tolerance. At the turn of the century,this move- ment could claim success in turningagrowingnumber of Bohemianand Mora- vian Jews towards assimilation:the Czech languagebegan to overtake Germanin virtuallyall rural and small-townJewishcommunities,Pragueasthe largest city being something of an exception to this trend. Accordingtothis assimilationist movement,Jews wereindebted to the Czech nation and should strive to be as Czech as possible.¹⁵

 Alreadyin1873,shortlybeforehis death, František Palacký (1798–1876), doyen of the Czech national movement,had to reacttogrowing tensions in the national movement and stressed his Lutheran background against anticlerical attacks from Národnílisty,the most influential news- paper of the national movement,which was accusinghis denomination of illoyality;see Ondřej Matějka, “Čeští luteráni 1861–1918:odemancipacekunii,” in Just,Nešpor,and Matějka, eds., Luteráni v českých zemích vproměnách staletí, 219–309,hereat266.  Seeingasseveralleaders in both churches advocatedaunified church long before,Iwill use the term “Protestant” in arather indiscriminateway,whenspeakingofprogressive Lutheran and Reformed Protestants alike.  Hillel Kieval, Languages of Community:The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 151–5; Iveta Vondrášková, “The Czech-Jewish Assim- ilation Movement and its Reflection of Czech National Traditions,” Judaica Bohemiae 36 (2000): 143 – 59,here at 153–5. 142 Johannes Gleixner

The National Consensus FallsApart

By the late 1890s, however,the fledgling masspublic threatened to outstrip the liberal nationalists themselves. In the Bohemianlands, but alsothroughout the whole of Cisleithania, the liberal partieswerethrown into crisis. Existing dis- courses on collective identityshattered. The most visiblechangewas the decline in influenceofthe Young Czech Party,which had won several landslide victories in elections between 1889 and 1891 and had become the undisputed representative of Czech bourgeois na- tionalism. Itsproponents struggled to competewith the rising massmovements of the workingclass and rural political Catholicism, and the integrative narrative of an anti-Catholic nation started to lose traction. As the Czech publicitself grew, so did the realization that most Czechs were, after all, Catholic. At the same time, German was supplanted by agrowingand aggressive pan-German movement,thus making new formsofcooperation in the Vienna chamber of deputies anecessary political movefor Czech liberals.¹⁶ The leadership of the Young Czech Club in Vienna had to navigate among Catholics, socialists and pan-Germans. Some concessions to Catholic partieswererequired, aconse- quence of the obstructionistpolitics of the German nationalists and the intran- sigence of the workers’ movement.¹⁷ Beginning in 1891, the Young Czechs had to strike abalancebetween their integrative position as the dominant Czech party and their need to compromise with the government.This led to criticism of the party from both within and without,and weakened its grip on the Czech intel- lectualscene as the onlyoption for political action.¹⁸ In 1897, the political landscape of Bohemia sawseveral new currents.Mostly originating in the Young Czech Party,these currents wereappalled at the latter’s compromise position vis-à-vis the monarchy. These “progressives” (pokrokáří), mostlyyoungintellectuals from the small towns of Bohemia,never formed asin- gular party.Instead, they adhered to acommon political framework thatper- ceivedpolitics as ageneral culturalactivitybeyond elections and parliament,

 The anti-Semitic and anti-Habsburg “Alldeutschen” movement led by GeorgRitter von Schönerer (1842–1921)did exceptionallywell amongst the Germans in Bohemia, winningare- cordof21seats in the 1901 elections.Although short-lived, its impact on the Czech political pub- lic should not be underestimated.  See KarelKramář,Anmerkungen zur böhmischen Politik. Ausdem Böhmischen übersetzt vonJosef Penízek (Vienna: Konegen, 1906), 24.  Forastill relevant overview,see OttoUrban, Die tschechische Gesellschaft 1848–1918, Anton GindelyReihe zur Geschichteder Donaumonarchie und Mitteleuropas 2(Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar:Böhlau, 1994), 626 – 34. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 143 weresharplycritical of the Catholic Church, and had adeep interest in the so- called social question.¹⁹ At the same time, the consensus on what defined Czech history (and there- fore Czech identity) was becomingincreasinglyfragile. Starting with adebate on supposedlyhistorical Czech manuscripts, which proved to be fabrications from the earlynineteenth century,the intellectual public contested the historical meaning of the “Czech question.” This sparked adiscourse that lastedfor de- cades. Basically, the issue boileddown to that of historical truth versus the his- torical meaning of the Czech nation.²⁰ Embedded in this controversy was the question who belonged to this nation and who could enter it.²¹ The rural masses, who heretofore had been little more thanobjects of intel- lectualnationalist visions, started to enter the public sphere. As the nation grew,sodid the pressureonminorities to assimilate. The rise of anti-Semitic movements across the monarchywas one reaction to the crisis of liberalism and political mass mobilization through agraduallyexpanding electorate.²² The anti-Semitism was furthered by the peculiarplace Jews found themselves in several Bohemian and Moravian cities, wherethey could tip the electorate to either aGerman or aCzech majority.Atone moment they might be viewed as coveted keystolocal majorities, and at the next traitors to the national cause.²³ The Czech nationalist movement,hoping to overcome Austrian-German supremacy, put pressure on BohemianJews to fall in line with the national cause

 See JanHavránek, “Počátky akořenypokrokového hnutí studentského na počátku devdesa- tých let 19.století,” Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis. Příspěvkykdějinám Univerzity Karlovy 2:1(1961): 5–33;Karen J. Freeze, “The Progressive Youth of the 1890s:Childrenofthe December Constitution,” in Bildungsgeschichte, Bevölker- ungsgeschichte, Gesellschaftsgeschichteinden böhmischen Ländern und in Europa: Festschrift für JanHavránek zum 60.Geburtstag, eds.Hans Lembergetal., Schriftenreihe des österreichi- schen Ost-und Südosteuropa-Instituts 14 (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1988): 275–85.  Miloš Havelka, “Spor osmysl českých dějin 1895–1938,” in Sporosmysl českých dějin 1895– 1938, ed. Miloš Havelka(Prague: Torst,1995): 7–43,esp. 10 –24.  Alreadyduringthe 1850s self-styled Czech patriots had attacked Bohemian Jewish publicists likeDavid Kuh(1819–1879)for castingdoubt on the veracity of the manuscripts.See Kieval, Languages of Community, 92– 3.  Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive :Liberal Politics, Social Experience,and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848–1914(Ann Arbor,MI: University of MichiganPress, 1996), 223–25.The period of 1897–1907was atransitional one, startingwith the expansion of the cen- sus franchise and endingwith the 1907elections by universal male suffrage.  See Markéta Weiglová, “Jews as aBarometer of the National Struggle in Bohemia and Mora- via, 1890 –1910,” Judaica Bohemiae 43 (2007): 93 – 120, hereat106–8. 144 Johannes Gleixner and was quick to themincase of political defeat.²⁴ However,these de- mands allowed onlyfor completeassimilation and neglectedthe possibilityofa Czech-Jewishagency. While the Czech milieu did not see afull-blown racially chargedanti-Semitism likethe German-Austrian one, it did develop amoreex- clusive visionofCzechness.Whether the anti-Semitic undertones centered on po- litical accusations of Jews as agents of Germanization or on popularCatholic stereotypes, the effect was the same: agrowingnumber of Czech elites denied that Jews could be apart of the nation. Consequently, Czech anti-Semitism even- tuallydid develop into apolitical forceofits own.²⁵ Moreover,several of the par- ties thatemergedinthe late 1890s were – like the National Social Party – quite willing to use anti-Semiticslogans as an electoralrallying cry.The rise of polit- ical Catholicism dealt another blow to the political influenceoftraditional liber- al nationalism. Protestants, of course, wereinamuch strongerposition. Still, the quest for the meaning of Czech history started to reframe the narrative of “ vs Catholics.” Anew generation of historians pointed to the importance of the Cath- olic phases in Czech history,claiming thatone oughttoaffirm Czech history as a whole or refrain from claiming historical truths about the nation.²⁶ This ap- proach jeopardized the privileged position of Czech Protestants,who could arguefor aProtestant interpretationofhistory more openlythan Czech Jews, but nonetheless had to face agrowingCatholic Czech nationalism.

Convergenceatthe Turn of the Century, 1897–1904

By 1897, some Czech Jews and Protestants had entered aconverging trajectory with the progressive movement: they all resisted the emerging alliance between the Young Czech Party and the Catholicrural masses, and countered the vision of an agnostic, but practicallyCatholic, nation with that of asecond Czech spi- ritual awakening,akintothe national rebirth in the first half of the nineteenth century.Yet,atrue political alliance between these groups remained unlikely: Jewishassimilationists wereaware of the anti-religious stance of most progres-

 Hillel Kieval, “Nationalism and Antisemitism: The Czech-Jewish Response,” in Livingwith Antisemitism: The Jewish Response in the Modern World, ed. Jehuda Reinharz (Hanover, N.H.: Brandeis University Press by University Press of New England, 1987): 210–33,esp. 213–5.  Frankl, Prag ist antisemitisch, 16–7.  Miloš Havelka, “Spor osmysl,” in Spor osmysl českých dějin 1895–1938, 10 –24. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 145 sives, includingborderline anti-Semiticattacks on “Mosaic ”;Protes- tants – especiallymembers of the reformed church – still sawthemselvesas the one and onlytrulyCzech denomination; and, apartfrom theirvirulent anti- clericalism, most progressiveswereunconcerned with questions of religion and felt satisfied with avagueneed for aculturalrenaissance.²⁷ Asuccession of events that took place between 1897and 1904,however, changed everything.Inthis period, progressiveliberal thought was linked with religion, creating amovement,which – although small in numbers – catered specificallytoreligious minorities and proved influential. Additionally, apro- gressive framework and its proponents became dominant within each religious community,transcendingtraditionalnotionsofinstitutionalized religion.

The Hilsner Affair and the Emergenceofa Progressive Czech-JewishMovement

The first event that rattled traditionalpolitical allegiances was the Hilsner affair of 1899.Since the early1890s, the publicmood in Bohemia was prone to anti-Se- mitic outbursts. Followingabroad campaign of nationalists for Czechs to patron- ize Czech businesses (svůjksvému), Jewish businesses weretargeted for public violence. The situation in Prague was especiallyvolatile, as the city had become the focalpoint of the Czech-German conflict.Alreadyearlyin1897, the Young Czech Party had fielded an openlyanti-Semitic candidatefor the upcomingelec- tions to the chamber of deputies, hoping to absorb the expanded electorate.²⁸ As aconsequenceofthe introduction and subsequent retraction of the languageor- dinancesbythe Badeni governmentin1897, first Germans, and then Czechs in Prague had rioted. Jewish businessesand buildingsbore the bruntofthese as- saults.²⁹ The peak of this anti-Semitic wave was probablythe well-known Hilsner af- fair,which marked aturning point in the relations of Czech Jews and the Czech national movement.³⁰ In 1899,after ayoung girl was found dead in the East Bo-

 Under the manifest of “Českámoderna” (Czech modernity), several influential writers of the young generation had decried the lack of culture in the Czech liberal establishment.  Hillel Kieval, “Nationalism and Antisemitism,” 216–7. Thereare,ofcourse, obvious parallels to the rise of Karl Lueger (1844–1910) in Vienna.  Kateřina Čapkováand Michal Frankl, “Diskussionen über die ‘Judenfrage’ in den böhmi- schen Ländern,” 224–7.  To put it into context, alreadyatthe time therewas talk of it as the “Austrian ,” with several obvious parallels in how both cases were beingtreated in the public. As T. G. Ma- 146 Johannes Gleixner hemiantown of Polná, the local authorities arrested aJewish vagabond, Leopold Hilsner, and accusedhim of murderingher in line with Jewishrituals. Accusa- tions of ritual murder werestill quite common in the region, particularlyin rural Catholic areas.What made the Hilsner case special was that the authorities seemed to endorse the blood libel.³¹ Subsequently,the whole trial became an anti-Semitic showcase, with not onlyHilsner but all Jews on trial, as it were.³² One of Hilsner’sfew public defenders was aCzech university professor named Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who was awell-known public intellectual and support- er of the progressive cause. He intervened afterHilsner was alreadyconvicted of the murder,but accomplished the reopening of the case mainly by attackingthe idea of ritual murder as scientifically absurd.³³ As the Young Czech Party showed no sign of reining in its more anti-Semitic members or condemningthe affair, the Czecho-Jewish assimilationist movement was thrown into crisis. Afterits main newspaper,the Českožidovské listy, contin- ued to support the nationalist movementeveninthe face of the latter’ssupport of anti-Semitic tendencies,agroup of young Czech Jewish intellectuals, led by EduardLederer (1855–1944), Viktor Vohryzek (1864–1918), and Bohdan Kline- berger(1859–1928), brokeaway. The breakaway group called itself “Rozvoj” (Ad- vancement)and publishedajournal of the samename.³⁴ Based in the Bohemian town of Pardubice, Rozvoj stilladvocated Czech-, but recon- figured it by speaking of the acculturation of aseparate Jewish identity within a national framework.³⁵ It also pointed to the need for new and more modern po- litical allies: Czech liberals had betrayed the teachings of Husand abandoned the path to enlightenment that these teachings had provided. The solution was the strengthening of : anti-Semitism, after all, was essentially

saryk,one of the main protagonists of the affair,noted, it had an international impact that none of the participants foresaw. Foradetailed reconstruction as well as the historical contextofthe affair,see the articles in Miloš Pojar,ed., Hilsnerova aféra a českáspolečnost 1899–1999.Sbor- ník přednášek zkonference na Univerzitě Karlově vPraze ve dnech 24.–26.listopadu1999 (Pra- gue: Židovskémuzeum vPraze, 1999).  As Kovtun points out,such cases did show up in courtperiodicallybut wereusuallyrejected by the authorities. JiříKovtun, “Historickádimenze Hilsnerovapřípadu,” in Pojar, ed., Hilsner- ova aféraačeskáspolečnost 1899–1999,17–23,esp. 17– 8.  Without further proofitwas assumed that Hilsner had been helped by two – supposedly Jewish – accomplices, strengtheningthe anti-Semitic natureofthe case.  Tomáš G. Masaryk, Nutnost revidovatiprocess Polenský (Prague: Času, 1899). Masarykwent so far as to actuallytake some lessons in anatomy, travelling anonymouslytoVienna.  Vondrášková, “The Czech-Jewish Assimilation Movement and its ReflectionofCzech Nation- al Traditions,” 151–2.  Weiglová, “Barometer,” 94–5. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 147 areligious problem, born of clericalism.³⁶ As Vohryzek argued in the inaugural edition of the Rozvoj journal, the key to assimilation (or rather,accul- turation) for Czech Jews wasreligion.³⁷

The “Realist” PartyasaReligious-political Project and itsProtestant Supporters

Masaryk’sdefense of Hilsner made him an outcast in most nationalist circles. Apart from the Czech-Jewish movement,onlythe socialists and asmall but de- termined group of loyalists stood by his side. With the Hilsner affair still in full swinginthe spring of 1900,Masaryk and his followers founded yetanother progressive party under the name “Česká strana lidová” (Czech People’sParty), known as “Realists.” Although plans for such aparty had existed for some years, its founding was inevitablytied to the Hilsner case.³⁸ Masaryk’spromi- nence in the affair and his leading role in the Realist party earned them the anti-Semitic moniker “the Hilsner Party” among the nationalist press.This was at least true insofar as the progressive Rozvoj group enthusiasticallywel- comed its arrival.³⁹ The Hilsneraffair,however,tends to overshadow two other important factors in the foundingofthe party.There was adistinct Protestant influencepresent, with progressive Protestant clergysuch as the Calvinist ČeněkDušek (1843– 1918) and the Lutheran Ferdinand Hrejsa (1867–1953) instrumental in its inaugu- ration.⁴⁰ Several leading members of the Realist party,such as JanHerben (1857–

 Kieval, Languages of Community,168–75.  ViktorVohryzek, “Několik slov úvodem,” Rozvoj: Týdenník českých pokrokových židů 1:1 (1904): 1–3.  JohannesGleixner, “Menschheitsreligionen”:T.G.Masaryk, A. V. Lunačarskij und die reli- giöse Herausforderungrevolutionärer Staaten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2016), 79 – 86.  One of the foundingfathers of the Czech national movement,František LadislavRieger (1818–1903) referredtothe Realistparty as aJewish, and therefore destructive,party;see Ro- land J. Hoffmann, T. G. Masarykund die tschechische Frage, Veröffentlichungendes Collegium Carolinum 58 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1988), 221–2, hereat239;Kieval, Languages of Community, 198–203.  “The Realists lean towards Protestantism” commentedthe independent progressive journal Osvěta lidu. “České “Pryč od Říma”?,” Osvěta lidu:Pokrokovénovinypro severovýchodní a východní Čechy6,no. 94 (1901): 4; See also Hoffmann, T. G., 262. 148 Johannes Gleixner

1936), Žilka, and Masaryk himself, wereknown to be members of the reformed church.⁴¹ The party presented an elaborate program which stood out in one main re- spect: it stressed the need for aunifying,encompassing religious reform that would overcome existing traditionalbeliefs not onlyinascientific but also more moral way. While the program conceded thatthe party had acertain affin- ity to the progressivemovement and Protestantism, it pointed emphaticallyto the failureofall positive religions and denominations. Catholicism, Protestan- tism, and Judaism were all full of “halfness” (polovičatost), unfit for modernso- ciety.Evenmoreinteresting,although the program stressed the religious free- dom of the individual, it paradoxicallydemanded akind of modernreligious politics.⁴² Masaryk, who wrotethe program himself, had expanded on these ideas in aseries of programmatic books publishedduringthe 1890s. They all came down to an interpretation of Czech history as an attempt to live according to “humanist” principles. Theembodiment of those principles was the Czech ref- ormation; as such, the Czech question was not onlyone of language, culture, and political power,but at its heart religious in nature. Czechs, then, should strive to become religiouslyenlightened. Masaryk’snotionofHus and the refor- mationwas ahistorical and universal.⁴³ Nonetheless, he claimed to have distilled the scientific coreofmodernreligion. He demanded aCzech version of the “Los vonRom” (Awayfrom ) movement,which sawsome success in German- speakingareas of Bohemia, insistingthat the new church must be religious, al- beit not identical to the existing Protestant churches.⁴⁴ This paradoxical demand makes sense if it is understood as an attempt to craft anew majority discourse based on religious convictions without referringtoexisting denominations and religions. At first,the Realists werealoose collection of groups preoccupied with pro- gressive religious and culturaltopics.Apart from the party founders, intellectu- als from Prague, this included progressive Jews and Protestants but also Free

 Manyofthem, Masarykincluded, left the Catholic church and joined the reformed church. This was apolitical statement as much as it was areligious one.  Rámcový program českéstranylidové(realistické) (Prague: Nákladem výkonného výboru českéstranylidové, 1900), 77–9.  See, amongother sources:Tomáš G. Masaryk, JanHus.Našeobrození anašereformace (Pra- gue: Čas, 1896).  See Tomáš G. Masaryk, Ideályhumanitníatexty zlet 1901–1903,Spisy T. G. Masaryka 25 (Prague: MasarykůvústavaArchivAkademie věd ČR, 2011), 191.This was acurious demand, as conversions to the Lutheran church werepreciselythe point of the pan-German “Losvon Rom.” Standard-bearers of Hussitism or AgentsofGermanization? 149

Thinkers and Atheists. Emanuel Chalupný(1879–1958), afoundingmember of the party and later its sharp critic, noted how it consisted of three groups, each one of which viewed the party as avessel of its specific ideas: Protestants, Jews, and “original” Realists with acultural interest in progress.For Chalupný, the party lacked anyconsistent ideology, and was united onlyinmutual interest and an almostreligious belief in its own notion of progress.⁴⁵ Although his per- ception of the party’smost important wingswas accurate, Chalupnýwas none- theless motivated by astronganti-Protestantbias, and underestimated the reli- gious content of the party’sprogram. Earlyon, Protestant Realists tried to push for an official allegiance to the reformed church, arguingthat being areformed Protestant was the closest one could come to asynthesisofreligion and progress in the absence of atrue future religion.⁴⁶ Echoing the party’sprogram, one Re- alist argued that simple political parties could not succeed in moderntimes. Only movements with an “ideal” (like ) had afuture.The Realist party,then, should work as an avant-garde movement to the “Protestantization” (poprotestantštění)ofthe people.⁴⁷ Other ProtestantRealists opinedthatparty members should at least leave the Catholic church if not outright join one of the Protestant denominations. Thisidea clashed not onlywith the JewishReal- ists but alsowith thoseclose to the Czech Free Thought (Volná myšlenka), such as Chalupný, who favoredthe legal statusof“withoutconfession” as most closelyapproximating religious enlightenment.⁴⁸ In turn, Lederer,one of the leading JewishRealists, pointed out thatheand other progressive Jews wereperfectlycontent with conversion to atrulyprogressive religion, but so should be the Protestants, as their belief was similarlyunfit to capturethe reli- gious spirit of the Czech nation.⁴⁹ In this remark, Lederer rehearsed the charge

 Emanuel Chalupný, Vzník českéstranypokrokové. Historickévzpomínky.Dle původních pra- menů (Tábor: St.D.Kubíček, 1911); Zlváštní otisk z “Českého Jihu” 1–2; 54–5.  See František Žilka, “Zvývoje avýsledků moderní vědy bohoslovecké,” NašeDoba 9(1902): 349–50.  “Postavení strany čes. lidovévpolitickéorganisací národní (z kruhu rádсůčeské stranyli- dové),” Přehled 1:21 (1902):336–7.  “Oorganisaci české stranylidové(Schůze politického klubu 29.dubna),” Přehled 1:22 (1902): 367–77.  EduardLederer, “Die čechisch-jüdische Assimilation,” Čechische Revue 2(1908): 404–7. Both Lederer and Vohryzek went so far as to put Judaism abovethe Christian creeds in the rank- ing of progressive beliefs.See also Vohryzek, “Několik slov úvodem”:2;Interestingly,conver- sions from Judaism to Protestantism wereapparentlymuch morecommon in Austria (especially Vienna) than in the Czech lands.See Astrid Schweighofer,Religiöse Sucher in der Moderne: Konversionen vomJudentum zum Protestantismus in Wien um 1900,Arbeiten zur Kirchenge- schichte126 (Berlin, Munich, and Boston: de Gruyter,2015), 64–74. 150 Johannes Gleixner made by other progressives who complained about the Protestant goal of trans- forming every belief but their own.⁵⁰

The Hus Affair of 1903: ProtestantsasNational Outcasts

The year 1903 witnessed the Protestants’ own excommunication from the Czech nation, thwarting theirself-perception as an avant-garde of Czechness.Being part of an integrative narrative of progress was not the sameasdictating it,as the Czech Jews wereall too aware.The Protestants,however,had to learn this lesson the hard waybysquaring off against the majority discourse of Czech na- tionalism, which so far had paraded them as progressive paragons of the anti- Catholic nation. When, on 6July1903,the foundation stone of along-planned statue of Jan HusonPrague’sOld Town square was laid, aYoungCzech speaker celebrating the occasion tried to affiliate the Hussite tradition with Catholicism. The statue of Huswas being erected right across the Marian column,the symbol of Catholic reign in Prague – afactthat in his view signaled amutual belonging. Both the Protestant press and the Realists responded with fury,claiming that the Young Czechs had abused the Czech reformation and made apolitical pawn out of its .Asimultaneous celebration of Realists and leading Protestants was lauded as the true embodiment of the spirit of JanHus.⁵¹ Six days laterthe nationalist press struck back, remarkingonthe proximity of the Realists to the “Los vonRom,” apan-German Protestant movement led by German nationalists and advocating agreater Germanempire. “Národní listy,” the main organ of the YoungCzech Party,attacked the Realists as traitors to the national cause. Although the charge itself was ridiculous, Masaryk and espe- ciallyDušek had been in close contact with German Protestants from organiza- tions likethe “International Committee for the Evangelization of the Bohemian Lands,” owingtotheir prioritization of religious cooperation over nationalcon- flict.⁵² When aleadingRealist Protestant,Jan Herben, was seen enteringthe Ger- man “casino” in Prague to meet with aGerman Protestant activist,the national- ists finally found him caught in the act: behind the Realists’“religiousness,” they

 GustavTichý: “Etickákultura, náboženství amravnost,” Rozhledy14(1904): 966–9.  Čas, “Husovy oslavy,”,July8,1903.  Lothar Albertin, “Nationalismusund Protestantismus in der österreichischen Los-von-Rom- Bewegung um 1900” (Diss. Phil. University of Cologne: 1953), 123–51. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 151 alleged, was aplot to lurethe Czechs to German Protestantism. Gleefully, they pointed to the hypocrisyofcriticizing the Young Czechs’ political efforts to com- promise with Catholic partiesbut at the sametime embracing apan-German Protestant plot to subvert the monarchy.⁵³ Anti-Protestantism further fueledthe already-raginganti-Semitic blaze ignit- ed by several Catholic nationalist authors. In one striking example, the writer Rudolf Vrba (1860 –1939) linked the Protestant “Away from Rome” to an interna- tional Jewishplot and sawAustria besieged by both German-Protestant infiltra- tors and Jewish intellectuals.⁵⁴ In the eyes of the Catholic-nationalist consensus, Protestants and Jews alike wereexcluded from the true Czech nation, although both groups – and especiallythe progressiveCzech-Jewishmovement – were clearlyworkingagainst the Germanization of their communities.Still, the imageofJews as an avant-garde of Germanness in the Bohemianlands, dating back to the middle of the century, persisted. Vrba’sexploitation of prejudices against supposedlyforeign agents who sought to undermine the Czech nation from within is an interesting example of the fluidityofanti-Semitic stereotypes, with Protestants joining Jews as national traitors. Although Herben defended himself, the damagewas alreadydone and the Realist party struggled to distance itself from the perception of being the political arm of the Protestant churches.Anofficial declaration by the executive commit- tee proclaimed aCzech “Away from Rome” with no association to anyexisting church. Furthermore, the party stressed its independence from anyreligion. It re- peated its programmatic hostility to anyform of “clericalism,” explicitlyinclud- ing Protestant,Jewish, and even Orthodox types.⁵⁵ This official distancing from organized religions belies its internal discussions, in which the Protestant’sover- identification with the party constituted the main problem.

APolitical Coalition of Religious Dissent

It came down to Masaryk to settle questions of ideology, as no other Realist matched his authority.Alreadyin1901, Masaryk seemed keenlyaware of the Re- alist party’sposition as apolitical beacon for incompatible religious dissent: when aProtestant supporter complained thatthe party’sofficial paper, Čas, was too “Philo-semitic” and not Protestant enough, Masaryk repliedthat indeed

 Hoffmann, T. G. Masaryk, 253–5.  Rudolf Vrba, Österreichs Bedränger:Die Los-von-Rom-Bewegung.Studien über politische, religiöse und sociale Zustände der Gegenwart (Prague: Selbstverlag, 1903), 632.  “Řím aBerlin,” Přehled 1:33 (1902–1903): 533– 6. 152 Johannes Gleixner it was sometimes unbalanced in its polemics, but more importantly, it was the onlyplace in the Bohemianlands whereone could talk seriouslyabout religion. Slyly, he added that for Protestants there was no other political newspaper any- way. Even more interestingly,hepointed to the main editor of Čas,Herben, a known Protestant Realist,asproof of the paper’sreligious sincerity,while simul- taneously distancing his own conviction from thatofHerben.⁵⁶ As the annual Huscelebrations of 1904 approached,Masaryk felt the need to clarify the party’sposition on religion, lest there be another scandal. Expanding on the paradoxical formula of religion being aprivatematter but not an individ- ual one, he delivered aspeech at agatheringofthe Realists’ political club (its de facto executive committee) on 25 April 1904.Init, he stressed the demand for political freedom as fundamental to the Realist program. Further explaining his ownconviction, he affirmedthe need for religion, but for the first time openly deniedthe scientific possibilityofChristian revelation.⁵⁷ This speech was re- ceivedwith marked ambivalence: while ayounger group of activists with adecid- edlyatheist stance was unsatisfiedthat Masaryk did not outright advocate athe- ism,⁵⁸ the ‘religious’ Realists seized the moment to fuse the party’svague religious-political program with their owngoals, thus completingthe party’s transformation into apolitical conduit for religious dissent. Overall, they ex- pressed relief that Masaryk had finallyspoken openlyonthese issues, even if his denunciation of biblical revelation was in no wayacceptable to believers.⁵⁹ Interestingly,while the whole Husaffair placed into question the Realist- Protestant alliance, in the long run, the pact was strengthened. Protestants such as Dušek had long realized that Masaryk’sinchoate religious convictions werenot actuallyProtestant.Masaryk himself was at times highlycritical of Prot- estantism, once claiming to feel emotionallymorelikeaCatholic.⁶⁰ Dušek and other Protestants clergymensharplydisagreed with him from atheological point of view,while stressingthat the Realist party remained the onlypolitical possibilityfor Protestants – the culturally “Catholic” Young Czechs and their shallowanti-clericalism werehardlyanoption.⁶¹ As one progressive (and later

 AÚTGM(Archiveofthe MasarykinstitutePrague), fond TGMKor I, kr.29, l. 44.  Čas, “Pro svobodusvědomí,” June 26,1904.  Hoffmann, T. G. Masaryk, 261–2.  Čas, “Pro svobodusvědomí”.  See Čas, “Prof. MasarykvKatolických listech,” January 30,1902. Masaryk was born intoa devout Catholic family.  Matějka, “Čeští luteráni 1861–1918,” 283. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 153

Realist) paper commented, the affair led to the “full emancipation of the Czech Protestants from the Young Czechs.”⁶² Forthe progressive Czech Jews, Viktor Vohryzek commented on the speech: he, too, claimed relief that the party’sleader had finally spoken up on the “reli- gious question.” Although he conceded thatMasaryk still had not provided the “promised religious-philosophical thesis, the basisofanew and pure religion, scientificallyworked out and reasoned,” he nevertheless wasoptimistic about the matter.Inhis view,bystrippingexisting religion of its non-scientific, non- modernelements, the religious progressivesofeach denomination, and with them even monists and atheists, would end up together. Additionally, Vohryzek rightlyobserved the split between an agnostic notion of progress,which was content to criticize the church and religion in general, and the “trulyprogressive” Realists, who went beyond simple negativity and for whom traditional beliefs like Christianity and Judaism remained historical, if flawed, vessels of true religiosity.Todrive home his point,Vohryzek approving- ly quoted the evangelical “Hlasy ze Siona” (Voices from Zion) that afuture reli- gion still had to include some kind of formal confession (konfesse). To be (in a strictlylegal sense) “without confession,” therefore, was no indication of positive progressiveness; one had to think and act in its spirit as well. And, turning the tables on Protestants and atheists alike,henoted that Judaism, with its lack of clericalstructures and its everydayadherencetomoral laws, was alreadyvery close to such areligion of the future. Forprogressiveslike him, “Mosaism” was neither abelief nor aconfession in the accepted sense. “We will defend our Realism against old denominations and new ones, if they are not in agree- ment with it,” he finished.⁶³ In this respect,progressive Czech Jews werecloser to the coreofthe Realist movement than manyCzech Protestants. Like Masaryk and his disciples, and de- spite stressinga“positive” spirituality, figures such as Lederer and Vohryzek dis- playedanintellectual and utilitarian understandingofreligion. As Hillel Kieval notes,their pronounced “anti-” came with adistinctlycasual attitude towardactual religious practice.⁶⁴ This was true for some Realist Protestant in- tellectuals like Herben as well. In contrast,itwas mostlyclergymen, likeHrejsa and Dušek, who promoted progressive and political Protestantism. As such, these Protestants had amoreambivalent relationship with the Realists, grasping the need for this cooperation but aware thatthe religious-political vision of the

 Hoffmann, T. G. Masaryk, 258.  ViktorVohryzek, “Osvobodě náboženskéavolnosti přesvědčení,” Rozvoj: Týdenník českých pokrokových židů 1:27 (1904): 1–2.  Kieval, Languages of Community,174. 154 Johannes Gleixner

Realists did not necessarilyalign with their ownvision of aunifiedCzech Prot- estant church. Moreover,the progressive wing of the Czech-Jewish movement could not claim to represent the majority of Jews in the Bohemianlands, while the combined Protestant churches’ membership did indeed form amajor- ity of Czech Protestants. In the end, just as Vohryzek observed, thosewho splitfrom the party were Free Thinkers and atheists such as Chalupnýand other so-called “Young Real- ists,” centered around the journal Přehled,who weredisappointed that religious influences remained strong. Other progressivesattacked both the Realists and the Protestants for their purportedlyunfoundedalliance.⁶⁵ Unsatisfied with Ma- saryk’seternallyobscure answers,they demanded to know the specifics of the Realist program of afuture religion.

AFutureReligion as an Inclusiveand Transformative Political Program: Jews and a United Protestantism as Standard-bearersof “Hussitism”

It is worth taking acloser lookatwhy the Realist party program, in all its opacity, was so attractive to religious dissent.The peculiarinsistencethat societal prob- lems stemmed from religious ones seemed out of place in the other progressive parties, most of which were content with aggressive anticlericalism. However, in maintaining that while existingdenominations and religious beliefs were flawed, religion itself was not,the Realists extended an irresistible offer to reli- gious minorities to become part of anew religious whole. To frame the Czech question in terms of modern man and religion, as Masaryk did, offered anew option of joining the nation by transformingit. This contrasted with his quite ex- clusive vision of the nation, as expressed in an interview with Rozvoj, wherehe declared thatthe Jews’ religious identity was an obstacle in them becoming Czechs.⁶⁶ It ought to be borne in mind, however,that the most feature of Masaryk’sand the Realists’ vision of the nation was its exclusion of average

 See Karel J. Rohan, “Moderní stoupenci Husovi,” Rozhledy. Revue umělecká, sociální apol- itická14(1903–1904): 1–7; 31–40;59–66.  See Michael A. Riff, “The Ambiguity of Masaryk’sAttitudes on the ‘Jewish Question’,” in T. G. Masaryk(1850 –1937),vol. 2; Thinker and Critic, ed. Robert B. Pynsent,Studies in and East Europe (Basingstoke:Macmillan, 1989): 77–87,hereat83. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 155

Czechs and even the reformed church, thus levelling the playing field for all. As Masaryk himself said, the Realists werenot aparty of the massesand could never become one; nonetheless, they served as an avant-garde to the whole na- tion.⁶⁷ At the same time, the fusion of religious convictions with political action al- lowed the progressivewingsofCzech Protestantism and Judaism to surmount traditionalinstitutions, if for conflictingreasons. Progressive Czech Jews and Protestants agreed that the battle for arenewed religiosity was not being fought in the churches and synagogues, but in the political arena. Both felt – albeit for different reasons – the need to overcome institutionalized religion. The leaders of the Protestant churches,Dušek and Hrejsa, understood that their visionofaunified churchwhich called for the fusion of existingcommun- ities did not go far enough.Asthey aspired to become atrue Czech church, they needed to address the non-Protestant masses. The Protestantization of the Czechs would happen, in their view,not through preachingbut through political action.Unified Czech Protestantism, then,was at its coreapolitical project that required apolitical entity.The appeal of the Realists in turning people away from old beliefs and towards amore modern religion seemed to suit the bill. Similarly,progressive Czech Jews perceivedthe politicizingofmodernreli- gion as ameans for Jews to integrate into mainstream society on their own terms.For Vohryzek, it was the Czechs who had strayed from their national ide- als of progress as embodied by people like Husand Comenius. The Christian Czechs needed their Jewishbrethren to completethe journey to their true nation- al character.Toreach this stage, aCzech-Jewish accommodation was inevita- ble.⁶⁸ Masaryk seemed to accept this conflation of the historical meaning of the Czech reformation and aCzech-Jewishpath towards it.Ashewrote Vohry- zek, he was particularlypleased to see the progressiveCzech Jews propagating the reform movement.⁶⁹ This unique vision of the progressive meaningofthe Czech reformation thereforemanaged to include aprogressive Judaism not by accepting Jews as they were but by escalatingits demands for Jews and Czechs alike.AsVohryzek and other progressiveJews recognized, the hazy notion of atrue Czech reforma- tion could be expressed in terms that conveyedequidistance between Jewishand Protestant (or for thatmatter, Catholic and Free Thinking) visions of afuture re-

 Česká stráž.Lidovénovinypokrokové, “Ztáboru českéstranylidové” January 20,1906,3.  Vohryzek, “Několik slov úvodem,” 3.  The Czech term “reformní hnutí” conveys the semantic appeal to the protestant reformation much stronger.See Tomáš G. Masaryk, “Dopis vredakci,” Rozvoj: Týdenník českých pokro- kových židů 1:1(1904): 3. 156 Johannes Gleixner ligion. Consequently, the Czech-Jewishposition went from being indebtedtothe benevolent and tolerant Czech nation⁷⁰ to guiding the very same nation back to its lost ideals.⁷¹ Last,the notionofareligious avant-garde was areaction to societal changes. When the rise of political Catholicism threatened to marginalize non-Catholics, the idea thatthe fundamental social transformationwas just the cusp of afun- damental spiritual transformation wasparticularlyattractive to projections of fu- ture majorities. Commenting on political Catholicism, BohdanKlinebergernoted, “Achangeinthe war tactics[of the Catholic church, J.G.] has happened. [It points, J.G.] into politics:the abstract fight is cast aside, the fight for political power is happening.” And he continued, “The political fight has priority over the scientific. While this uses arguments and reason, that uses feelings and power.”⁷² Klinebergerhere used an argument endorsed by atheist Free Thinkers. This argument exposed how the politicization of progressive religiosity served as an integrating moment for aloose coalition of progressivesubgroups.Theologi- cal differencesaside, they had acommon enemy: clericalism, which held the Czech nation back, whether by fomenting anti-Semitism or promotinggeneral backwardness. Astrongturnout of Catholic voters was expected in the upcoming elections, thus making the political battle for the spirit of the Czech nation areal one indeed. Klinebergeralsoformulated acentral insight: the struggle for anew scientificreligion was always apolitical one, if it was to be more than amere intellectual exercise. Liberalism, for Klineberger, had done more than overlook the real economic damagepeople in rural areas had experienced: its proponents had neglectedtonotice how this damageprovoked anti-Semitism, particularly among small rural businesses. An anti-liberal movementhad arisen by address- ing this common feelingofbeing left behind, and from this common feeling a common ideologyfollowed. Such an anti-liberal party,perforce, had to be an anti-Semitic one as well. It was the Christian Social and Catholic peoples’ parties that united these voices and imbued them meaning. Klinebergermade acrucial point: the rural masses, which supported the (anti-Semitic) Catholic parties, sided with these partiesbecause of concrete

 Vondrášková, “The Czech-Jewish Assimilation Movement and its ReflectionofCzech Nation- al Traditions,” 154.  Kieval, Languages of Community,171.  Bohdan Klineberger, “Otázkaantisemitismu,” Českožidovskélisty 7:2(1901): 1–5, here at 2–3. Standard-bearersofHussitism or Agents of Germanization? 157 changes in the structure of society.⁷³ The question of who would represent the majority of the Czechs in the future was, therefore, still an open one.

PoliticalSuccessand Demise

When, in 1906,the Realist party mergedwith another Progressive splinter group to form the “Česká strana pokroková” (Czech Progressive Party), the policy of re- ligious progressivism reachedits zenith. This time round, the Protestant party members had learned their lesson: several speakers stressed that the reactionary wave (i.e., the political successes of Catholic parties) could onlybeabated by the progressive elements makingcommon cause. The party’spress also spotlighted the mistakes of the Young Czech Party,which had ignored religion as acentral topic of contemporary politics.⁷⁴ In the 1907elections to the Vienna chamber of deputies, the party was remarkablysuccessful, giventhat it represented onlya tinyminorityofvoters.Itmanaged to gettwo deputies, František Drtina and Ma- saryk himself, elected. Drtina, however,was elected by acoalition that included Catholic parties. It wasmainlyMasaryk, the charismatic leader of the Realists, who successfullycampaigned on areligious program and managed to defeat his Catholic opponent in his East Moravian voting district.This put an end to the longstanding campaign against the Catholic church thatthe party had waged almost from its inception. Once elected, Masaryk’sattempts to debate re- ligion in politics fell flat.His critique of the Catholic church led once again to an alliance with the pan-Germannationalists, which he then quicklyabandoned. Alreadybefore the war,duringthe next electionsin1911, the Realists drifted back into mainstream liberalism. An alliance of progressive forces seemed to be apolitical necessity,thus reducingthe importance of religious topics.During the war,the remainingleadership of the party surrounding Herben joined forces with the other bourgeois parties to form asingle nationalist block, overlooking the virulentanti-Semitism of several of its proponents.Inprotest,Ledererleft the party,which subsequentlysplit up, disappearingshortlyafter the end of the war.⁷⁵

 Ibid., 4–5.  Česká stráž.Lidovénovinypokrokové, January 27,1906.  ForLederer’sreaction, see AÚTGM, f. TGM, Republika, Židé, kr.453.Onthe final demise of the party,see Josef Harna and Martin Kučera, eds., Politické programy českých “pokrokových” stran 1896–1900,Edicepolitických programů 6(Prague: Historický ústav, 2010), 22–4. 158 Johannes Gleixner

Conclusion

The present chapter makes the claim for asimultaneous changeindiscourses about nation and religion on the one hand,and the structural conditions of the national public on the other. As the focus of Czech politics shifted away from the center and the bourgeois milieu to the smaller towns and their specific socio-cultural environment,its integrative framework changed as well. Although the Bohemiantowns had long featured in national mythologyasthe preservers of Czech culture, it wasthe actual expansion of the voting franchise that placed them in the midst of abattle for the mobilization of amajority. The Czech-Ger- man conflictreceded into the background of these debates. The question of who among the Czech speakers was also Czech in aspiritual waybecame more and more prominent.Not onlydid the liberal nationalists abandon their tolerant vision in order to woo the Catholicpopulation, but the minorityposi- tions alsochanged. The new direction of the Czech-Jewishassimilation move- ment,then, was not onlyareaction to the anti-Semitic wave of the 1890s. In the Czech context,religiosity became political,asthe question of what it meant to be Czech seemed to spark an increasinglydiverse rangeofanswers.Ma- saryk and his followers openlyadvocated areligious and spiritual reawakening of the nation, something that neither Catholic nor secular nationalists had ever done. The main fault line had been moved from between political Catholicism and the anti-clerical national movement to one between a “religious” and a “non-religious” vision for society.And curiously, the “clerical” partiesfell into the latter camp, at least from the perspective of the religious progressives. Comparison of the Jewish and Protestant positions reveals how bothcom- munitieswerepart of alargershift in Czech society.The motivating factor was the changingnational discourse, which had to address alargerpublic by becom- ing narrower and more exclusive.Moreover,itwas oftentimes unclear who would represent the rural masses that had now entered politics. In this way, re- ligious communities came to see their ownidentities as increasinglytied to the political discourse, promptingthe idea of apolitical and spiritual awakening within Czech society.They countered the apparent new consensus with an inte- grative vision of their own, addressing – at least in theory – adifferent national collective themselves. Even if their vision was narrower from asocio-cultural point of view,itstill offered an interesting and alternative discourse thatstressed the religious natureofCzechness in order to make it more inclusive.While, by definition, this national religion of the future had to remain indeterminate, it nonetheless displayedpolitical power.Toacertain extent,itwas atransitional phenomenon on the road to modernity,responding to the question of nationality Standard-bearers of Hussitism or AgentsofGermanization? 159 but alsotothat of collective identity in modern times.⁷⁶ When the (male) mass public finallybrokefree from restrictions in 1907, this alternative could claim aplace for itself. And when the Czechoslovak republic came into existencein 1918, this religious vision loomed large in the republican raison d’être. Within asmall window of opportunity,all these shifts could be broughtto- gether by aunifying vision of aprogressive religious future. While its immediate political impact was ultimatelynegligible, it did provide aframework for Czech national discourse thatreappeared after the war,again presentingthe Czech re- formationasaprism of Czech universality.

 With regardtoGermany, one should mention Thomas Nipperdey’sfamous term “vagrating religiosity.”

Christian Wiese Luther’sShadow Jewishand Protestant Interpretations of the Reformer’s Writings on the Jews, 1917–1933¹

The nineteenth- and twentieth-century historiography on the reception of Martin Luther’swritingsonJews and Judaism, his Judenschriften,ismarked by an on- going contestation concerning the reformer’sreligious and political views. Did his reflections on the Jews constitutethe coreofhis theology or werethey merely amarginalaspect of his thinking?Was the anti-Jewishobsession thatemerged ever more clearlyatthe later stages of his biographyrooted in his theological convictions or was it triggered by contemporary social and political circumstan- ces?The issue of continuity or discontinuity between earlier writingssuch as Daß Jesus ein geborener Jude sei (1523) and the viciouslyanti-Jewishwritings publishedin1543, too, remains an open question. In one well-known view,Luther’sinitial ‘tolerant’ attitude underwent adra- matic changeinresponse to crises within the Reformation movement,personal disillusionment in the face of Jewishresistance to his missionary intentions,and the insistence of Jewish scholars on the legitimacy of adistinctively Jewish exe- gesis that opposed the Christian truth claims. An alternative interpretation, which enjoys wide currencytodayamongst scholars, assumesacontinuity be- tween Luther’sunderlying theological stance on Jews and Judaism and his un- derstandingofthe Christologicalmeaningofthe Hebrew Bible and his doctrine of justification.²

 This article has been written within the contextofthe Hessian Ministry for Scienceand Arts funded LOEWE research hub “Religious Positioning: Modalities and Constellations in Jewish, Christian and Muslim Contexts” at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and the Justus-Lie- big-University in Gießen.  Forthe most recent works, see Thomas Kaufmann, Luthers ‚Judenschriften‘.Ein Beitrag zu ihrerhistorischen Kontextualisierung (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011); idem, Luther’sJews: AJourney into Anti-Semitism (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2016); Andreas Pangritz, Theolo- gie und Antisemitismus.Das Beispiel Martin Luthers (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2017); for in- fluential earlier works, see HeikoA.Oberman, The Roots of Anti-Semitism: In the AgeofRenais- sanceand Reformation (Philadelphia: Fortress,1984); Peter vonder Osten-Sacken, Martin Luther und die Juden – neu untersucht anhand vonAnton Margarithas ‚der gantz Jüdisch glaub‘ (1530/ 31) (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,2002);Dietz Bering, WarLuther Antisemit?Das deutsch-jüdische Verhältnis als Tragödie der Nähe (Berlin: Berlin University Press, 2014). Overall, it does not seem plausible to interpretLuther’slater writings on the Jews as alapse from religious tolerance to late medieval hatred. Rather,although the demonizationofJudaism and the unpitying recom-

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-011 162 Christian Wiese

First and foremost,Luther’s Judenschriften must be seen in the context of late medieval perceptions of Judaism and the contemporary socio-political prac- tice vis-à-vis the Jewishminority.Itisequallycritical, however,toconsider them against their reception in the following centuries, from the time of Luther- an Orthodoxyvia the emergenceofPietism and the Enlightenment up through the nineteenth-century Jewish emancipation and eventuallythe WeimarRepub- lic and the Nazi period. As the imageof“Luther’sShadow” in the title of this essaysuggests, Luther’sattitude towards Jews and Judaism stronglyinfluenced – and overshadowed – Jewish-Protestant relations,particularlyintheGerman context,and is part of the complex history of modernanti-Semitism. In different historical and cultural contexts this shadow took manifold, partlycontradictory forms, reflecting the specific religious and political perspectivesfrom which Lu- ther’swritingswereviewed. With regardtothe impact of these forms on debates concerning the status of Jews and Judaism in Germansociety,itisimportant to ask whether and how they werediscussed among both Protestants and Jews prior to and after the emergenceofmodern political, cultural, and racial anti- Semitism.³ This article examines acrucial stageofthose debates,mainlythe pe- riod 1917–1933.Both bracketingyears featuredhighlysymbolicLuther celebra- tions that lend themselvestoananalysis of the theological and political readings of the Judenschriften among Jewish and Protestant scholars, as well as thosethat emergedinanti-Semiticcircles. While the topic of Protestant interpretations of Luther’sviews vis-à-vis anti- Semiticpropaganda has receivedagreat deal of scholarlyscrutiny, research on corresponding Jewishperspectivesisstill adesideratum, both with regardtothe

mendation of “sharp mercy” to the authorities in 1543indeed represented anew element in his thought,the anti-Jewish theological motifs at work herewere alreadypresent even before1523. These motifs (amongothers,the stubbornness of the Jews resultinginGod’swrath and rejection of His chosen people; Judaism’stenacious hatredofJesus Christ and Christianity;afalse Jewish and blasphemous understandingofthe Bible; Jewish existenceasanarchetype of the self-glo- rification of sinful man beforeGod) need to be understood as runningconsistentlythrough Lu- ther’swork, even if they wereoccasionallytempered by criticism of Christian arroganceand in- humane treatment of Jews.See Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich, “Luther und die Juden,” in Die Juden und Martin Luther.Martin Luther und die Juden. Geschichte – Wirkungsgeschichte – Herausforder- ung,eds.Heinz Kremers et al., 2nd edition (Neukirchen-Vluyn:Neukirchner Verlag,1987): 72– 88. Ehrlich himself diagnoses consistent theological anti-Semitism in Luther;but he also discerns atemporary “new,humane element” (76) of apolitical natureinLuther’swork, inspired by missionary hopes.  See Christian Wiese, “‘Unheilsspuren’.Zur Rezeption vonMartin Luthers ‘Judenschriften’ im Kontext antisemitischen Denkens vorder Schoah,” in Das mißbrauchteEvangelium. Studien zu Theologie und Praxis der ThüringerDeutschenChristen, ed. Peter vonder Osten-Sacken (Ber- lin: Institut für Kirche und Judentum, 2002): 91–135. Luther’sShadow 163

Judenschriften and to Luther’sbroader thought.Itisworth noting that Heinrich Bornkamm (1901–1977), in his seminal study, Luther im Spiegel der deutschen Geistesgeschichte (1955), includes Catholic sources but does not even hint at the existenceofJewishreadings of Luther.The failuretodosomay be related to an inclination of Protestant church historians at that time to elide the very no- tion of active and creative Jewishparticipation in German intellectual discourse.⁴ The 1970sand 80s witnessed achangeinthe perception of Jewish responses to Luther’swritings on the Jews.⁵ Nonetheless, abroad approach to Jewish readings of Luther in the modern period is still in its nascence.⁶ The present article aims neither to present asystematic account nor even to summarize the multifaceted Jewish interpretations of Luther’ssignificance for German intellectual and political cultureduringthe nineteenth and earlytwen- tieth centuries,ortoanalysethe specificallyJewish character of these readings. Rather,after abrief look at the two dominant trends of thatdiscourse, it will ask to what extent Jewish thinkers took notice of Luther’s Judenschriften,which strat- egies they deployed to counter nationalistic and anti-Semitic narratives, and what distinguished these strategies from contemporary Protestant ones. The sources indicate thatthe Jewishreadings contained two main features:acritique of the disastrous consequences of the anti-Jewish elements in Luther’stheology, and apassionate attempt to oppose the dramaticallyincreasingtendencyamong German intellectuals since the 1880s to depict Luther as the witness for anti-Semitic discrimination by insisting on an idealized counternarrative:that of Luther as asymbolic embodiment of atradition of tolerance, freedom of con-

 Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther im Spiegel der deutschen Geistesgeschichte(Heidelberg: Quelle &Meyer,1955).  See Johannes Brosseder,Luthers Stellungzuden Juden im Spiegel seiner Interpreten. Inter- pretation und Rezeption vonLuthers Schriften und Äußerungenzum Judentum im 19.und 20.Jahrhundert vorallem im deutschsprachigenRaum(Munich: Hueber,1972);JohannesWall- mann, “The Reception of Luther’sWritings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century,” Lutheran Quarterly1(1987): 72–97.For amost recent analysis from aJewish think- er,who presents ahistorical perspective,see Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Luther the Anti-Semite: AContemporary Jewish Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2018).  See Christian Wiese, “‘Auch uns sei sein Andenken heilig!’ Symbolisierung, Idealisierungund Kritik in der jüdischen Lutherrezeption des 19.und 20.Jahrhunderts,” in Luther zwischen den Kulturen.Zeitgenossenschaft – Weltwirkung, eds.Hans Medickand Peer Schmidt(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2004): 214–59;Dorothea Wendebourg, “‘Gesegnet sei das Andenken Luthers!‘ Die Juden und Martin Luther im 19.Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geis- tesgeschichte65(2013): 235–51;Walter Homolka, “Martin Luther als Symbol geistigerFreiheit? Der Reformatorund seine Rezeption im Judentum” in Luther,Rosenzweig und die Schrift.Ein deutsch-jüdischer Dialog,ed. Micha Brumlik(Hamburg: CEP Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 2017): 49–60. 164 Christian Wiese science, emancipation, and pluralism. In light of the almost completeabsence of positive response to this interpretation on the part of Protestant theologians, however,the question of its illusory nature naturallyarises.

Between Idealization andHistoricalCritique: JewishReadings

Since the earlynineteenth century, Jewish readings of Luther have oscillated be- tween two poles: acritique of the reformer as the forefather of political bondage, deference, and spiritual impoverishment,aspresented with satirical poignancy by LudwigBörne (1786 – 1837)in1830inletters from , and an enthusiastic appraisal of Lutherasaharbinger of the Enlightenment,asarticulatedinHein- rich Heine’s(1797– 1856) essay Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland (1834). Jewishintellectuals in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries favored the latter view,which permittedthem to advancethe idea that the symbolic figure of Protestant cultureinGermanyhad been apioneer of religious tolerance, includingJewishemancipation. Of course, such areadingwas far from thosethat showed Lutherasthe hero of Germanness,aninterpretationthat dominatedGerman national historiogra- phyinthe final decades of the nineteenth century.This tendencytoportray Luther as the embodiment of the German national character turned out to be in- herentlyexclusive and – explicitlyorimplicitly – anti-Jewish. Nationalistic inter- pretations such as thosearticulated by the historian Heinrich vonTreitschke (1834–1896)inhis 1883essay “Luther und die deutsche Nation”⁷ clearly demon- strated that Jewish and non-Jewish readings of Luther weredeveloping in clearly opposite directions. At the beginning of the twentieth century,Jewish historians offered a compellingcounternarrative,and they did so in two distinct ways.Hermann Cohen (1842–1918),who was in constant critical dialogue with culturalProtes- tantism,⁸ held that the Reformation and Protestant thinkingwerenot merelycon-

 Heinrich vonTreitschke, “Luther und die deutsche Nation,” Preußische Jahrbücher 52 (1883): 469–86.  ForCohen’srelationship to Protestantism, see Wendell S. Dietrich, Cohen and Troeltsch: Ethi- cal Monotheistic Religion and Theory of Culture (Atlanta, GA:Scholars Press, 1986); Robert Ra- phael Geis, “Hermann Cohen und die deutsche Reformation,” in idem, GottesMinorität. Beiträge zur jüdischen Theologie und zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland (Munich:Kösel, 1971): 136–51;William Kluback, “Friendshipwithout Communication: Wilhelm Herrmann and Her- Luther’sShadow 165 stitutive components of Europe’sintellectual and political progress but an im- portant link between Jewish tradition and German culture. In a1917essayenti- tled “Zu Martin Luthers Gedächtnis,” Cohen referred to the reformer as the “most powerful creator of Germanness” and as asymbol of the intellectual overcoming of the Middle Ages. Luther’stranslation of the Bible, Cohen argued, had inscri- bed the Jewish spirit into , rendering the Hebrew Bible a “”“for all modern intellectual life, the root from which all the strengths of the newer nations had sprung and have been nourished.”⁹ Cohen was well aware that manyaspectsofboth the historical figureofLu- ther and the Reformation contradicted his conception. He insisted, however,that it was not each and every utterance of Luther,who wasachild of his times, that was decisive,but rather the idea of the Reformation, the impetus that idea gave to the development of Germanthought.With the aid of this conceptual abstrac- tion, Cohen was able to appropriate Luther as part of aBiblical-prophetic tradi- tion extending from Platoand MaimonidestoKant and onward,includinghis own neo-Kantian interpretation of Judaism – the guarantor of Judaism’srele- vancefor the “Germanspirit.” The fulfilment of this interpretation,that is, Lu- ther’ssignificance for afuture completion of Jewishemancipation and cultural integration by virtue of asynthesis of “Germanness” and Jewishness, would have required aresponsefrom the GermanProtestant side; in effect,anacknowl- edgment that Judaism was part of German culture. The absenceofsuch are- sponse was the unstated catalyst for the ensuing debates between GermanJew- ish scholars concerning the historical influenceofLuther’swritings about the Jews. Amuch more critical imageofLuther was presented by Leo Baeck (1873 – 1956), who had emergedasaprominent voice in the polemical controversies be- tween Jewishscholarship and liberalProtestantism about the “essence” of Juda- ism and Christianitythat had taken place since the turnofthe century.¹⁰ In Baeck’sessayon“Romantische Religion” (1922),Luther appears as championing an amoral “romantic” religion, one whose emphasis on the Paulinic and Augus- tinian sola fide reduces believers to passivity,fixated on the salvation of their

mann Cohen,” LeoBaeck InstituteYear Book 31 (1986): 317–38;David N. Myers, “Hermann Cohen and the Quest for Protestant Judaism,” LeoBaeck InstituteYear Book 46 (2001): 195–214.  Hermann Cohen, “Zu Martin Luthers Gedächtnis,” Neue jüdische Monatshefte 2(1917/18): 45 – 9, here46.  See Christian Wiese, “Ein unerhörtes Gesprächsangebot.Leo Baeck, die Wissenschaft des Ju- dentums und das Judentumsbild des liberalen Protestantismus,” in Leo Baeck 1873– 1956. ‚Mi gesa rabbanim’–Ausdem Stamme vonRabbinern, eds.GeorgHeubergerand Fritz Backhaus (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2001): 147– 71. 166 Christian Wiese own souls.¹¹ Judaism, by contrast,ispresented as embodying the “classical” re- ligion thatviews human beingsassubjects of theirown moral actions, endowing them with responsibility for worldlyjustice. In his lecture “Heimgegangene des Krieges,” which Baeckdelivered in 1918 at the Lehranstalt fürdie Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, he concurred with his Protestant colleagueErnst Troeltsch (1865–1923)about Luther.According to Troeltsch, Luther, the admira- ble religious genius, was at the sametime aman whose intolerance was rooted in the Middle Ages and whose conservative patriarchal thought had helpedto perpetuate both authoritarian rule and political passivity,with disastrous conse- quences for German political history.¹² Baeck echoed this view,emphasizing that the “Prussian religion,” now fortunatelyrendered obsolete by the revolution of 1918, had been characterized by a “rigid concept of authority and subser- vience.”¹³ Baeck’shope was that, with the end of the Kaiserreich,Luther’s “un-Protestant” attitude,¹⁴ which had moved Lutheranism far from Judaism (“As Jewish as Luther had begun, his subsequent path led him to apoint remote from everything Jewish”¹⁵)might be finallyovercomethrough afulfilment of the “spirit of Enlightenment” that was so closelyrelated to the “Jewish spirit.”¹⁶ Only then would anew culture arise in Germany, aculture more conducive both to the country’sJewishminority and to dialogue between Judaism and Christianity. Strikingly,the question of Luther’santi-Semitism, which dominatedJewish- Christian debatesabout the reformer after 1945, was more or less neglected by the majorityofaforementioned German-Jewish authors. Onereason for this maybethat in the Protestant domain, Luther’s Judenschriften wereonlyrediscov- ered and discussed in more detail with the late nineteenth-century emergenceof both modernpolitical anti-Semitism and acorresponding nationalist approach to the reformer.¹⁷ Additionally, with their focus on integration into German cul-

 LeoBaeck, “Romantische Religion,” in idem, AusdreiJahrtausenden – Das Evangelium als Urkunde der jüdischen Glaubensgeschichte, Werkevol. 4(Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2000): 59–120.  See Ernst Troeltsch, Die Bedeutungdes Protestantismus für die Entstehungder modernen Welt (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1911).  LeoBaeck, “Heimgegangene des Krieges,” in idem, Wege im Judentum. Aufsätze und Reden (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus,1997), 285–96,here288.  Ibid., 286.  Ibid., 288.  Ibid., 289.  Foradiscussionofthe history of the editions of Luther’swritings on the Jews beforethe Nazi rise to power, see Volker Leppin, “Luthers ‘Judenschriften’ im Spiegel der Editionen bis 1933,” in Martin Luthers “Judenschriften”.Die Rezeption im 19.und 20.Jahrhundert, eds.Harry Oelke, WolfgangKraus et.al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2016): 19–44. Luther’sShadow 167 ture, manyJewish intellectuals – at least those following the line from Heinrich Heine to Hermann Cohen – preferred to perceive Luther as aforerunner of En- lightenment and emancipation. Even those, from Ludwig Börne to Leo Baeck, who portrayed him as an embodiment of Protestant servitudetothe authoritar- ian state, refrainedfrom accentuatinghis attitude towards Jews and Judaism. The earlynineteenth-century German-Jewishhistorians who could not ignoreLu- ther’swriting on Judaism and the Jews, because the period of the Reformation playedanimportantrole in their representation of Jewish history,tended to side- step the anti-Jewish dimension of the reformer’stheology. In 1828,for example, Isaak Markus Jost’s(1793 – 1860) Geschichte der Israeliten mentioned Daß Jesus Christus ein geborener Jude sei only, and omittedany reference to the later writ- ings.¹⁸ The first Jewishhistorian to deal explicitlywith the topic, thus fundamental- ly changingJewish perceptions of Martin Luther,was Heinrich Graetz (1817– 1891). In his eleven-volume Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart (1853–1876), Graetz tried to explain whyLuther, in contrast to the late medieval politics of discrimination and persecution, “so forcefullyad- ministered to the Jews’ needs in his first flare of reform” and then suddenlyre- peated “all the false tales of poisoned wells, the murder of Christian children and the use of human blood” in his later years.¹⁹ ForGraetz, the sourceofthis apparent volte-face was Luther’sbitterness in view of the failureofthe majority of the Jews to embrace the Protestant interpretation of the Christian Gospel, com- bined with his profound misperception of Judaism’smoral character.Asacon- sequence,Graetz argued, the reformer poisoned the Protestant world “with his anti-Semitic testament” for centuries to come.²⁰ Later scholarshiphas nuancedthis picture, concentrating more on Luther’s theological motivesand less on his personal ones. LudwigGeiger (1848–1919), who had ample familiarity with the relevant Renaissance,humanistic, and Re- formationsources, mentioned Luther’sdisappointment at failed missionary ef-

 Isaak Markus Jost,Geschichteder Israelitenseit der Zeit der Maccabäer bis aufunsereTage, vol. 8(Berlin: Schlesinger, 1828), 211–2. On Jost,see Ismar Schorsch, “From Wolfenbüttel to Wis- senschaft – The Divergent Paths of Isaak Markus Jost and ,” LeoBaeck Institute Year Book 22 (1977): 109–28.  Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden. Vonden ältesten Zeiten bis aufdie Gegenwart,vol. 9: Vonder Verbannung der Juden ausSpanien und Portugal (1494) bis zur dauernden Ansiedelung der Marranen in Holland, reprint of the 4th edition 1907(Berlin: Arani, 1998), 300.Graetz de- scribed Luther’searlywritingasa“word such as the Jews had not heardfor athousand years” (ibid., 189).  Ibid., 301–2. 168 Christian Wiese forts but foregrounded something else: agradual realization on the reformer’s part of afundamental Jewish-Christian disagreement regardinghow to read the Hebrew Bible.²¹ It was in the earlytwentieth century that the question how to understand the discrepancy between Luther’swritingsfrom 1523and 1543and its significancefor contemporarydebates on Jewish integration and anti-Semitism came to the fore. At the end of his JewishEncyclopedia article of 1916 on Martin Luther,historian Gotthard Deutsch (1859–1921)observed that “The whollydifferent attitudes that Luther showed at different timesinrelation to Jews madehim, during the con- troversies surroundinganti-Semitism at the end of the nineteenth century, an au- thority who was cited equallybyfriends and foes of Jews.”²² Paying close attention to Jewishvoices in thatperiod reveals that, for the most part,the German Jewishauthorswriting on Luther favoured a “two peri- ods” or “disappointment” theory over one that posited atheological continuity between his earlier and later attitudes.²³ In an influential studypublishedin 1911, the historian Reinhold Lewin (1888–1943) concluded that Luther,inhis later years, had indeedleft his earlier tolerance behind, marking aclear caesura between a ‘pro-Jewish’ and an ‘anti-Jewish’ period in his theological develop- ment.Eventhough Lewin argued that the position of the earlyLuther ought to be relevant for contemporary Protestantism, he had no doubts regardingthe his- torical impact of his later ideas: “Whoever,for whatever motives, writes against the Jews, believes they have the right to refer triumphantlytoLuther.”²⁴

 See Ludwig Geiger, “Zurjüdischen Geschichte. 2. Luther und die Juden,” Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben 5(1867): 23–9; idem, “Die Juden und die deutsche Literatur,” Zeit- schrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland 2(1888): 297–374(on Luther,326–8); idem, “Renaissanceund Reformation,” in Kulturgeschichteinihrernatürlichen Entwicklung bis zur Gegenwart,ed. Friedrich vonHellwald, 4th edition (Leipzig: Friesenhahn, 1898): 68–217.  GotthardDeutsch, entry on “Luther,Martin,” in , vol. 8, 4th edition (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1916), cols. 213–5. Deutsch was Professor of Jewish History at the HebrewUnion CollegeinCincinnati; for the most part his article treats the ques- tion of Luther’sattitude to Judaism.  Brosseder,Luthers Stellungzuden Juden, 89–96,112–4, 148 – 54,and 303,brieflyoutlines the position of some Jewish researchers in this respect.Heemphasizes their tendencytounder- stand Luther’s “latewritings” as abreak with an earlier,morepositive attitude towards the Jews and, onceagain, as the consequenceofdisappointed missionary hopes.  Reinhold Lewin, Luthers Stellungzuden Juden. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichteder Juden in Deutschlandwährend des Reformationszeitalters (Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1911), 110.Interestingly, Protestant scholars whoshared anti-Semiticsentiments and sawLuther’santi-Semitism as an- chored in his theology,attributed Lewin’sinterpretation to his beingaJew; see Erich Vogelsang, Luthers Kampf gegendie Juden (Tübingen: Mohr,1933), 8–9(“The fact that […]Reinhold Lewin Luther’sShadow 169

Adecade and ahalf later,the criticism levelled by Russian-Jewishhistorian (1860 –1941) in his Weltgeschichtedes jüdischen Volkes is consid- erably sharper.For Dubnow,Luther’searlystance on the Jews, rather thanbeing an expression of true tolerance, reflected adesire “to win them for Christianity of the most recent order.” His disillusionment concerning the fulfilment of his naïve missionary hopes then transformed his original goodwill into pathological ha- tred of Jews and Judaism – akind of “judeophobia”:

The people of the Bible, fromwhom Christ and the apostlesoriginated, refuse to join the Lutheran church and thus confirm the divine mission of its founder,so–Luther concluded – they were incorrigible and deserved all the sufferingand persecution to which they had been exposed in the Christiancountries.This was the logic of the events that caused Luther to swiftlydiscardthe mask of friendliness towards the Jews,and to declareafight to the death on Judaism.²⁵

In light of Dubnow’sargument,itisinteresting to note thatthe notion of arup- ture in Luther’sposition appears to have gainedacceptance in proportion to the extent to which – starting at the beginning of the twentieth century and then with increased vehemence in the Weimarperiod – anti-Semitic representatives of Germannationalism adopted Luther’santi-Jewish writings. The more anti- Semites declared the latter the crux of his theologyand abasis for the political treatment of the JewishminorityinGermany,the more Jewishintellectuals insist- ed on the primacy of the reformer’s ‘pro-Jewish’ earlywritings. In his essay “Lu- ther und die Juden,” for instance, published for the 1917commemoration of the Reformation, the historian Samuel Krauss (1866–1948), who taught at the Israel- itisch-Theologische Lehranstalt in Vienna,thus characterized Lutherasone of the worst anti-Semites of his age, his “great,unrestrained hate” for the Jews being the result of both theological intolerance and the naïveté with which he antici- pated “Judaism merging into Christianity.”²⁶ At the same time, Krauss rendered homagetoLuther,depicting him as an advocate of integration and equal rights that had become an inexorable forceinmodern society:

as arabbi,inspiteofanattemptatobjectivity and scientific method, was barely able to grasp anythingofLuther’sactual concerns,should not surprise us”). On Vogelsang, see below.  Simon Dubnow,Weltgeschichtedes jüdischen Volkes. Vonseinen Uranfängenbis zur Gegen- wart,vol. 6(Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag,1927), 192–217, hereat200 and 202–3.  Samuel Krauss, “Luther und die Juden,” Der Jude 2(1917/18): 544–7(reprintedinKurt Wil- helm, ed., Wissenschaft des Judentums im deutschenSprachbereich. Ein Querschnitt,vol. 1(Tü- bingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1967), 309–14,here 310 and 312). 170 Christian Wiese

The principles that he [Luther] introduced to the whole world at the start of his career,and which werealso purer and morejust than those put forwardinhis old age, distorted as they werebyhate and bitterness,principles of enlightenment and of the free development of the human intellect,includingthe demand that the Jews must not be subject to either psycho- logical or physical compulsion, turned out to be powerful factors of the subsequent period, which could not be banishedevenbyLuther’sown faults.²⁷

Protestant Readings in an AgeofVölkisch Anti-Semitism

We find an echo of such idealized Jewish interpretations of Luther’searlywrit- ingsinthe rare efforts of Protestant theologians to oppose the usurpation of Luther’santi-Jewish writingsinthe context of nationalistic and anti-Semitic positions. One such effort was made by the Stuttgart Lutheran theologian EduardLamparter (1860 –1945), in an extraordinary text published in 1928 under the title EvangelischeKirche und Judentum. Ein Beitrag zumchristli- chen Verständnis von Judentum und Antisemitismus. Lamparter,who wasalead- ing figure in the Verein zurAbwehr des Antisemitismus and aproponent of liberal democracy,here lamented Luther’sbetrayal of his own “just and trulyProtestant attitude to the Jewishquestion,” abetrayal that had led the Protestant church in afalse direction.²⁸ He praised the young Luther for his highregard for the “Old Testament” and for having objected out of compassion and asense of jus- tice to the prevailing late medieval policies towards the Jews. In Lamparter’s view,itwas “one of the most painful things, that this great German, who previ- ouslyhad found such warm words full of sympathy, justiceand lovefor the Jews,” then “developed ahatred for them so blind” that he condemned them out of hand.²⁹ In so doing,Lamparter asserted, Luther had done violence to his own principles of religious freedom and freedom of conscienceand had be- come the “principal witness for modern anti-Semitism.” Contemporary Protes- tant theology, therefore, needed to be won over for the original and true Luther, “who at the pinnacle of his reforming work for the oppressed, despised and os-

 Ibid., 313.Historian Ismar Elbogen(1874 – 1943), in his Geschichte der Juden seit dem Unter- gangdes jüdischen Staates (Leipzigand Berlin: Teubner,1919), 69 – 71,also confirmed the long- term effect of Luther’santi-Semiticinvective,but insistedthat he remained “the most important milestone on the road to the civil stateand to freedom of thoughtand conscience” (70).  EduardLamparter,Evangelische Kirche und Judentum. Ein Beitrag zum christlichen Ver- ständnis vonJudentum und Antisemitismus (Stuttgart: Brönner,1928), 5.  Ibid., 15. Luther’sShadow 171 tracised, stood up for them with such warm words and so urgentlycommended to Christianity brotherlyloveasthe utmostobligation, includinginrelation to Jews.”³⁰ ForLamparter,this Luther stood aligned with the Lutheran tradition of a ‘mission to the Jews’ characterized by ‘lovefor Israel’ thathad been partic- ularlyemphasized by Pietism;³¹ with the Enlightenment; and with other theolo- gians who had battled against anti-Semitism. Lamparter’splea for apositive reception of the youngLuther’sposition was coupled with astrongcensure of modern anti-Semitism, an attempt to laythe theological foundationfor an appreciation of postbiblicalJudaism’sreligious, ethical, and culturalachievements, and acall to overcometraditionalstereo- types as well as to discover and accentuate shared values.His reflections on the Reformation, more than amere rejection of anti-Jewishimplications of Lu- ther’stheology, went far beyond what those calling for afriendly ‘mission to the Jews’ considered possible; and it wascertainlybeyond what the earlyLuther had in mind. The wealth of religious and ethical affinities between Judaism and Christianity, Lamparter argued, oughttoobligeChristians to maintain arelation- ship of “peace and mutualrespect”: “the duty to acknowledge Judaism as adi- vinelyordained path towards the solution of the most crucial questions of life” was, therefore, at least as important as the task “to hype Christianityamongst the Jews.” Without explicitlyrelinquishing the ideaofamissionary testimony for Christianity’struth, he acknowledgedJudaism’sright to be seen as avaluable

 Ibid., 17.  Forthe intellectual origins, see Christoph Rymatzky,Hallischer Pietismus und Judenmission. Johann Heinrich Callenbergs Institutum Judaicum und dessen Freundeskreis (1727–1736) (Tü- bingen: Niemeyer-Verlag,2004); for the Lutheran ‘Mission to the Jews,’ see, e.g.,Christopher M. Clark, The Politics of Conversion: Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prussia, 1728– 1941(London and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). An example for the rather ambivalent attitude of the representativesofthe ‘Mission to the Jews’ with regardtoLuther’sJudenschriften is Ernst Schaeffer,the directorofthe Gesellschaft zur Beförderungdes Christentums unterden Juden in Berlin, whopublished abook entitled Luther und die Juden in 1917. In view of the anti-Semitic debates during World WarI,hesuggested that German society should turn to the young Luther, whose friendlymissionary attitude towards the Jews might serveasamodel for the present. Even though the reformer’slater polemical statements had to be understood historicallyasare- sponse to Jews‘ stubbornness, his harsh advicetothe authorities needed to be rejected as intol- erant.However,Schaeffer seemed strongly irritated by the self-confident insistence of German Jews on Judaism’sreligious and cultural relevance for modern society and warned against Jew- ish arroganceaswellasthe “poisonous” Jewish influenceonChristianity.Byemphasizing that the main task was to “strengthen Christian self-confidenceagainst the Jews,” he made it very clear that acritique of anti-Semitism neither meant acknowledgingJudaism as atradition which deserved an equal status in apluralistic society,nor excluding religious and political prej- udice; Ernst Schaeffer,Luther und die Juden (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1917), 62. 172 Christian Wiese religious and cultural tradition and as alegitimate part of apluralistic German society and culture:

Amongst the nations which have ashareinmodernity’sintellectual culture,foreign hands maynot interfere with the sanctuary of personal religious conviction and decision. Judaism is an awe-inspiringphenomenon of cultural and religious history.Wewill makethe deepest impression on our Jewish fellow Germanswhen we do not withhold this admission.The easiest waytowin over their hearts is to refute anti-Semitism as an attitude that contradicts the true spirit of Christianity.³²

Lamparter’sthoughts on Luther,publishedafew years before the Nazis seized power,can be characterized as an attempt to overcome the increasingly dark shadow of Luther’santi-Semitism through an idealizing evocation of an enlight- ened tradition of love and religious freedom: qualities the liberal theologian sawasrooted in the Reformation. We now know that Luther never came close to atrulypositive theological acknowledgment of Judaism but rather,despite the more benevolent tones of the earlyReformation period, he held anegative imageofJews and the Jewish religion throughout his life. Thus, Lamparter, like his Jewish colleagues, stronglyidealized the reformer’sposition. Just as anti-Semites used the laterLuther to legitimize theirhatred, bothJewish and Protestant advocates of GermanJewish emancipation weredetermined to wrest as benign a Weltanschauung as possiblefrom the earlyLuther’sideas.³³ Jewishand Liberal Protestant observers were, of course, painfullyaware that,since the end of the nineteenth century,acompletelydifferent – national- istic and völkisch – interpretation of Luther had emerged. Furthermore, they un- derstood thatmuch of contemporary Protestant theology, due to its inherent anti-Jewishinclinations, could hardlycounteract that trend.³⁴ The immediate context of that development was the amalgamation of modern political anti- Semitism with racist and social Darwinist theories, as wellasacritique of mod- ernity rooted in culturalpessimism. More than ever before, the Jewish minority was seen as the embodiment of all the phenomena völkisch thinking was fighting against: capitalistic masssociety,socialism, liberal democracy,,

 Lamparter,Evangelische Kirche und Judentum, 59 – 60.  Forthe earlyNazi period, (1906–1945) should be mentioned in this con- text.In1933, he introduced his essay “Die Kirche vorder Judenfrage” with several quotations from Luther’searlywork; see EberhardBethge, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer und die Juden,” in Die Juden und Martin Luther,eds.Kremers et al. 211–48.  Forother Protestant voices during the Weimar Period, see Gury Schneider-Ludorf, “‘Luther und die Juden’ in den theologischen Bewegungen der Zwischenkriegszeit,” in Martin Luthers “Judenschriften”,eds. Oelke, Krausetal, 145 – 60. Luther’sShadow 173 pluralism, and the notion of humanitarian values. Under the influenceofracial theories, anti-Semitic thinking amalgamated into the ‘Aryan myth,’ including its negative countermyth of aSemitic race.³⁵ The defining characteristics of this ideologywerethe conviction that the Jews wereabiologicallyinferior and de- structive race, and adualistic worldview,accordingtowhich the course of West- ern history,including the contemporary social, political, and cultural conflicts of modernsociety,was to be explainedbythe profound antagonismbetween the Germanicand the Jewishrace. This radical variant of modernanti-Semitism de- velopedinto an ideologythattended to turn also against the Christian religion and her Jewishroots or,asinHouston Stewart Chamberlain’s(1855–1927) Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (1899), focused on an “Aryanization” and “dejudaization” of Christianity.³⁶ Such anti-Semitism drew on an abundance of sources providing political,racial, and religious arguments, including Lu- ther’s Judenschriften. Aparadigmaticexample of this increasingly influentialphenomenon is Theo- dorFritsch (1852– 1933), oneofthe most importantand infamous representatives of radical völkisch anti-Semitismduringthe German Kaiserreich andthe Weimar Republic.³⁷ Fritschsoughttosystematicallyundermine thepositionofthe Jews within German societybymeans of ahateful of theirreligion, charac- ter, andmentality.Already in 1887,Fritsch hadpublished his Antisemiten-Katechis- mus,which waslater widely disseminated underthe title Handbuch derJuden- frage. In this pamphlet,Fritsch compiled copiousmaterialdepicting theJewish minorityasadangerousenemy of theGermanpeople, andcalled fora“holy war” againstJudaism’s “evil spirit” as well as forthe preservation of the “highest values of Aryanhumanity.”³⁸ Thestruggleagainst theJewishreligionplayedacru- cial role in hispolitical agitation. TheJewishemancipation,heclaimed,had been granted on thebasis of theutterly falseassumption “that theJewishreligionhad thesamemoral foundationsasthe Christian[tradition].”³⁹ He projectedhis obses-

 See Leon Poliakov,The Aryan Myth: AHistory of Racist &Nationalistic Ideas in Europe (New York: Basic Books,1974).  See Uriel Tal, Religious and Anti-Religious Roots of Modern Antisemitism (New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1971).  See, e.g., Elisabeth Albanis, “Anleitungzum Hass.TheodorFritschs antisemitisches Ge- schichtsbild. Vorbilder,Zusammensetzungund Verbeitung,” in Antisemitische Geschichtsbilder, eds.Werner Bergmann and Ulrich Sieg (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2009): 167–91.  , Handbuchder Judenfrage. Eine Zusammenstellungdes wichtigsten Materi- als zur Beurteilung des jüdischen Volkes, 26th edition (Hamburg: Hanseatische Druck-und Ver- lagsanstalt,1907), 415 – 6.  Ibid., 12. 174 Christian Wiese sive anti-Semitic fantasiesofa“Jewish worlddomination” onto theallegedly se- cret contents of rabbinical literature, usingthe accusation that theTalmuddeni- gratednon-Jewsasaclassand permittedJewsall manner of criminal acts against them,including economic exploitation andritualmurder. ThedemonizationofJu- daismbymeans of traditional Christian stereotypesservedtomobilizeand rein- forceexistinganti-Semiticemotions. Fritschextendedhis attacksagainst thecon- cept of Godinthe Hebrew Bible, construing an animus betweenthe ‘Godof Judaism,’ acriminalidol, andthe ‘true GodofChristianity.’ In hispamphlet, Derfalsche Gott (1916; firstpublished in 1911 underthe title Beweis-Material gegenJahwe), FritschreferredtoMartinLuther, whohad “crusaded againstthe dis- honourable strangers with thesharpestweapons,” as amodel foranappropriate attitude towardsthe Jews.⁴⁰ He quoted extensivelyfromLuther’spolemics, empha- sizing particularly hisinsistenceonburning thesynagoguesand expellingthe Jews as ameans in thebattleagainst the “poisonous,malicious snakes,assassins, andchildrenofthe devil.”⁴¹ FritschslanderedJewishcitizensasheinous enemies of theGermanpeople, praising the “German Luther” as asaviorwho hadbound Christianityand Germanness together andexposed theChristian opposition to Ju- daism, whichhad been coveredupbythe “Judaized” Catholic church.⁴² Whilehe wasnot in theslightest degree interested in Luther’sactual theologicalarguments, theanti-Semiticdemagogue shamelesslyexploited thereformer’swritingsfor his owntirades of hate. As an earlyrepresentative of a völkisch appropriation of Luther’slate Judens- chriften,Fritsch can be seen as aportent of what was to follow.Another anti-Se- mitic author,Alfred Falb,who published apamphlet on Luther und die Juden in 1921,was clearlyinfluenced by Fritsch as wellasbythe infamous book, Die große Täuschung,published in the same year by the Assyriologist Friedrich De- litzsch (1850 –1922). “Luther the liberator,” Delitzschclaimed, even though he was not equipped with modern knowledge about Judaism and the nature of the races,had alreadyintuitively – by virtue of the “indignation of his Germanic character”–takenthe path towardsthe insights of anti-Semitism, but unfortu-

 Theodor Fritsch, Der falsche Gott.Beweismaterial gegenJahwe,10th edition (Leipzig: Ham- mer-Verlag, 1933), 192.  Ibid., 189.  Ibid., 190 –2. Forthe response of Jewish and Protestant thinkers to Fritsch’sdemonization of Judaism and the Jewish concept of God, see Christian Wiese, “Jahwe – ein Gott nur für Juden? Der Disput um das Gottesverständnis zwischen Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestanti- scher alttestamentlicher Wissenschaft im Kaiserreich”,inChristlicher Antijudaismus und Anti- semitismus.Theologische und kirchliche Programme deutscher Christen, ed. LeonoreSiegele- Wenschkewitz (Frankfurt a.M.: Haagund Herchen, 1994): 27–94. Luther’sShadow 175 natelyhad stopped halfwaythrough the journey.⁴³ However,Falb added, it should be appreciated that Lutherhad at least developedfrom a “pronounced friend of the Jews to their sharpest adversary.”⁴⁴ The innocent Lutherof1523 had been too naïvetoperceive the intrusion of the “Jewish spirit” into contem- porary Christianity and to grasp the racialorigins of Jewishusury.Hehad falsely assumedthat it was possible to explain the shameful activities of the Jews as a religious delusion that could be overcome, rather than recognizing “that all our thinking and feeling,doing and acting [emergesfrom] the deepestfoundations of our innate nature, which arisesfrom our blood.”⁴⁵ The reformer had, there- fore, held onto the belief in Jesus’ Jewish descent,whereas modern scholarship had now clearlydemonstrated his Galilean-Aryan roots. In the main section of his vitriolic pamphlet that is devoted to the topic, “Lu- ther as an enemyofthe Jews,” Falb quotes extensively from Luther’santi-Jewish writingsand links them to contemporary anti-Semitic propaganda. The reform- er’sacerbic attacks against the Jews can be explained by his anticipation of the “future of Christianity”⁴⁶ as well as by his perception of the vin- dictiveness and bloodthirstiness of the Jewish people. He should have recog- nized that Israel, rather than being God’schosen people, was the people of an evil demon.⁴⁷ At least Luther’sfollowers in the present oughttounderstand that everything they loved in the “Old Testament” was “in reality merelyLuther’s poetic wordand Luther’ssoul,”⁴⁸ whereas it was in actuality nothing but Jewish idolatry.Despitehis naïveté, however,Luther had asked himself whyitwas even possiblethat such a “Barbarianpeople” existed on Earth, and his powerful turn- ing against Judaism was thus highlysignificant for “Aryan humankind”: “as an innermost outrageand abrupt rebellion against the Jewish-oriental violation of [human] nature, as afirst awakeningofthe Germanicsoul to an Aryan knowl- edge of God and rebirth.”⁴⁹ While Luther had expressed this on an emotional level rather thanasaclear political insight,hehad at least sensed in his Ger- manic soul that the “God of the Jews” was not the God of Christian love, but an abominable idol. Contemporary –“Judaized”–Protestant theology, however, had distorted the reformer’smessagerather thanreinterpreting it in the light of contemporaryknowledge.Hence, they had irresponsiblysilenced Luther’strue

 Alfred Falb, Luther und die Juden (Munich: Boepple, 1921), 4and 8.  Ibid., 11.  Ibid., 24.  Ibid., 30.  Ibid., 47.  Ibid., 53.  Ibid., 59. 176 Christian Wiese theological legacy –“his fear for the futureofthe German soul, which, as he clearlyanticipated, wasindanger of beingsuffocated by the claws of the creep- ing demon of usury.”⁵⁰ Numerous examples of this discourse of hate might be listed: the recurring accusation, for instance in the völkisch writingsofMathilde Ludendorff (1877– 1966), in Arthur Dinter’s(1876 – 1948) “197Thesen zur Vollendungder Reforma- tion (1926), and in the abundanceofinflammatory anti-Semitic writingswhich stated that granting Jews equal rights had been aterrible betrayal of Luther. The church, then,had to getbacktohis late writings, his “unveiling of the secret goals of the Jews,” and his “fiery sermons devoted to the defensive battle against Judaism,” as Ludendorf phrased it in 1928.⁵¹ Since 1917atthe latest, völkisch as well as German-Christian circles had adopted Luther’santi-Jewish polemics as an integral part of their agenda. The voices that made him aforerunner of racial anti-Semitism rangefrom the Bund fürdeutsche Kirche,founded in 1921,tothe Glaubensbewegung Deutsche Christen that had emergedin1932.⁵² Their sole ob- jection was that Luther’sreformation had not been radical enough, stopping short of eliminating all Jewishtraces from Christianity, thatis, from abandoning the “Old Testament” and discovering the “Aryan Jesus.”⁵³ During the Nazi peri- od, such attitudes wereused to justify anti-Jewishviolence; for instance,when the Thuringian bishop Martin Sasse (1890 –1942) portrayedthe November pog- rom in 1938 as afulfilment of Luther’spolitical suggestions to the Saxonian au- thorities:

On 10 November 1938, on Luther’sbirthday, the synagogues areburninginGermany. […]In this hour the voiceofthe man needs to be heard, who, as the prophet of the Germansinthe 16th century,once started, duetohis ignorance, as afriend of the Jews,and whothen, driv- en by his conscience, his experiences, and reality,became the greatest anti-Semiteofhis age, the warningvoiceofhis people with regardtothe Jews.⁵⁴

 Ibid., 53.  , Der ungesühnteFrevel an Luther,Lessing. Mozart und Schiller im Dienstedes ewigen Baumeisters aller Welten (Munich:Selbstverlag,1928), 11;for Ludendorff’s roleinthe völkisch movement,see AnnikaSpilker, Geschlecht, Religion und völkischer Natio- nalismus.Die Ärztin und Antisemitin Mathilde vonKemnitz-Ludendorff (1877–1966) (Frankfurt and New York: Campus,2013).  Forthe phenomenonofvölkisch theology,see UwePuschner and Clemens Vollnhals, eds., Die völkisch-religiöse Bewegung im Nationalsozialismus.Eine Beziehungs-und Konfliktge- schichte(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2012).  See Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi (Prince- ton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 2010).  Martin Sasse, Martin Luther über die Juden: Wegmit ihnen! (Freiburg: Sturmhut-Verlag, 1938). Forthe völkisch and National socialist interpretation of Martin Luther,see Brosseder,Lu- Luther’sShadow 177

In this vein, it might be mentioned that (1892–1946), whose views stronglyinfluenced thoseofHitler,⁵⁵ took acompletelydifferent direction in his infamous book, DerMythus des 20.Jahrhunderts (1930). In this work, Rosenberg characterized Luther’senterprise and the Reformation as astep to- wards the “Judaization” of the Germanpeople: by translating the Bible, particu- larlythe “Old Testament,” into German and making it aChristian Volksbuch,Lu- ther had permeated the German people with the “Jewishspirit.” Thus, in one of the most influential articulations of Nazi ideology, Luther was not depicted as an anti-Semite but as a “friend of the Jews.” By contrast,the German-Christian and völkisch circlesinthe Protestant churchwereeager to demonstrate the opposite, appropriatingLuther’swritingsfor their own anti-Semitic purposesand inter- pretingthe principle of ecclesia semper reformanda as ameans to “dejudaize” Christianity. More interesting in this context thanthe radical racist discourse that instru- mentalized Luther in order to justify anti-Semitic slander,demonization, hatred, and violence are the voices of thosemore moderate Protestant theologians who attempted to offsetorlimit the radical völkisch distortions of Luther’sthinking. Most of them, however,did so without refraining from legitimizing their own anti-Semitic thought patterns in theological terms by referring to the reformer’s ideas. While they aimed mainlytodefend Christianityagainst the potential anti- Christian implications of anti-Semitism, in onlyvery rare cases was this effort ac- companied by genuine with Jews and Judaism. How difficult it was for the majority of the GermanProtestant theologians to dissociate themselvesfrom völkisch perspectivescan be appreciated by looking at aseriesofarticles the Lutheran church historian, Wilhelm Walther (1846–1924), published in 1921 under the title “Lutherund die Juden” as are- sponse to the aforementioned pamphlet by Alfred Falb. While rejecting the lat- ter’scontempt for the “Old Testament,” Walther articulated clearlyanti-Semitic views. “The repulsive element of today’santi-Semitism,” he argued, was “that,in order to thoroughlydenigrate the Jews, it alsorelentlesslymakes the Old Testa- ment contemptible. That wayitonlywreaks havoc, diminishing the victorious power of its legitimate fight.”⁵⁶ Accordingtothe theologian, it was wrong to pro- ject Luther’sjustified accusations against the Talmud and the Jews of his time

thers Stellungzuden Juden, 156–208; and see Günter B. Ginzel, “Martin Luther:Kronzeuge des Antisemitismus,” in Die Juden und Martin Luther,eds.Kremers et al., 189–210.  Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20.Jahrhunderts.Eine Wertungder seelisch-geistigenGe- staltenkämpfe unserer Zeit (Munich: Hoheneichen-Verlag,1930); see Ernst Piper,AlfredRosen- berg. Hitlers Chefideologe(Munich: Blessing, 2005).  Wilhelm Walther,Luther und die Juden (Leipzig:Dörffling&Franke, 1921), 6. 178 Christian Wiese onto the “Old Testament.” ManyChristians weredistressed by such attacksasit was undeniable that “the national flaws of the Jewish people” wereobvious in the biblical stories,and yetJesus had been loyal to the “Old Testament” in his messageaswell as in his deeds.⁵⁷ If the anti-Semites thought that “the weapon of ridiculing the Old Testament wasindispensable for their battle against the threat emerging from Judaism,” they should be aware that “the sameLuther who so strongly valued the Old Testament,extracting so manyblessingsfrom it for our sake, clearlyrecognized the Jews’ flaws and the threat they represented and warned against them in powerful language.”⁵⁸ ForWalther,the reception of Luther’sthinking was supposed to teach Christians to respect the “Old Testa- ment,” but to despise postbiblical and contemporary Judaism as well as the Jews as asocial group. Everythingelse about anti-Semitic and politics was perfectlyjustified:

As harshlyasthe anti-Semites contradict Luther [with regardtohis appreciation of the Old Testament], as much they have the right to refertohis sayings as far as their battle against the Jewish spirit is concerned. By referringtoLuther they can makeastrong impression, particularlysince the latter,for along period, took amuch friendlierstanceregarding the Jews,i.e.itneeded manysaddening experiences to prompt his harsh judgment about them.⁵⁹

In the following passages of his lectures,Walther defendedthe anti-Jewishpo- lemicsofLuther’slater writingswhile underscoring their contemporary rele- vance. The reformer, he argued, had no choice but to changecourse with respect to his position on the Jews: first,the Jews of his time blinded themselvestothe truth of the Gospel, and second, his research into rabbinical literature opened his eyes to the rabbis’ acid mockery of Christianityingeneral and Jesus in par- ticular.This enmity towards Christianity, Walther claimed,was also characteristic of contemporary Jewry.The anti-Semites wereright in “pointing to the most re- cent events as aconfirmation of Luther’sassertions, since Jewishleaders of the Revolution, particularlyinRussia […], have unscrupulouslyshed as much Christian blood as they deemed useful in order to gain and secure their rule.”⁶⁰ Furthermore,Walther implicitly questioned the entire process of Jewish emancipation in the modern period, again pointing to Luther’snegative experi- ences:

 Ibid.  Ibid., 9.  Ibid.  Ibid., 35. Luther’sShadow 179

Were the consequences morefavourable than those which Luther neededtodeal with after havingexpressed similar thoughts in his writingin1523 with its positive attitude towards the Jews?Hecame to the conclusion that the Jews would become the masters, and the Christians their servants.⁶¹

Walther thus corroborated anti-Semitic resentments and limited himself to cau- tioning against an exaggeration of anti-Jewishhatred as wellasagainst the con- sequencesofracist concepts; these would ultimatelyturn against the “Old Testa- ment,” denigrating it as “apurelyJewishbook” and as atradition stemming from “the evil Jewishspirit.”⁶² In this way, perfidious anti-Semites would them- selvesdothe destructive work of the Jews – apopularargument among Protes- tant theologians at that time which enabled them to express their affinity to anti- Jewishviews without abandoningthe “Old Testament.” Walther’sstrategyofmaking theological and political concessions to anti- Semiticviews while trying to prevent them from damagingChristianity’sscrip- tural foundations was not uncommon among Protestant theologians of his day. In this regard, one popular tactic was to differentiatebetween the “Old Tes- tament”–understood as the preliminary stageofChristianity – and Judaism, thus asserting afundamental opposition between the two religions. Thismove was undergirded by atraditionalsupersessionist theology, which claimedthe “Old Testament” (or rather,its ‘valuable’ parts) for Christianity,and rendered postbiblical Judaism ahistory of blindness and life under God’scurse. Particu- larlythe Lutherofthe late Judenschriften was seen as aguarantor of this anti- Jewishtradition; his earlywritingsweredepicted as an irrelevant error made by an inexperienced youth.

1933 and the FailureofaCounternarrative

The effort of Jewish intellectuals to rescue an idealized Luther from anti-Semitic instrumentalization by accentuating the discontinuity between his earlyand his later writingsonthe Jews and to createacounternarrative to his appropriation by anationalistic, anti-Semitic and anti-emancipatory ideologybyportraying him as the forerunner and hero of the Enlightenment was doomed to failure. We know this from the reception of Luther’s Judenschriften at the beginning of the Nazi period. It should be noted that, in the present article, the complex theo- logical context can merelybeindicated. Since the late nineteenth century,the

 Ibid., 37.  Ibid., 39. 180 Christian Wiese

“German Luther” had become afigure of German nationalism, and the reform- er’slater writingsonthe Jews weredrawn on with increased frequencyinpub- lic discussions of the social position of the Jewish minority in Germany. The ‘Lu- ther renaissance,’ aprogramme of renewed historical and theological research on the reformerthat had begun shortlybefore World WarI,⁶³had elicited a strongresponsefrom youngProtestant theologians;the response was now inten- sified, with the numerous academic events on the occasion of Luther’s450th birthdayon10November1933providingthe opportunitytopromote him as the herald of anew, völkisch Germanyand the symbol of arevitalized ‘German- ness.’ Protestant churchhistorians who wereclose to the renewal of Luther’sthe- ologyfelt compelled to treat the topic “Luther and the Jews” in one wayoran- other and thus contributed to the widespread impact of the theo-political thoughtpatterns of the reformer’santi-Jewish writings. The Jewishlawyerand publicist LudwigFeuchtwanger (1885–1947) had agood sense of what the cele- brations signified:

This is not an antiquariancuriosity,apeculiar quirk of the dotage of agreat man, retold on the occasion of his 450th birthday. The wayMartin Luther let loose then against the Jews – that has been heard again and again fromthe German people for 450years. In November 1933,weare findingthat numerous importantrepresentativesofthe Protestant church and academia are explicitlyadoptingthis position of Luther,aping him wordfor word, and in- sistentlycitingand recommending his writings on the Jews.⁶⁴

Prominent Protestant theologians such as Heinrich Bornkamm, Hanns Rückert (1901–1974), Erich Seeberg(1888–1945) and others devoted much attention in their speeches to Luther’slate writings; and while they tendedtoreject the völkisch usurpation of these texts,they were not immune to anti-Semitic prejudi- ces,includingracist ideas. Bornkamm, for instance, delivered alecture titled Volk und Rasse bei Martin Luther,inwhich he indicated that Luther was alsomo- tivated by an “instinctive racial aversion to the Jews.” Thestrongambivalenceof his position becomes apparent when he insists that, ultimately, the reformer’sac- cusations against the Jews did not arise from racial difference,but then all the

 See, e.g., Christine Helmer and Bo Christian Holm,eds., LutherrenaissancePast and Present (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2015).  Ludwig Feuchtwanger, “Luthers Kampf gegendie Juden,” Bayerisch-IsraelitischeGemeinde- zeitung9(1933): 371–3, here 371. Feuchtwangerreferred to the followingsentence from alecture by the Berlin liberal church historian Hans Lietzmann (1875 – 1942) on “Luther als deutscher Christ.”“It is aterrible judgement that Luther passes hereonthe Jews,and we can establish that in the assessmentoftheir harmful influenceonGermany, he is fullyinaccord with the pop- ular view of our present day” (quotedibid., 371). Luther’sShadow 181 more emphasizes religious enmity: “They [Luther’saccusations] were directed at anation thatincessantlyoffended God with theirfaithlessness and blasphemy.” While there can be no doubtabout the essentiallyreligious character of Luther’s enmity towards the Jews, Bornkamm argued, it is also true that the “crime” of “blasphemyagainst Christ,” of defiance against the HolyScripture, and of the “Jewishdeprivation of God’shonor” cannot account fullyfor Luther’srage. Rather,his responsemust have been intensified by the economic damageinflict- ed upon society by the Jews and their habit of “sucking out Germany.”⁶⁵ The way in which Bornkamm outlinedLuther’sposition, lettingitgocompletelyunchal- lenged, was more thanlikelytoreinforce anti-Jewish sentimentsamongst his au- dience. As such, it exemplifies the irresponsibility of Protestant theologyatthat political moment of German history. Bornkamm is but one among manyProtestant theologians who, despite dis- sociating themselvesfrom blatantlyracist readings of Luther,did not refrain from celebratinghis hatredofthe Jews.⁶⁶ Atellingexample in this regard is the KönigsbergLuther scholarErich Vogelsang (1904–1944), who presented his views in 1933 in abook dedicated to the ProtestantReich Bishop Ludwig Müller (1883–1945) under the fitting title Luther’sKampf gegen die Juden.⁶⁷ While citing an “anti-Semitism that is necessary for the people these days”⁶⁸ and declaring his agreement with the Aryan paragraph, Vogelsang’smain con- cern wastoreject,byway of Luther, anynotion of Christian solidarity with Ju- daism. Rather than eliding the fundamental antagonism between Judaism and Christianity – atendencyhesaw at work in liberal theologyfrom the Enlighten- ment onwards – what was needed in theological terms,hesuggested, was an understanding of the fateofthe Jews through the categories of “curse and blind- ing,wrath and the judgement of God” alone.⁶⁹ In this respect,hesummarized Luther’sposition as follows: “That is the mysterious curse that has hung over the Jewish people for hundreds of years […], in truth, aself-inflicted curse. On

 Heinrich Bornkamm, “Volk und Rasse bei Martin Luther,” in Bornkamm,Volk – Staat – Kir- che. Ein Lehrgang der Theolog. Fakultät Gießen (Gießen: Töpelmann, 1933), 15–6.  On Nazi-inspired interpretations in the context of German-Christian theologies,see Peter von der Osten-Sacken, “Der nationalsozialistische Lutherforscher TheodorPauls.Vervollständigung eines fragmentarischen Bildes,” Das mißbrauchte Evangelium, ed. idem, 136–66.; OliverArn- hold, “‘Luther und die Juden’ bei den Deutschen Christen,” in Martin Luthers “Judenschriften”, eds.Oelke, Krauset. al., 191–212.  ForaJewish response, see LudwigFeuchtwanger’sreview in Bayerisch-Israelitische Gemein- dezeitung9(1933): 380 –2.  Vogelsang, Luthers Kampf gegendie Juden, 6.  Ibid., 18. 182 Christian Wiese

Christ,the bone of contention, they are dashed to pieces,crushed, dispersed.”⁷⁰ The Lutheran theologian went as far as alluding to the myth of the “eternal Jew,” implying that this curse, from which no political emancipation could redeem the Jews, made them adangerous,demonic element within German society.Intheo- logical terms,hewas unable to perceive something different in Judaism thana nation damned by God, and even the tradition rooted in Luther’swritings from 1523and then adopted by the ‘mission to the Jews’,which at least acritical potential against völkisch anti-Semitism, playednorole whatsoever in his think- ing. Instead, Vogelsang’sinterpretationofLuther’s “battle against the Jews” had aclear political dimension and featured afull rangeofstereotypes from the ar- senal of anti-Semitism – from polemics against the “Jewish-rabbinical morality” to the interpretation of the notion of Israel’schosenness and the faith in the comingofthe Messiahasanexpression of “Judaism’senormouslytenacious claim to world domination.”⁷¹ Vogelsang even attributes völkisch categoriesto Luther by asserting that he had an aversion against “everything foreign to the country,” with much of his sentiment against the Jews having a “nationalist tone,” being directed against their “un-German slyness and mendacity.”⁷² Cor- respondingly, Luther’sreal strength, Vogelsang suggested, was the “inner agree- ment and close fit of Germanness and Christianity.”⁷³ He left open – as did many of his Protestant colleagues – the precise nature Luther’s “tough mercy” (scharfe Barmherzigkeit)was meant to take in the politics of the present,but his emphasis on Luther’sidea of a “clean separation between Jews and Christians”⁷⁴ demon- strates that what he had in mind was apolitics of separation and of adetermined revision of the legal emancipation and of German Jewry.It would be difficult not to understand this attitude as alegitimation of the initial Nazi politics against the Jews. In anycase, Vogelsang firmlyrejected Eduard Lamparter’sliberal position: Luther’ssolution for the “JewishQuestion” was def- initelynot “mutualunderstanding” or “rapprochement,” let alone the amicable acknowledgment “that [quoting Lamparter] the Jewishreligion, too, had been granted adivine right to exist alongside the Christian [religion], and aspecial gift and task within humankind’sspiritual life (even today).” Rather,the basic

 Ibid., 10.  Ibid., 14.  Ibid., 31. Judaism should not,accordingtoVogelsang,beexposed to racial contempt, but “People and peoplesand racesare not – as the rationalism of the philosemitesopines – all of equal value, equal in terms of ,intelligence, approval, strength” (ibid., 12).  Ibid., 32.  Ibid., 23. Luther’sShadow 183 contours of the politics of the church ought to be “separation of the spirits and a determined defensiveaction against the inner subversion by Jewish ways, against all ‘Judaization’.”⁷⁵ Vogelsang espoused aclassic form of Jew-hatred that combined elements of traditionalsupersessionist anti-Judaism with obvioussocio-culturalenmity to- wards the Jewish minority and openness to racial concepts⁷⁶ – awidespread Protestant attitude in 1933 and beyond. Vogelsang might have madethe same points without recoursetoLuther,who simply served as legitimation for aviru- lent anti-Semitism obviouslyindebt to Adolf Stoecker (1835 – 1909),who had in- fluenced an entire generation of Protestant academictheologians and minis- ters.⁷⁷ The imageofthe Jews that was disseminated by them was that of an

 Ibid., 25.  My perspective differs herefromthat of Brosseder,Luthers Stellungzuden Juden, 131–5, whoinsists that Vogelsang’sworkisof“high value” despiteits beingtemporallyaffected by the situation of 1933.For Brosseder,Vogelsang attempteda“description of the Jewish question in Luther that does justicetothe theology of the reformer” (130). He concedes that Vogelsang both lacks the “academicallynecessary distance” in relation to Luther’slater writing(132) and that he isolates the “Jewish question” in Luther from the overall contextofhis theology. GivenVogelsang’sargument,however,itseems obvious that his goal was,inhis capacity as an expert on Luther,tolegitimize contemporary anti-Semitism on the basis of the writings of the outstanding theological authority within Protestantism and thus to express agreement with the initial political measures of the Nazi regime. Onlywithin that frameworkVogelsang’s book understands itself also as acontribution to historical and theological research. This is cor- roboratedbyacomparison to another book published in 1932 by Walter Holsten(1908–1982) under the title Christentum und nichtchristliche Religion nach der Auffassung Luthers. Much stron- gerthan Vogelsang, Holstenaimed at ascholarlyunderstandingofLuther’swritings on the Jews and tried to avoid touching on contemporary politics or alluding to racial categories.However, Holsten, too,presents an anti-Jewish theology according to which Christianity was Israel’s “con- tinuation and fulfilment,” whereas the “legalistic” religion of postbiblical Judaism was the “au- thentic scion and descendant of the illegitimatereligion of Old Israel” which was,infact,blind with regardtothe truth of the Holy Scripture; see WalterHolsten, Christentum und nichtchris- tliche Religion nach der AuffassungLuthers (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1932), 101. Holsten’ssys- tematized summary of Luther’stheological verdictonJudaism, presentedwith an air of agree- ment (ibid., 99–116), denies Judaism the theological right to exist; and when the author interprets Luther’s “sharp mercy” as an expression of “reformatory depth and acerbity,” delin- eatingitfroma“soft and thus wrong merci” and depictingitas“aloyalimitation of the merci of God,” who “performshis merci by wayofhis alien act,his annihilatingwrath,” it seems hard not to read this as an at least potential justification of violenceagainst the Jews.The statement followingthese words,addressingthe anti-Semites and emphasizing that he was talkingabout an essentially “religious issue” and that “the merci meant by Luther was ultimatelymerci and not hatred” (ibid., 125–6), is strongly limited by whatissaid before.  See Günter Brakelmann, Martin Greschat and Werner Jochmann,Protestantismus und Polit- ik: Werk und Wirkung Adolf Stoeckers (Hamburg: Christians,1982). 184 Christian Wiese alien and hostile, if not dangerous,race, whose allegedly ‘subversive’ power imperilled Germanyand called for action – atacit consent to the Nazi’sdiscrim- inatory measures.The fact thatthe Lutheran church and Lutheran theologians werealso influenced by Luther’s “two kingdoms theory,” which prompted them to concede the right to act in the political realm completelytothe State, further contributed to their policy of leaving the fate of the Jews to the Nazi re- gime. The sameholds true for the ConfessingChurch, which turned out to be equallyimpotent and passive – first,because manyofits members shared the prevailing anti-Semitic sentiments,⁷⁸ and second, because it could not relyon atheological tradition that would have enabled it to foil the defamation of Juda- ism and the persecution of the Jews. This impression is corroborated by abrief look at yetanother Protestant statement from the 1930s regarding Lutherand the Jews. In 1936 and 1937, Hans Georg Schroth, amember of the Confessing Church, who was close to ’s “dialecticaltheology” and, after 1945, was part of the Arbeitsgemein- schaft “Juden und Christen” at the German Protestant Church Convention, pub- lished two pieces,titled “Luther und die Juden” and “Luthers christlicherAnti- semitismus”.These publications took acourageous stance insofar as the author defended missionary activities amongst the Jews against the views of ra- cial anti-Semitism, insisted on the right of baptized Jews to become Protestant pastors,vigorouslyrejected the so-called “Aryan paragraph” and repudiated the radical assumptions of völkisch theologies. Luther’s “Christian anti-Semi- tism,” Schroth argued, clearlycontradicted anyform of racial thinking;rather, it was basedonhope for the salvation of the Jews and aimed for atheological refutation of Judaism. Even though Judaism, from the reformer’sview, was part of the diabolical coalition of the Antichrist as it allegedlyslanderedChrist, Luther knew thatthe Church, the “new Israel,” wascontinouslythreatened by the temptation to denyChrist and thus to become “Judaism” itself. In its essence, Schroth emphasized, Judaism was “anti-Christianity,” as was racial anti-Semi- tism duetoits attacks against the Christian tradition: “The Jewisalwaysstand- ing in front of the door,and this would even be the caseshould therenolon- gerbearaciallyorpolitically visible Judaism. Andwho would denythat

 See WolfgangGerlach, And the Witnesses Were Silent: The ConfessingChurchand the Per- secution of the Jews (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); for the discussion of Luther’s Judenschriften amongtheologians of the ConfessingChurch, see Siegfried Hermle, “‘Luther und die Juden’ in der Bekennenden Kirche,” in Martin Luthers “Judenschriften”,ineds.Oelke, Kraus et al., 161–90.For receptions within differinggroups within the German Protestant church, see Christopher J. Probst,Demonizing the Jews:Luther and the Protestant Church in (Bloomington and Indianapolis:Indiana University Press, 2012). Luther’sShadow 185 todaywehavetofight such an ‘anti-Semitic’ battle within the Church?”⁷⁹ In theo- ry,Schroth even wanted to express apositive thought – namely, that Christians should not abandonthe Jews to hatred as they shared with them the solidarity of being sinners before God and because Christians,too, werealways tempted to turn against Christ.Inaddition to this thought, which recalls the attitude of the young Luther,heintended to saythat in the present,Luther’s “Christian anti-Semitism” could be understood as directed not just against the Jews but also against the völkisch movement.Thus, if anation decides to turn against Christ,itbecomes “Jewish,”“be it what it mayinterms of its race and ethnicity, and even if it is Catholic, Protestant or non-religious. Andwhen anation, by de- ciding against Christ,has become apeople of Judaism, it will share the fateof racialJudaism: rejection by God.”⁸⁰ According to Schroth, “the Jewprevails also in anti-Semitism if the latter turns against Christ” – and that is whyitis the church’sduty to “resist against all forms of anti-Christianityorvölkisch-na- tional Christianity,asLuther has done with regard to the Jews.”⁸¹ Schroth was apparentlyunaware of how dangerous and counterproductive Luther’s “salvational anti-Semitism” was and thatthis rather desperate and con- voluted argumentation, abelittlement of Luther’santi-Jewishtheology, fostered anti-Semitic patterns of thoughtevenifittried to turn them criticallyagainst Nazism. Here, Judaism becomes the symbolofthe “anti-Christ” and of the dia- bolical, which implies that the diabolical in all of its manifestations is related to Judaism. Jews and Judaism thus appear as acountervailingpower poised to un- dermine what is true and ethicallygood. It is hardly surprising,then, that while Schroth defended Jews who had converted to Christianity, he had no wordofsol- idarity with the other Jews and did not challengethe regime’sright to engagein racialpolitics. His position is revealing as it demonstrates that – even with the best intentions – it was impossible, on the basis of Luther’stheology, to effective- ly counter the anti-Semitic imageofthe Jews, let alone the denial of Judaism’s theological right to exist.Onthe contrary,anti-Jewish sentiments werereinforced by such interpretations.

In retrospect,the idealization of Luther on the part of Jewishintellectuals and their belief in the liberatingeffects of the Reformation on German culture emerg- es as atragic illusion, the authorsblind to the reformer’strue views and the absenceofcontemporary Protestantism’sresponse to their dialogical approach.

 Hans GeorgSchroth, Luthers christlicher Antisemitismus heute (Witten: Westdeutscher Lu- therverlag,1937),20.  Ibid., 22.  Ibid., 22–3. 186 Christian Wiese

The same might be true for their political faith in the Enlightenment principles they strovetosee at work in Luther.Nevertheless, it seems worthwhile to note the dignity inherent in the endeavour to invoke – via an idealizedLuther – alib- eral counter-tradition of freedom of thought,tolerance, and human decencythat had, tragically, become widelyirrelevant in Germanpolitics – and in Protestant theology. By showcasingotherwise hidden implications of Luther’sideas, Jewish scholars protested what they perceivedasacatastrophic decline of the liberal tradition that had once guaranteed Jewish emancipation and integration. Ulti- mately, idealizing Luther in an attempt to offset the inhumane logic of modern anti-Semitism was both adesperate apologetic strategyand an act of intellectual resistancethatmerits respect. This seems all the more the caseinview of the lack of solidarity on the part of nearlythe full gamut of Protestant theologians.Luther’swritingsonthe Jews not onlyovershadowed Jewish-Christian relations when theologians tolerated or actively promoted the reformer’sideas in order to demonize the Jewish minority or justifyanti-Semitic politics. Moresubtly, even Protestant theologians who re- jected the harsh views espoused by Luther in 1543and tried to oppose anti-Sem- itism by referringtothe more sympathetic elements of his statement in 1523 failed to address the fundamental flaws of the reformer’sperception of Judaism and to engageinaradical critique of the inevitable political consequences of his supersessionist theology. Consequently, they did not develop atradition of re- spect and dialogue that would have served them in countering the radicalization of anti-Semitic mentalities within the Protestant church and beyond. The handful of hopeful signs for aturn towards an affirmationofJudaism as avaluable reli- gious and cultural forcewithin German society,seen in Eduard Lamparter’s rather unique position, were silenced by an overwhelmingmerging of different anti-Jewishand anti-Semitic convictions thatcame to the fore in the crucial years which destroyed Weimar democracy. The challengeinthe Jewish discourse on Luther since the Enlightenment,be it characterized by idealization or theo-political critique, remained unheard by German Protestantismbefore World WarIIand the Shoah. It was onlygradually – and often reluctantly – that Protestant theologians turned their gaze to the shadow Luther’santi-Semitism had cast on Protestant-Jewishrelations and on Protestantism itself.⁸² The historical and theological questions with which they wereconfronted werenothing less thanradical: was thereadirect connection

 Forthe Protestant discourse after 1945, see Wolfgang Kraus, “‘Luther und die Juden’ in den kirchenpolitischen Stellungnahmen und Entwicklungen seit 1945,” in Martin Luthers “Judens- chriften”,eds.Oelke, Krausetal., 289–312. Luther’sShadow 187 between Luther’swritingsonthe Jews, aspecificallyGerman-Protestant variant of anti-Semitism, and the ‘eliminationist’ anti-Semitism (Daniel J. Goldhagen) that led to an unprecedented ?Whatever the historical answer to that question, Protestant self-reflection after the crimes of the twentieth century must face the destructive theological and political traditions thatbelong to the legacyofLuther and the Reformation. Thetheological questions emerging from the historical analysis werenoless challenging: was it possible to forge anew tradition of respectful dialogue with Judaism on the basis of Luther’sthe- ologybyreinterpreting his understandingofthe Bible and his doctrine of justi- fication, or was it necessary to jettison constitutive elements of his thought? AlbertH.Friedlander (1927–2004), aGerman-Jewish emigréscholar in Lon- don, offered apersonal response to such questions in an essayhepublished in 1987, titled “Martin Luther und ”.Aspart of his reflections, he present- ed avision of Lutherinhis feste Burg – asolid castle with atreasure chamber full of glimmering gold, but alsodark vaults and torturechambers. It is in the latter that the tools for are to be found – the place wherethe Jews be- came the menacing antagonists of his own faith. In an imagined interchange, Friedlander asks Luther to lock the doors of the torturechamber and to walk with him to the treasure chamber – his library,which houses the Bible and wherethey can engageinadialogue about theirdiffering understandingof this shared book in an atmosphere of mutual respect.With this vision,Friedland- er offered Protestant theologyapath towards acritical confrontation with Lu- ther’slegacy. In this vision, the dark chamber of Protestant anti-Semitism would be acknowleged and left behind, and aconversation would begin about what unites as well as what separates Judaism and Christianity.⁸³

 Albert H. Friedländer, “Martin Luther und wir Juden,” in Die Juden und Martin Luther,eds. Kremer et al., 289–300,esp. 297.

Dirk Schuster ExclusiveSpaceasaCriterion forSalvation in German Protestantism during the Third Reich

Recent years have witnessed an expansion in the use of spatial conceptions for historical analysis.¹ In the fieldsofStudyofReligion and Theologyspecifically, researchers such as Kim Knott have introduced ‘space’ as an analytical category.² This term is distinctlypolysemic, encompassing, in the religious arena, physical space such as achurch, mosque, or synagogue; geographic space such as are- gion or country;but also social space, perhaps aBaptist women’schoiroraProt- estant congregation. In abroad sense, the first twoareas, that is, physical and geographical, might be perceivedasconstructed space, and the third by its con- tent.Our Baptist women’schoir,for instance, is aspace in which women of Bap- tist belief meet in order to sing together. Thus, we alreadynote acertain exclu- sivity by which entry into this space is governed: one must be awoman, wish to sing,and adhere to the Baptist faith in order to belong. Our Baptist women’schoir,however,isstill not an ‘exclusive space,’ as its boundaries are permeable. It would be possiblefor this choir to accept men into its ranks, perhaps because there was no men’schoiravailable for thosewho would like to sing in agroup. It would also be possible that the choir numbers among its members someonewho does not sing,but performs administrative du- ties for the group. Furthermore, it would be possibletoincludenon-Baptist members if appropriate, say, for inter-religious projects. In what follows, the term ‘exclusive space’ will extend the spatial conception regardingreligion to the feature of ‘race’ (race referring to aracist categorization of humans). Forthis purpose, ‘exclusive space’ is to be understood in the sense that onlyaspecific group of individuals ever has access to it. ‘Outsiders’ can never enter this ‘exclusive space.’ In this context,then, space becomes asocial

 Foraresearch overview,see Christoph Bernhardt, “Governance, Statehood, and Space in 20th Century Political Struggles.AnIntroduction,” Historical Social Research 42 (2017): 199–217.  Forexample, the articles in Journal of Religion in Europe 9(2016), issue 4; András Máté-Tóth and Cosima Rughiniş,eds., Spacesand borders: CurrentResearch on Religion in Central and Eastern Europe (Berlin: de Gruyter,2011); Lise Paulsen Galal et al., “Middle Eastern Christian Spaces in Europe: Multi-sited and Super-diverse,” Journal of Religion in Europe 41 (2016): 1–25;Thomas Erne and Peter Schüz, eds., Die Religion des Raumes und die Räumlichkeit der Religion (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2010).

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-012 190 Dirk Schuster construction that coheres with the sociological approach of spatial conception, as, for example, Kim Knott has discussed in her work on boundaries in different religious spheres. ForKnott, “it is boundaries – themselvesconstructed and invested with meaning – that define containers and position people and objects, thatgenerate margins, and encourage, permit or prohibit crossings.Insides and outsides […] are themselvesconstituted by boundaries.”³ As such, the boundary is the deci- sive criterion for constructingspaces. The interior,orspace, then, is not characterized primarilybyits content,but rather by its boundaries. This boundary buildingprocess features built-in differ- entiation. To take asimple example, we might consider the insider and the out- sider,that is, those who belong within the space – or thosepermitted to enter it – and thosewho do not belong within or are not permitted to enter it.⁴ Defining space in this waynot onlymakes it possible to clarify who belongstothe in- group, but also the definition of the actual in-group using this mechanism. By excluding ‘others,’ criteria are presented to the in-group which must be fulfilled in order to belong.Inthis indirect way, the in-group is defined by the ‘others.’⁵ Recalling our Baptist women’schoir,wehaveanexample of aspace defined by boundaries (it is, after all, a Baptist women’s choir)which are somewhat po- rous.Inthe present article, Idiscuss aspace thatdid not evolve naturally,⁶ but, like countries or buildings,was constructed intentionallywith exclusive entry criteria. In this respect,one might think of apopularclub, in which entrance se- lection is made on the basis of style, appearance, social status, or connections.

 Kim Knott, “Inside, Outside and the Space in-between: Territories and Boundaries in the StudyofReligion,” Temenos:Nordic Journal of Contemporary Religion 44 (2008): 41– 66,here at 45.  Ibid., 44.  Forthis mechanismasexpressed in the example of national identities,see Elfie Rembold and Peter Carrier, “Spaceand Identity:Constructions of National Identities in an AgeofGlobaliza- tion,” National Identities 13 (2011): 361–77,esp. 362–5. And see OliverZimmer, “Boundary Mech- anisms and Symbolic Resources:Towards aProcess-oriented Approach to National Identity,” Na- tions and Nationalism 9(2003): 173 – 93. Duringthe nineteenth century it was important for Catholics and Protestants for the own identity to referatthe differencesbetween the own con- fession and the ‘other’;see AnthonyJ.Steinhoff, “Ein zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter?Nach- denken über die Religion im langen19. Jahrhundert,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 30 (2004): 549–70, hereat561.  Forthe so-called ‘Borderscapes Concept’ as adynamic social process, see Chiara Brambilla, “Exploringthe Critical Potential of the BorderscapesConcept,” Geopolitics 20 (2015): 14– 34.For acritical overview on Borderscapes,see Elena Dell’agnese and Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, “In- troduction. Borderscapes: From Border Landscapes to Border Aesthetics,” Geopolitics 20 (2015): 4–13. Exclusive SpaceasaCriterion forSalvation in German Protestantism 191

In the article, Itry to connect this mechanism of inclusion – or rather,exclusion – to religion. Specifically, Idiscuss defining race as the criterion for accessing a particularform of religion which then crafted adistinct pattern of exclusion.

RaceasaBoundaryfor ReligiousSalvation

Let us begin by clarifyingwhat is meant by areligiouslymotivated exclusion based on race. Forthis purpose, Ishall define race and racism,and discuss the grounds on which aracialcategorizationismade. George Frederickson defined racism by ethno-culturaldifferences, which he further characterizes as congenital, indelible, and unchangeable. Here, he is re- ferring to features such as language, traditions, and familyrelations which are regarded as characteristics of an imaginary collective.⁷ To this characterization Iwould add, as atypicalfeature of racial concepts, the alleged behavioral pat- terns of such aconstructed collective.Bythis Irefer to persisting ideas such as ‘Jewishgreed’ or ‘the inability of Africans to accommodatetowestern standards.’ Fredrickson mentions afurther feature of racism,relevant in this context: “Ra- cism is expressed in practices,institutions, and structures which find their al- leged justification or validation in the recognitionofagroup as ‘the others.’”⁸ In what follows, Iwill not use the term ‘racism’ in contexts that admit of the pos- sibility of assimilation. It was from this assimilationthat the possibility of con- version within the confines of institutionalized religion evolved. Boundaries are drawntodifferentiateoneself from ‘the other.’ Hence(na- tional)identity is constructed in the process of defining ‘the other,’ aparticularly relevant point with respect to building group identity.One separates from ‘the other’ to demarcatethe features of one’sown or in-group-identity.⁹ If these iden- tity boundaries are understood as insuperable due to innate characteristics,we are dealing with aracial – or racist – conceptualization. To take an obvious example, let us consider skincolor.Ifone is deniedac- cess to agroup because of his/her skin color,this is racist behavior.Itrules out the possibilitythat ‘the other’ could ever become part of the ‘in-group,’ One might even call this racial exclusion on the grounds of innate and irreconcilable barriers.

 George M. Fredrickson, Rassismus:Ein historischer Abriß (Hamburg: HamburgerEdition, 2004), 13.  Ibid., 13.  Remboldand Carrier, “Spaceand Identity,” 361–77. 192 Dirk Schuster

In Nazi Germany, the cohabitation of Germansand Jews was portrayedas impossible. The Jews, here ‘the others,’ had to be separated from the Germans. These ‘raciallyothered’ people weredenied access to society:they wereactually excluded from being part of society.¹⁰ This concept resurfaced in the regime in South Africa, and in the formerracial restrictions of the U.S. judicial system. Exclusion from social and political participationinthe U.S. and South Africa, however,was not directed at religion. The ‘raciallyothered’ could partic- ipate in the dominant religion of the ‘standard culture.’ Despite their , Americanand South African people of color could join the Christian community. While the American church communities wereoften in the past divided into Whites and people of color,with separately held services,access to Christianity itself was not denied. Racial exclusion in religion to createanexclusive space, however,issomething else again. In what follows, Ishow that some people in Germanyweredeniedaccess because of theiralleged belongingtoaspecific race. This meant denial of religious salvation, because such salvation rested on such as baptism and Communion. Ultimately, this endedinexclu- sion from the Christian community itself. Onlypeople of the ‘right’ race were able to receive the holysacraments and the divinemessage of the clerical doc- trine. There wasnoavenue for the ‘others’ to become Christian or to maintain their status. In this way, the space in which religion could be practiced or expe- rienced was defined by race. This racial boundary determinedwho would par- take of religious salvation. The boundary became the distinguishing feature – preciselyasKnott presented in her discussion of space in the sphere of religion.¹¹

The Creation of an ExclusiveSpace forSalvation – The German Christian Church Movement and the De-Judaization of Christianity

In the first part of the present article, Idrew my examples from Christianitybe- cause my empirical case-study, presented below,dealswith the realization of the aforementioned racial-religious concept in twentieth- century German Protestan- tism.

 See for example the ‘prophet’ of the volkish movement in the ninetenth century,PauldeLa- garde (1827–1891) and his position in Ulrich Sieg, Deutschlands Prophet: und die Ursprünge des modernen Antisemitismus (München: Hanser,2007).  Knott, “Inside, Outside and the Spacein-between,” 56. Exclusive Space as aCriterion forSalvation in GermanProtestantism 193

In 1927,two youngpastors in founded agroup that later became known as the “German Christian Church Movement” (Kirchenbewegung Deutsche Christen). Iuse the term “German-Christians” to referspecificallytothis ideolog- ical group, and not to the general population of Christians in Germany. Letme note from the outset that we are not dealinghere with an isolated phenomenon mostlyfound on paper.Tobesure, there wereseveral small groups of the so- called volkisch movement in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century that counted no more than1,000 members. Forexample, the “ Society” (Deutsche Adelsgenossenschaft), established in 1920,featured an “Aryan-paragraph” (Arier-Paragraph)that restricted membership in this society to .¹² But this and similar societiesexerted little influenceonbroader parts of the German society.¹³ The German Christian Church Movement,bycontrast,took control of the whole regional church in Thuringia during the church elections in 1933.¹⁴ In the following years, the Movementexpanded its ecclesial-political influenceto other Protestant regional churches in the Third Reich. By the end of the 1930s, it supervised six Protestantregional churches (Landeskirchen)inNazi Germany, and had forgedallianceswith other regional churches. The evangelical regional churches,which sympathizedwith the German Christian Church Movement, adopted its German-Christian conception of religion. This Protestant move- ment,which was active until 1945, held significant swayoverGermany’sregional churches. German-Christian religious doctrine was grounded in the racial subdivision of humankind. Accordingly, it understood the different races as reflecting adi- vine hierarchical order.This racist doctrine was not onlya(scientific) theory; it alsoformed the basis for German-Christian action:

First and foremost,the fight against Judaism is an irrevocable command to the German peo- ple. This contrast is far-reachingand affects all areas of the German life. Forthis contrast poses the greatestdecision,inreligious and ecclesiasticallife, within German history. In the question of the possible influence of Judaism or the Jewish spirit on German religious life,

 Stefan Breuer, “Der Streit um den ‘nordischen Gedanken’ in der völkischen Bewegung,” Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistesgeschichte62(2010), 1–27,hereat17.  See UwePuschner,Die völkischeBewegung im wilhelminischen Kaiserreich: Sprache – Rasse – Religion (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,2001). Forthe so called ‘vol- kisch movement’ duringthe ThirdReich, see UwePuschner and Clemens Vollnhals,eds., Die völkisch-religiöse BewegungimNationalsozialismus.Eine Beziehungs-und Konfliktgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2012).  See OliverArnhold, “Entjudung”–Kirche im Abgrund, vol. 1: Die ThüringerKirchenbewe- gung Deutsche Christen 1928–1939 (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2010). 194 Dirk Schuster

and in the question of the elimination of this influence, the indispensable and unavoidable fundamental question of the present German religious situation is posed.¹⁵

German-Christians believed that they grasped the hierarchical order of the world. ‘Miscegenation’ and ‘Internationalism’ wereviewed as rebellion against the divine plan. Important factors influencingthe effectiveness of the German Christian Church MovementwereProtestantism, the interdependence of Christi- anity (in Germany) and National Socialism, as well as aradical anti-Semitism.18 The German Christian Church Movement explicitlysoughttoimpose asec- ond reformation of Protestant Christianity in Germany. As Walter Grundmann (1906–1976), professor of Volkisch Theologyand New Testament in Jena/Thurin- gia and scientific director of the “Institute for the Studyand Eradication of Jew- ish InfluenceonGerman Church Life” (Institut zurErforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben),¹⁶ pointed out:

Letusbeclear about this:Itseemed impossible to people during Luther’stime that one could be Christian without acknowledgingthe Pope’sauthority – which for us is amatter of course. Todayitseems just as improbable to manyofusthat one can sustain Christianity and the Church without the sacred-historical referencetothe historyofthe Old Testament […]. We areconvinced that the history of the coming decades will confirm our view [of the German Christians; D.S.].¹⁷

God often sentholymen to his chosen people – the German-Christians believed these to be Germans. Not surprisingly,they considered Martin Luther to have been the first among these holymen. Protestantism, then, was aGerman belief system for this churchmovement.And, rejecting “Jewish influence” on the church, the German-Christians wanted to imposeLuther’sreformation under the ‘Führer’ ,sent by God. The term ‘’ (Germanisierung)refers to araciallymotivated con- cept of religion with an exclusive character.Itwas directed against Jewishinflu- ences and churchmembers who werenot ‘ethnicallyGerman.’ Such racial ap- proaches to Christianity werenot new:they had been afeature of German

 Walter Grundmann, Die Entjudung des religiösen Lebensals Aufgabe DeutscherTheologie und Kirche (Weimar:Verlag Deutsche Christen, 1939), 9–10.  On the Institute, see Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus:Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany(Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 2008); OliverArnhold, “Entju- dung”–Kirche im Abgrund, vol. 2: Das “Institut zur Erforschungund Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses aufdas deutsche kirchliche Leben” 1939–1945(Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2010).  Grundmann, Die Entjudung des religösen Lebens,17. Exclusive SpaceasaCriterion forSalvation in German Protestantism 195

Protestantism since the earlytwentieth century.¹⁸ In 1914, for example, an evan- gelical group in Vienna sought to split the Austrianchurch into aGerman one and aSlavic one, so that each race would have its own church and organiza- tion.¹⁹ But the German Christian Church Movement was the first to connect the idea of aGerman Christianity with the racist doctrine of apolitical movement – National Socialism. Hitler was assigned the role of messiahinGerman-Chris- tian doctrine: “Führerbythe grace of God,”“Führer,sent by God,”“God’sin- strument,” and “German prophet”:

Thus,Adolf Hitler’sNational Socialism hammers against the last gate, stands in the con- cealed dark placeofevery true fighter, stands there – this is completelydifferent and new – as the German people, in order to be forgivenfor its sins and to be blessed for its holyworld mission. Because his natureistruthful no matter what questions he raises,be- cause he, with an unprecedentedpassionatefervor,recognizes the eternal Creator’swill, he will soon step over the threshold into the kingdom of the last knowledge for the salvation of the world for the next three and four centuries.Then again will be the time when piety is not adisease, not aflight from the world, but health and strength, where one adores and fights and works and sees worship in it.Then history will write: the best National Socialists werealso the best Christians, and Adolf Hitler has set the soul of the German people free to meet their Creatorand Savior Jesus Christ!²⁰

This racist doctrine was constitutive of the German-Christians’ ideology. “Misce- genation” was seen as aviolation of “the order of God.” And “biological misce- genation” was just the beginning.Religion, too, was deemed “raciallypredes- tined.” According to German-Christians,God revealed Himself to people of different nations in different ways,sothat every nation would have its own real- ization of Christianity. As such, for Siegfried Leffler (1900 –1983), the church can “not circumvent the heavy altercation with the new [NationalSocialism], if it continues to aim at spreading the enlightened idea of God from within the peo- ple, and at illustrating the eternal power of God as Creator to the nation.”²¹

 At this time, this conception was often combined with the idea that Jesus was not aJew but an Aryan; see Heschel, The Aryan Jesus, 26–66.  See Dirk Schuster,Die Lehre vom “arischen” Christentum: Das wissenschaftliche Selbstver- ständnis im Eisenacher “Entjudungsinstitut” (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2017), 48. More exam- ples regarding the topiccan be found in the followingpages.  Siegfried Leffler, “Nationalsozialismus und Christentum,” Briefe an DeutscheChristen 1 (1932): 2–4, hereat4.Onthis topic, see Dirk Schuster, “”Führer vonGottes Gnaden“–Das deutsch-christliche Verständnis vomErlöser Adolf Hitler,” Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistes- geschichte68(2016): 277–85.  Leffler, “Nationalsozialismus und Christentum,” 2. 196 Dirk Schuster

The political agitation of the German-Christians wasnot particularlyaimed at other Christian confessions in Germany, such as Catholicism. In this, we see that the real restriction of religious salvation was based on racial conception. Forthe German Christian Church Movement,Protestantismwas reserved for members of the Nordic,orGermanic, race. With their international scope, other Christian belief systems, such as worldProtestantism and auniversal pa- pacy,²² weredeemed ‘Jewish’ ideas in the eyes of the German-Christians, and anathematodivine creation.²³ While the German-Christians accused the German Catholics of following a falsified doctrine, introducedbyforeign racial influences, the latter werestillel- igible for religious salvation because of their belongingtothe allegedly ‘right’ race. In this way, German-Christians cherished the idea of bridging the schism of the Christian church in Germanyand eventuallyofuniting all Germansin one “” (Nationalkirche), based on the concept of race. Faith in the Christian God and the raciallyconstructed membership of the German peo- ple wereofgreater significance in the attainment of salvation than singular con- fessional voices. The space in which salvation was apossibility,then,was aracial one. That accounts for whyScandinavians, who had such racialaffinity to the ‘German ,’ were granted access to salvation by the German Christian Church Movement. This spatial orientation becomes patent in the caseofthe so-called ‘JewishChristians.’ ‘JewishChristians’ wereindividuals who wereeither converts to Christianity, or Christians with Jewish ancestors who converted to Christianity. Church records (Kirchenbücher), the same documents used by the Nazis to determine who was Jewishand who was not,made this differentiation an easy matter. This criterion was acentral one for the German-Christian religious doctrine. The German peo- ple was regarded as God’schosen people and the German-Christians sawthe Germans in acontrary position to the outcast Jewry:

To have made the thoughtofrace an expression of the feelingofthe people is the merit of Adolf Hitler.[…]The question of race has arisen for Adolf Hitler in Judaism. Judaism is not

 Forthe problem of Papacyand Catholicisminthe view of the German Christians, see Dirk Schuster, “Papst und Papsttum ausder Perspektive der Kirchenbewegung Deutschen Christen,” in Die Päpsteund die Protestanten:Begegnungenimmodernen Europa, eds.Gerulf Hirt,Silke Satjukow,and David Schmiedel (Cologne, Weimar,and Vienna: Böhlau, 2018): 57–78.  See, for example, Walter Grundmann, Die Entjudung des religiösen Lebens;HugoPich, Frei vomJuden – auch im Glauben! Ein Rufzur Entjudung vonKirche und Christentum (Sibiu/Her- mannstadt: Krafft &Drotleff, 1943). Exclusive SpaceasaCriterion forSalvation in German Protestantism 197

first and foremost another religion, but aforeign race that intrudes,that wants racial chaos in order to exercise dominion itself. ²⁴

No less afigure thanJesus himself, along with the earlyChristians, were mar- shalled in the battle against the Jews: accordingtothe German-Christians, it was they who had initiated the struggle in the first place. Furthermore,God re- vealedHimself in historical figures such as Martin Luther,, and even Otto vonBismarck. ForGerman-Christians, who sawthe revelation of God in historical events, God revealed Himself in German history,which led to the conclusionthat GermanswereGod’schosen people.²⁵ ForGerman-Christians, Adolf Hitler had been divinelysent to the German people in their greatest misery.Itwas the declared goal of this group to complete Luther’sunfinished reformation underthe God-sent FührerAdolf Hitler.Thus, in 1933,they began to ‘liberate’ doctrines and liturgy from “alleged Jewish” influ- ences,expanding this practice to the communities undertheir influence. Imme- diatelyafter the Nazis dismissed all alleged Jews from the civil service,the Ger- man-Christians followed suit in theirchurches.Importantly, here the term “alleged Jews” does not necessarilyrefer to an adherent to the Jewish faith. Forthe most part,people who werethus raciallycategorized merelyhad ances- tors of Jewish descent.The German-Christians dismissed all such persons, al- though they wereProtestant Christians by confession. They then divided the church community into two groups:Christians and ‘Jewish Christians.’²⁶ They would not permit a ‘German’ to perform sacred rites such as christenings or Communion on the latter.These Jewish Christians could not paychurch taxes because they werenolonger perceivedaspart of the Christian community.The

 Walter Grundmann, Religion und Rasse: ein Beitrag zur Frage “nationalerAufbruch” und “lebendigerChristusglaube” (Werdau: Meister,1933), 7.  Forthis idea, which does not originatefromthe German-Christians but rather has been part of Protestant thinkingsincethe nineteenth century,see Hartmut Lehmann, “The Germans as a Chosen People: Old Testament Themes in German Nationalism,” in Hartmut Lehmann, Religion und Religiosität in der Neuzeit: Historische Beiträge, eds.Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen and Otto Ulbricht (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,1996), 248–59.  Forexample, the regional church of the Palatinate(Pfalz), which had close connections to the German Christian Church Movement,declined aproposition in March 1939,according to which all Jewish Christians weretobeexcluded from the church. The background to this, how- ever,was that at that time no Jewish Christians weremembers of the regional church of the Pa- latinate. Nevertheless,the church leadership emphasized that Christians of Jewish origin were not welcome in the church. Roland Paul, “Antisemitismus und Haltung zur Judenverfolgung,” in Protestantenohne Protest: Die evangelische Kirche der Pfalz im Nationalsozialismus,vol. 1: Sachbeiträge, eds.Christoph Picker et al. (: Verlagshaus Speyer,2016), 359–60. 198 Dirk Schuster separated JewishChristian communities were later partlydissolved, and the af- fected people wereexpelled from church. But expulsion was not always neces- sary.These ‘JewishChristians’ left of their own accord, emigrated, or became vic- tims of the Holocaust.After the end of the war,the exclusion of JewishChristians from the Christian community during the Third Reich was criticized in an expert report commissioned by the Protestant regional church of Thuringia. However, the samereportalsostressed that the Jewish community – albeit not Jewish Christians – posed adanger to Christianity as awhole.²⁷ The German-Christians created areligious community that wasdefined on the one hand as Protestant Christian, and on the other as belongingtothe Aryan or . The ‘JewishChristians’ who livedinthe area of influence of the GermanChristian Church Movement stood no chance of rejoiningthe Pro- testant church. The border was preciselytheir ‘racialbackground.’ They were banned from church services,baptism, Communion, and religious instruction. Salvation in Christian terms wasnot possiblefor these individuals: onlythose who belonged to the ‘right’ race wereallowed access. It is at this point that the demarcation described by Kim Knott becomesob- vious: access to salvation was about race, pure and simple. Christenings and Communion are sacraments for Protestants,and fundamentsofthe faith for re- ligious Christians. Access to these essential religious acts was reserved for those belongingtothe supposed right race under the leadership of the German Chris- tian Church Movement,regardless of whether the individual could forgo partic- ipation in the HolyCommunion accordingtohis or her own individual beliefs. The key point is that access was deniedtothis ritual completely, if one of these individuals was defined as JewishorpartlyJewish. Thus far,racial theory could be proclaimed as God’soverall plan. One could explain, with recourse to German history,why Adolf Hitler was the sup- posed ‘Führer’ sent by God. It was even possible to createreligious space(s) to which accessibility and in which the attainment of salvation weredefined by race. Yetone hurdle remained: the and its traditions. Ac- cording to the New Testament,Jesus wasaJew. The German Christian Church Movement, as one of the most influential Protestant groups in the Third Reich, needed to legitimize its racialized conception of religion. It had to provide concrete evidence as to whyonlyAryans weregranted salvation and not,for ex- ample,JewishChristians. Towards this goal, six Protestant regional churches,led by the German Christian Church Movement,foundedthe “Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish InfluenceonGerman Church Life” in 1939.Morethan

 See Schuster,Die Lehre vom “arischen” Christentum, 256–57. Exclusive Space as aCriterion forSalvation in GermanProtestantism 199 fifty academics contributed to this anti-Semitic research institute, which was aimed at the ‘de-Judization’ of Christianity. The members of the Institute pro- duced purported evidence in genealogical works on Jesus’ parents that the latter had been Jewishfrom areligious point of view,but could not have been so ra- cially. The research tried to demonstrate Aryan origins in these Galileans. Jesuswould then have been at least partlyofAryan descent.²⁸ And Jesus was supposedtohavespearheaded the struggle against Judaism. Accordingto their racial ideology, the Aryan and Jewish raceshavebeen at each other’s throats since antiquity.All biblical and extra-biblical evidence which depicted JesusasaJewwas considered falsified by Jews. Besides this alleged evidence of Jesus not being Jewish, the Institute produced a ‘Jew-free’ (judenrein)Christi- anity for contemporary times. This was an active process to fulfill their aim of finishing Luther’sReformation for a ‘Jew-free’ Christianityina‘Jew-free’ Third Reich.²⁹ Relying on publications of the Institute penned by well-known scholars such as JohannesLeipoldt (1880 –1965), Carl Schneider (1900 –1977), and Hans Heinrich Schaeder (1896–1957), the GermanChristian Church Movementwas able to construct their Aryan Christianityand adduceevidence that Jesushad not been Jewish. Johannes Leipoldt, Professor of New Testament Studies in Leip- zig,for example, attestedthat ancient Judaism accepted non-Jews within its ranks. However,these converts wereonlyJews by religion, not by race. And the nature of race cannot be altered, irrespective of the particular religion to which an individual adheres.Followingthis line of thinking,the New Testament scholarpositionedJesus’ declarations and actions in direct contrasttothe ‘na- ture of the Jew’:Jesus preached Christian charity and acted accordingly. Such Christian charity,however,issupposedlyforeign to Jews duetotheir raciallyde- termined ‘nature.’ Thisiswhy,accordingtothe Institute scholars, helpfulness always arises from self-interest in Jews, never from conviction.³⁰ It was for this very reason that Jesus of Nazareth had few followers among Jews. Ancient , by contrast, which Leipoldtdeclared as belongingtothe “Aryan race,”

 See, for example, Walter Grundmann, Jesus der Galiläer und das Judentum, 2nd edition (Leipzig: G. Wigand, 1941); JohannesLeipoldt, Jesu Verhältnis zu Griechen und Juden (Leipzig: G. Wigand, 1941).  Dirk Schuster: “Die Kirchenbewegung DeutscheChristen und die “Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses”.Ein aktiverProzess zur Gestaltung des “Dritten Reiches”,” in Judentum und Anti- semitismus in Europa, ed. Ulrich A. Wien (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017): 247–78.  JohannesLeipoldt, “Jesus und das Judentum,” in Christentum und Judentum: Studium zur Erforschung ihres gegenseitigenVerhältnisses.Erster Band. Sitzungsberichteder erstenArbeit- stagung des Instituts zur Erforschung des jüdischen Einflusses aufdas deutsche kirchliche Leben vom1.bis 3. März 1940 in Wittenberg, ed. WalterGrundmann (Leipzig: G. Wigand, 1940): 45 – 6. 200 Dirk Schuster

“feels an intrinsic kinship with Jesus, considers his teachings and develops them further.”³¹ Such publications – as well as thosebyWalter Grundmann, who allegedly found genealogical evidence that Jesus was not aJew but “Aryan”³² – formed the basisfor the separation of Judaism and Christianity on aracial footing.If Jesushimself was not Jewish but rather struggled against Judaism on the grounds of racial differences between Jews and ‘Aryans,’ then contemporary Christianitymust be cleansed of all Jewishinfluences and ‘elements.’ Carl Schneider, Professor of New Testament Studies in Königsberg, even attempted to present anti-Semitism as the central messageofearlyChristianity. According to him, the struggle against Judaism was one of the main motivesofJesus of Na- zareth. Schneider explained Jesus’ purportedanimus towards the Jews by resort- ing once again to race: Jesuswas a “full-blooded Aryan” in line with National Socialist racial ideology.³³ Thus, claimed Schneider,Christianityinthe ‘Third Reich’ ought to be at the forefront of the fight against Judaism; after all, it had been involved in aracialconflict against ‘the Jews’ for the past 2,000 years.

Conclusion

The term ‘space’ can be used to refer to religion in ageographical or social way – of course there are manymorepossibilities. Regarding social space, it can be said thatthis is primarily negotiated by the action of agents, “[…]through the linking of the elements of social commodities and living creatures to each other by memory and perception processes, as well as through abstract notions and specific positioning.”³⁴ These spaces describesocial distancesbetween different positions³⁵ where- by boundaries define the entry criteria for agiven space. Religions and religious institutions typicallyfeature well-defined boundaries. Christianity,for instance, is defined by the of baptism, by which one enters into the Christian

 Leipoldt, Jesu Verhältnis zu Griechen und Juden, 221. Formoreexamples on Leipoldt, see Schuster,Die Lehre vom “arischen” Christentum, 148 – 68.  Fordetails of this racial construction see ibid., 169–98.  See Carl Schneider,Das Frühchristentum als antisemitische Bewegung (Bremen: Kommende Kirche, 1940).  SergejStoetzer, “Ort,Identität,Mentalität – soziologische Raumkonzepte,” in Die Religion des Raumes und die Räumlichkeit der Religion, eds.Thomas Erne and Peter Schüz (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2010): 87– 103,here at 97.  Ibid., 88. Exclusive Space as aCriterion forSalvation in GermanProtestantism 201 congregation. An individual maybecome part of areligious community and thereby gain access to the space called religion by accepting givenentry criteria and rules of behavior.Thus, while boundaries can be rather clear,acceptance of such criteria can servetorender them permeable. In my case-study, however,something different was afoot.The German Christian Church Movement did not construct geographical or cultural spaces that could be used to breach the borders of salvation. Hadthey done so, converts who considered themselves ‘German’ and ‘Protestant’ could have been invited in. My studyshows that,instead, this movement used race to build aspace with re- stricted accesstothe divine. The racialsubdivision was perceivedaspart of God’screation. Descent,meaningthe religion one was borninto or the religion of one’sancestry,defined this spatial boundary.Itwas onlywithin these borders that religion could be accessed. The possibility of belongingtoaspecific God and aspecific religion was thus circumscribed by exclusive racialboundaries. Religious spacedefined by confession and race excluded the ‘other’ subjects from salvation in an absoluteway thatleft no possibilityofbecomingamember of the church. Onlymembers of the ‘Aryan race’ could inhabit this constructed space, and onlythey could receive divine salvation. While those who were re- fused admittancetothis space could still self-identifyasaChristian, the church deniedsuch individuals access to the holysacraments because it did not deem them Christians, but rather Jews. In this way, areligious space was constructed whose accessibility wasre- stricted by race. This demarcation was justified by racist doctrine and legitimized by scientificresearch that ‘demonstrated’ the proclaimed contrast between Jews on the one hand, and Germans as the Chosen People,onthe other.The last step towards adjustment of the religion with racist ideologyand arealization of the German-Christian doctrinewas the ‘de-Judization’ of contemporary Christianity, astep implemented by the Institute for the Studyand EradicationofJewish In- fluenceonGerman Church Life.

Kyle Jantzen NaziRacism, American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty

U.S. Mainline Protestant Responses to the JewishRefugee Crisis of 1938

Upon seizing power in the winter of 1933,Adolf Hitlerand his National Socialist movement began implementing their longstandingplans to oppress Germany’s Jews. Economic boycotts, bureaucratic , and educational prohibitions marked the first wave of anti-Semitic persecution. In 1935,social segregation do- minated, through laws which stripped GermanJews of citizenship and prohibit- ed them from having sexual relations with so-called Aryan Germans. By 1938, Jews had largely been drivenfrom the Germaneconomy, barred from professio- nal life, and stigmatized in society.This Nazi pre-war victimization of Jews cul- minated in the Polenaktion of October 27–29,1938, and the Kristallnacht of November 9–10,1938.¹ Scholars have criticized the North AmericanProtestant response to the Nazi regime and its . Accordingtoone well-known study, apathy ruled the day, and “no sustained universaloutcry on behalf of the beleaguered ever erupted from […]the Christian […]rank and file.”² Frederick K. Wentz surveyed Protestant journals and their response to the rise of Nazism and to the Nazi assault on Christianity. He found liberal journals to have been the most eager among these periodicals to do battle against Nazism, correspond- ing to their interest in social justiceand hatred of . The largest seg- ment of Protestants in the center included thoseconcernedchieflywith religious

 See Hermann Graml, Reichskristallnacht: Antisemitismus und Judenverfolgung im Dritten Reich (Munich: DTV, 1998), 9–37;WalterPehle, November 1938:From ‘Kristallnacht’ to Genocide (New York: Berg,1990); Martin Gilbert, Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (New York: Harper- Collins,2006).  IrvingAbella and Harold Troper,None Is TooMany: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933– 1948 (Toronto:Lester &Orpen Dennys,1982),51and 284. See also Alan Davies and Marilyn F. Nefsky,How Silent Were the Churches?: Canadian Protestantism and the Jewish Plight during the Nazi Era (Waterloo, ON: WilfredLaurier University Press, 1997), 128, 131;Haim Genizi, The Holocaust,Israel and Canadian Protestant Churches (Montreal: McGill-Queen’sUniversity Press, 2002)(which deals primarilywith the postwar era); and Norman Erwin, “Hitler’sAssault on Civilization: Antisemitism and English Canada’sResponse to Kristallnacht,” in Violence, Memory,and History:Western Perceptions of Kristallnacht,eds.Colin McCullough and Nathan Wilson (New York: Routledge,2015): 108–29.

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-013 204 KyleJantzen liberty and the well-being of the German churches,and less likelytofight Naz- ism directly. Least likelytooppose Nazism werethe fundamentalists and millen- arians, who condemned manymoderndevelopments, among which Nazism was onlyone.³ In Frederick IraMurphy’sdissertation, entitled “The American Chris- tian Press and Pre-WarHitler’sGermany, 1933 – 1939,” the author contended that the churches had been alarmed about the rise of Nazism (except for its anti-com- munism),critical of Hitler himself, and equivocal about Jews. Christians had de- nounced attacks likethe Kristallnacht pogrom and rejected blatant anti-Semi- tism, but accepted Hitler’sneed to solve a “Jewish problem” and subscribed to prejudicialstereotypes about Jews and their relationship to bothcapitalism and . As for the refugeesituation, “attemptstoarouse the average AmericanChristian to act to help Christian refugees from Germany had little suc- cess,” Murphyargued.⁴ Twoimportant studies have assessed the responses of the U.S. religious press to the plight of the Jews under Nazi rule. William Nawynanalyzed the periodicalliterature of , Methodists, Presbyterians,Episcopalians,and Congregationalists.Hefound that liberal Protestants combined theological lati- tudinarianism and acommitment to Western notions of human dignity to en- couragesupport for Jews and Judaism, while conservativesheld three contradic- tory ideas in tension: the belief that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ; the conviction that Jews wereachosen people of God, the sourceof JesusChrist,and the foundationofChristianity; and the view that Jews werea people to be evangelized.⁵ Nawynconcluded that,evenifliberals weremore like- ly than conservativestoadvocate for Jews, none of the leadingdenominations did much of practical value, such as raising significant funds in aid of Jewish refugees. Rather, the leading Protestant denominational publications “ignored, or perhaps failed to recognize the true nature of, the Jewish problem in Germany and the full implications of the Nazi racialpolicies.”⁶ Of note, Nawyndid recog- nize that the mainline Protestant church press had been attentive to the Nazi per- secution of Jews and the consequent Jewishrefugee crisis of the later1930s, but

 Frederick K. Wentz, “American Protestant Journals and the Nazi Religious Assault,” Church History 23:4(1954):321–38, and Wentz, “The Reaction of the Religious Press in America to the EmergenceofNazism” (PhD diss., Yale University,1954).  Frederick IraMurphy, “The American Christian Press and Pre-War Hitler’sGermany, 1933 – 1939” (PhD diss., University of Florida, 1970), 353.  William E. Nawyn, American Protestantism’sResponse to Germany’sJews and Refugees 1933 – 1941(Ann Arbor,MI: UMI Research Press, 1981), 34–5. Nawynexamines not onlythe press but also various Protestant ecclesial sources.  Ibid., 46. Nazi Racism,American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 205 added that even these matters “werenot,ingeneral, of continuingand para- mountconcern.”⁷ The historian Robert Ross was even sharper in his critique of the Protestant churches and their publications, characterizingthe Americanreligious response to the Nazi persecution and extermination of the Jews as silence – the silence of “the failureofinformation to persuade,” of “the failureofconcerted effort,” and of “the failureofmodest actions.”⁸ Curiouslyjuxtaposed to this negative assess- ment was Ross’srecognition that Protestant journalists and commentators had written widelyonthe Nazi persecution of the Jews, and that U.S. Protestants had been quite active on behalf of Jews, donating money,organizing rallies, writ- ing protests, commissioningdelegations to Germany, petitioningPresident Roo- sevelt, the U.S. StateDepartment,and Congress, establishing denominational and interdenominational committees, cooperating periodicallywith Jewish or- ganizations,and organizing prayer rallies. But after listing all of these activities, Ross dismissed them on the grounds that they had neither deterred Hitler from persecutingJews nor convinced the U.S. government to intervene in Germando- mestic affairs. Yet, not onlywas Ross’sevaluation naive about the potential of U.S. Protestant church leaders to influenceeither Hitler or Roosevelt,itconcen- tratedonwhat Christians and churches had not done. Left aside was anyanal- ysis of how Protestants understood and interpreted Hitler, Jews, and Judaism, or what actions they had proposed that either the U.S. churches or the U.S. govern- ment should have undertaken.⁹ Haim Genizi, for his part,tackled the specific question of Americanapathy towards Christian refugees from Nazism, manyofwhom wereJews or “non-Ary- ans” accordingtothe Nazi NurembergLaws, even if Christians by religious choice. Genizinoted the efforts of the Federal Council of Churches and other mainline voices to rouse AmericanProtestants to aid refugees, but argued that agencies like the American Committeefor Christian GermanRefugees and doz- ens of other organizations werebasicallyunable to generate support from either Christian individuals or church bodies. In fact,Jewish organizations provided most of the earlyfunding for the AmericanCommittee for Christian GermanRef- ugees.¹⁰

 Ibid., 59–60.  Robert W. Ross,SoItWas True: The American Protestant Press and the Nazi Persecution of the Jews (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1980), 286–8.  Ibid., 287–8.  Haim Genizi, American Apathy: The Plight of Christian Refugees from Nazism (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press,1983), 112–14.See also Genizi, “American Interfaith Cooperation on Behalf of Refugees from Nazism, 1933– 1945,” American Jewish History 70:3 (1981): 347–61. 206 Kyle Jantzen

Scholars have continued to reassess U.S. and Canadian Protestant attitudes and actions concerning Jews and Judaism during the Nazi era. Forexample, var- ious recent studies have discussed the significant protests of American Christi- ans just after the Nazi seizure of power and also, most notably, in the wake of the November1938Kristallnacht pogrom.¹¹ Examining the convoluted history of evangelical-Jewish relations,Yaakov S. Ariel has mostlyagreed with Nawynthat conservative evangelicals found them- selvescaughtbetween competing ideas. They strongly condemned Nazi anti-Jew- ish policies and viewed Nazi ideologyas“arebellion against God and adistor- tion of Christian theologyand values.”¹² True to theirconvictions about salvation in Jesus Christ,they alsoworked to evangelize Jews, expressing particularcon- cern for “non-Aryan” Christians caught in Hitler’spersecution. Nevertheless, evangelicals remained under the influenceoftraditionalantipathytowards Jews and Judaism, and werequick to blame Jews for apostasy and conspiracy. They uncriticallyaccepted TheProtocols of the EldersofZion as genuine descrip- tions of Jewishbehaviorand intentions throughout the 1930s, onlyabandoning this view as the Nazi persecution of the Jews deepened.¹³ More negatively,Caitlin Carenen has argued that mainline Protestants – convinced of their culturalpre- eminence – were largely intolerant of Jews (and Catholics) in the interwar period. Christian culturalpower and rising nationalism fed agrowinganti-Semitism.

See also Peter Ludlow, “The RefugeeProbleminthe 1930s:The Failures and Successes of Prot- estant Relief Programmes,” English Historical Review 90,no. 356 (1975): 564–603.  Victoria J. Barnett, “Christian and Jewish Interfaith Efforts Duringthe Holocaust: The Ecu- menical Context,” in American Religious Responses to Kristallnacht,ed. Maria Mazzenga (New York: Palgrave, 2009): 13–29;Kyle Jantzen, “‘The Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man’:Mainline American Protestants and the Kristallnacht Pogrom,” in Mazzenga, ed., Amer- ican Religious ResponsestoKristallnacht,31–55;Maria Mazzenga, “TowardanAmerican Cath- olic Response to the Holocaust: Catholic and Kristallnacht,” in Mazzenga,ed., American Religious ResponsestoKristallnacht,85–110;Patrick J. Hayes, “American Catholics Respond to Kristallnacht: New RefugeePolicy and the Plight of Non-Aryans,” in Mazzenga, ed., American Religious ResponsestoKristallnacht, 111–44;Barnett, “Track TwoDiplomacy, 1933 – 1939:International Responses from Catholics,Jews,and Ecumenical Protestants to Events in Nazi Germany,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte27:1(2014): 76 – 86;Kyle Jantzen and Jonathan Du- rance, “Our Jewish Brethren: Christian Responses to Kristallnacht in Canadian Mass Media,” in Crisis and Credibility in the Jewish-Christian World: RememberingFranklin Littel. The Fortieth Annual Scholars’ Conferenceonthe Holocaust and the Churches,special issue of Journal of Ecu- menical Studies 46:4 (2011): 537–48.  Yaakov S. Ariel, An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christiansand Jews (New York: New York University Press, 2013), 98. See also idem, On Behalf of Israel: American Fundamentalist Attitudes Towards Jews,Judaism, and Zionism, 1865–1945(Brooklyn, NY:Carlson, 1991).  Ibid., 121, 142– 52. Nazi Racism,American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 207

Among fundamentalists, some, like Gerald Winrod’s Defendersofthe Christian Faith,participated in this anti-Semitism and stoked fears of Jewish conspiracies. Others, though, stressed the importance of Jews in Christian eschatology and urgedkindness towardsthem. Particularlyafter the Kristallnacht pogrom, Care- nen claims, sympathyfor Jews increasedamong bothliberal and conservative Protestants, as did support for Jewish emigration to Palestine, though not to the United States.¹⁴ In contrast to the aforementioned emphasis on what U.S. Protestants failed to do in response to Nazism and the Holocaust,this chapter will examine how they perceivedHitler,Nazism, and the persecution of Germany’sJews in the pre- war era, and what kinds of responses,ifany,they proposed. Basing my inquiry on examples from prominent Protestant publications,¹⁵ Iargue five interrelated

 Caitlin Carenen, The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants,Evangelicals,and Israel (New York: New York University Press,2012), 1–47.Alongside Ariel and Carenen, David Rausch de- fended fundamentalist journalist Arno C. Gaebelin’sreporting on the plight of Jews in Nazi Ger- manyand the Holocaust,arguingitwas both anti-Nazi and pro-Zionist.More recently, Timothy Padgett has assessed Gaebelein and his magazine, Our Hope,alongside other conservative pub- lications likeMoodyMonthlyand Christian Herald, findingamixtureofsympathyfor and criti- cism of Nazi Germany, concern about anti-Semitism, calls to evangelize Jews,worries about Nazi attacks on Christianity,and interest in Zionism and its relationship to Christian eschatology. Matthew Bowman argued much the same thing, notingthat fundamentalist Protestants re- mained politicallymarginalized sincethe Scopestrial in the 1920s, but followed events in Eu- ropeclosely, condemningHitler and searching for eschatological clues in the turmoil surround- ing the Jews.Finally, TimothyWeber contendedthat conservative,premillenialist Christians lined up politicallyasallies of the Jews,for eschatological reasons,and religiouslyasenemies of the Jews,because of the Jewish rejection of Christ.David A. Rausch, “Our Hope:AnAmerican Fundamentalist Journal and the Holocaust,1937– 1945,” FidesetHistoria 12:2(1980): 89–103; idem, Arno C. Gaebelein,1861–1945: Irenic Fundamentalist and Scholar (New York: Edwin Mell- en, 1983); TimothyPadgett, “Warmongers?: Continuity and Complexity in Evangelical Discourse on United States ForeignPolicy” (PhD diss., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2016), 28–70; Matthew Bowman, “Persecution, Prophecy, and the Fundamentalist ReconstructionofGermany, 1933 – 1940,” in Mazzenga, ed., American Religious ResponsestoKristallnacht,183 – 204; and TimothyP.Weber,Onthe Road to Armageddon: HowEvangelicals Became’sBest Friend (Grand Rapids,MI: BakerAcademic, 2004).  Evidencefor this studywill be drawn fromthe followingperiodicals: Advance,aliberal Con- gregational weeklypublished in Boston and long edited by the clergyman William E. Gilroy; Christendom,aliberal quarterlypublished in Chicago,editedbyCharlesClayton Morrison of TheChristian Century and enlivened by writers connectedwith the FCCand the American Sec- tions of the World ConferenceonFaith and Order and the Universal Christian Council for Life and Work; TheChurchman,aliberal Episcopal biweeklypublished in New York and long edited by GuyEmery Shipler; TheLiving Church,ahigh-church Episcopal weeklyeditedbyCliffordP. Morehouse and published in Milwaukee, WI; The Presbyterian,aconservative weekly edited by Dr.Stewart M. Robinson and published in Philadelphia; and Zion’sHerald,aconservative Meth- 208 KyleJantzen points: 1) thatmainline Protestant spokespersons viewed Nazism with great fore- boding,sensing crisis in the air;2)thatthey were primarily concerned with the Nazi persecution of Christians;3)that they also cared about the persecution of Jews; 4) that they both condemned and perpetuatedformsofanti-Semitism in the United States; and 5) that,above all, they understood the challengeofNaz- ism in terms of acosmic battle between Christianity and – abattle lib- erals and conservativesunderstood somewhat differentlyfrom one another,asI will show.

Sense of Crisis

First and foremost,what is most striking about the U.S. mainline Protestant pe- riodicals in 1938 is theirprojection of asense of crisis. The demagoguery of Hit- ler,the brutality of his Nazi regime, the dangers of anti-Semitism in Europe and America,and the breakdown of the international order combined to castadark shadow over the church press in this study. Here astriking example can be found in asingle issue of the Congregational weekly Advance,from February 1, 1938. Arthur E. Holt, leader and Professor of Christian Social in Chicago, openedthe discussion by lamenting the decline and indeed absenceofdemocracyinthe non- and in much of Europe, on ac- of the rise of communism, , and National Socialism. Next,Henry Smith Leiper,missionary,member of the Federal Council of Churches,and Exec- utive Secretary of the AmericanSectionofthe Universal Christian Councilfor Life and Work, worried about racism in America, Bolshevism in Europe, and “the manifold evils which threaten even civilization itself.” In this regard, he quoted acommonwealth political leader who declared that politics was failing and “the world is drifting towards catastrophe.” Finally, Alfred Schmalz, Congre- gationalist minister and prominent Christian social activist,assertedthatGer- man grievances relating to the Treaty of Versailles had producedHitler and Naz- ism. Givensimilar resentments in Italyand Japan, international tensions were rising,and Schmalz predicted that the outcomeofthe “economic conflict be- tween the world’sgreat imperialistic powers,” if not checked, would be “world war.”¹⁶ Other articles throughout 1938 bemoaned “aworld in the grip of violence

odist weeklypublished in Boston and edited for over twodecades by LewisOliverHartman, who would go on to win election as the American Bishop of the Methodist Churchin1944.  Arthur E. Holt, “Shall Protestantism Implement Democracy?” Advance(February 1, 1938): 57–8; Henry Smith Leiper, “The Stateofthe Church,” Advance (February 1, 1938): 62;Alfred Schmalz, “Peaceful Change – The Alternative to War,” Advance (February 1, 1938): 63. NaziRacism, American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 209 and the threat of war,”“the impression of astrange, demonic, and dangerous power” in Nazi Germany,the “death” of the LeagueofNations, and the fact that “everyone expects war,manyexpect it soon.”¹⁷ In the wake of the Munich Agreement,which handed the Czech Sudetenland to Hitler,Guy Emery Shipler, editor of TheChurchman,anEpiscopal biweekly, noted the “moral bankruptcy of Hitler” and described the German Führer as a “psychopathic individual.” Twoweeks later,hewonderedhow “anyone […]should place anytrust in Hitler’s word,” adding that eventuallypeople would understand that bothHitler and Mussolini were “but ranting pygmies.”¹⁸ That same week, Clifford Phelphs More- house,editor of TheLiving Church,another Episcopal publication, averred that “The main issue is still whether or not the totalitarian heresy is to dominate the world.” He went on to describetotalitarianism (whetherNazism, Fascism, or Communism) as “adenial of the individual worth and dignityofman […] the negation of the liberty for which our forefathers foughtand […]aphilosophy of blood and hate as opposed to areligion of mercyand love.”¹⁹ Newsreports and editorialssuch as these filled the pages of mainlineProtestant periodicals, attestingtothe dismaywith which U.S. Protestant spokespersons – manyof them prominent church leaders – viewed the expansion and exercise of Nazi power in the prewar period.

AttacksonChristianity

In their response to Hitler and Nazism, writers and editors in the mainlineProt- estant periodicals analyzedinthis chapter zeroed in most oftenonthe grave danger to Christianity posed by Nazism and the manyattacksagainst Christians and churches,particularlyinGermany. In January 1938, Advance reportedthat Hitler had jailed 1300 pastors between 1934 and 1937.Two months later,the ed- itor William E. Gilroy brooded about various totalitarian threats to religion. “In Russia, Germany and Italy, alike,” he wrote, “the Christian is under the heel of

 William E. Gilroy, “The Editorial Outlook,” Advance (April 1, 1938): 156;Henry Smith Leiper, “The Stateofthe Church,” Advance (June 1, 1938): 253; Hubert C. Herring, “The Stateofthe Na- tion,” Advance(November 1, 1938): 496.  GuyEmery Shipler, “Editorial,” The Churchman (October 1, 1938): 7–8; GuyEmery Shipler, “Editorial”,The Churchman (October 15,1938): 7–9.  CliffordPhelps Morehouse, “The Situation in Europe,” The LivingChurch(October 19,1938): 374. 210 Kyle Jantzen pagan dictatorships that flout the Christian faith and idealism and run rough- shod over the Christian conscienceand the Christian will.”²⁰ TheChurchman also offered regular reports on anti-Christian policiesand events in Germany. In March 1938 alone, articles and editorials called the Nazi religious program “neo-pagan” and praised Confessing Church pastor Martin Niemöller as “achampionofreligious liberty,” claimed that Niemöller’sarrest was asign thathehad inspired fear among the Nazis, and drew attention to the fact that manyotherclergywerealso in prison or forbidden to preach.²¹ The plight of the German churches was broadcast throughout the year in terms thatare well encapsulated in the title of an article that came out in Novem- ber: “CaesarPresses His Claims in the Reich: The Trappings Change, But the Plot is the Same.” Attempts to Nazify the and rewrite John’s gospel were depicted as an effort “to bring Christianityinto conformity with Nazi nationalism – that absurd and abominable compound of ‘race,.’” The article’smain point was that “The central forceinthe drive to de- stroy the ChristianityofGermanyisinthe mind and personality of Hitler.Heis the chosen and idolizedleader of those who hate the church. He himself has or- dered the illegal and violent repression of thosewho have dared to speak the truth.”²² Among the most energeticChristian writers commentingonNazi attacks against Christianity was Henry Smith Leiper,who wrotefor several publications. Reporting on the German church scene at the close of 1938 for TheLiving Church, Leiper noted a “clear intention” among National Socialists “to liquidate any Church which does not show itself entirelyinagreement with the proposal that it prostituteitself unqualifiedlytothe ‘’ of Mr.Hitler and Mr.Rosenberg.” He documented the steadyprogress towards the subjuga- tion and corruption of the Church “so thatitmay become merelythe ecclesias- tical arm of the [Nazi] revolution.” In support of this,heclaimed the arrest of over 10,000 Christian leaders and “the destruction of the Church educational system,” which would, in turn, he asserted, corrupt the future leadership of the church. The banning of Bible teachinginschools, the charging of clergy who prayed for peace with treason, and the cutting off of the payofoppositional clergy werejust some of the other measures citedbyLeiper as evidence of afull-

 Henry Smith Leiper, “The Stateofthe Church,” Advance (January 1, 1938): 13,26; William E. Gilroy, “The Editorial Outlook,” Advance (March 1, 1938): 108–10.  “Democracy: Dodd Describes Nazism at CLID Annual Meeting,” The Churchman (March 1, 1938): 18;Guy Emery Shipler, “Editorial,” The Churchman (March 15,1938): 7.  Henry Smith Leiper, “Caesar Presses His Claims in the Reich: The Trappings Change,But the Plot is the Same,” The LivingChurch (November 1, 1938): 12–3. NaziRacism, American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 211 scale offensive against ChristianityinGermany.²³ Manyofhis fellow writers and editors in these U.S. Protestant periodicals analyzedinthis chapter concurred with this assessment,soundingacollective alarm regarding the danger for the Church.

Concern forJewishRefugees

Though U.S. Protestant spokespersons were primarily concerned with Nazism’s impact on the Christian churches of Germany,the plight of Jews did not escape the notice of at least some members of the church press in this study. By 1938, the Jewishrefugeecrisishad reachedacritical level. Between 1933 and the out- break of war in September 1939,roughly282,000 of the 523,000 German Jews abandoned their homeland and found refuge abroad, in the United States,Pal- estine, Great Britainand other Commonwealth countries,Central and South America – even China and Japan.²⁴ By 1938, Hitler was ratchetingupinternation- al tensions through his annexation of Austria in March, his demand for Sudeten Czech territory in the spring and summer,and his occupation of vital Czechoslo- vak territory in October.This too spurred Jewish emigration. No fewer than 117,000 of the 174,000 Jews in Austria departed between the German annexation in March 1938 and the beginning of warinSeptember 1939.²⁵ And although 85,000 Jewish refugees reached the United States during this eighteen-month pe- riod, manymoretried and failed: no fewer than300,000 Jews applied for the 27,000 visas available under the U.S. immigration quota system.²⁶ At first,the mainline periodicals here analyzed werefairlytepidintheir re- sponse to the refugeecrisis. One earlyarticle by Hubert C. HerringofAdvance thanking President Rooseveltand Secretary of State Cordell Hull for proposing an international meeting at Evian-les-Bains, France, whereHerringbelieved “that international action [would] be taken to provide refugefor German and Austrian refugees from Adolf Hitler.” He added that, “The United States,the rich-

 Henry Smith Leiper, “Discusses Churches’ Situation in Germany,” The LivingChurch (De- cember 28,1938): 699and 712.  “German Jewish Refugees, 1933 – 1939,” United States Holocaust MemorialMuseum Holo- caust Encyclopedia, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005468 (July2, 2016).  Ibid.  “Refugees,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , https:// www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005139 (July2,2016). 212 Kyle Jantzen est nation, can afford to drop the bars and let substantial numbers in. Letusurge that this will be done.”²⁷ While Advance had little else to sayabout the matter, TheChurchman advo- cated stronglyonbehalf of Jews, covering closelythe Nazi persecution and con- sequent Jewishrefugeecrisis. On January 1, 1938, in an article entitled, “Anti- Semitism: 24 Christian Faiths Sympathize with Jews,” editor Guy EmeryShipler reported on astatement by the Episcopalian Home Missions Council, remarking on the growth of “exaggerated nationalism” and explaining how “the rise of anti-Semitism in manylands has cast apall of gloom over the Jews of the world.” The report went on to reject anti-Semitism, demand its eradicationin North America, and call upon Christians to recognize their special obligation to the Jews.²⁸ What is striking about the discourse on Jewishpersecution in TheChurch- man,however,was how often it was linked to Christian persecution. Shipler’s editorial writing is an excellent caseinpoint.Inaneditorial from April 1, 1938, Shipler introduced adiscussion of Hitler,Jews, and Christians with aquo- tation from , the Nazi Ministerfor Religious Affairs: “Anew authority has arisen as to what Christ and Christianity are – Adolf Hitler.” Shipler ex- plained how “neighbor” had come to mean “blood brother” under Nazi rule, re- sultingin“such heart-breakingmisery that decent people are nauseated as they are forced to confessthat Adolf Hitler is technicallyahuman being.” He then ap- plied his critique of Nazi racial exclusivity to bothJews and Christians:

No one whoisafollower of Jesus the Jew; no one in whose heart have sungthe words of Paul the Jewechoingfromthe thirteenth chapterofhis first letter to the Corinthian Chris- tians; no one whohas ever been reallytouched by the meaningofChristian lovecan feel anythingbut revulsion and horror at the monstrous reversion to the junglerepresented by Hitler in his treatment of the Jews.Hitler hatesChristianitywith amaniac’shatred, as he hatesthe Jew.²⁹

Similarly,inJune, as Shipler discussed an AmericanJewish Congress (AJC)plan to work with Christian clergy to campaign jointlyagainst anti-Semitism, he af- firmed his opposition to anti-Semitism: “We will support every constructive effort made against anti-Semitism; our record on that scorestands for anyone to read. We have fought against anti-Semitism and shall continue to do so.” Immediately thereafter,however,heproceeded to relabel the anti-Semiticattacks as ageneral

 Hubert C. Herring, “The Stateofthe Nation,” Advance (May1,1938): 205.  GuyEmery Shipler, “Anti-Semitism: 24 Christian Faiths Sympathize with Jews,” The Church- man (January 1, 1938): 20.  GuyEmery Shipler, “Editorial,” The Churchman (April 1, 1938): 7. Nazi Racism, American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 213 crisis affecting both Jews and Christians – no doubt not quite what the AJChad had in mind. He wrote:

As to the matter of Jewish persecution, we have long held the conviction that our Jewish friends would further their own cause moreeffectively if they would emphasize that perse- cution by such totalitarian states as GermanyisaChristian as wellasaJewish problem. […] The American public is still largely under the illusion that refugees from Germanyare en- tirely Jewish […]though thousands[of Christian refugees] have been forced to leave Germa- ny and are without anymeans of livelihood. If we aretohaveaunited front let it be not onlyagainst anti-Semitism but against persecution of both Jews and Christians.³⁰

Shipler’srepeated reframing of the Jewishrefugee crisis in this wayisnowhere more forcefullydemonstrated than in the November1issue of TheChurchman. There, aletter to the editor from W. Russell Bowie of the American Committee for Christian GermanRefugees outlinedthe dual Jewish-Christian nature of the refugeecrisis. Remarking that “the persecution of Christians is growinginextent and severity,” Bowie explainedhow Germany’sannexation of Austria had “greatlyintensified the refugeeproblem, especiallyincreasingthe percentage of refugees who are ‘non-Aryan’ Christians.” In support of this claim, Bowie cited Americanindustrialist and diplomat Myron C. Taylor’sstatistics from the Evian Conference, claiming that, of the 660,000 people in Germany and Austria who needed to find homes in othercountries,about 285,000 wereProtestants, 75,000 Catholics, and 300,000 Jews.³¹ As Bowieclarified, the German refugee problem was not exclusively aJewish problem. It “concerns every Christian throughout the world.” Accordingly, Bowie asked clergy to setaside aSunday offering or congregational benevolent funds to support the AmericanCommittee for Christian German Refugees, so they could assist Christians (most of whom, of course, would have been Jewishinterms of Nazi racial law) attemptingtoflee Hitler’sReich.³² Just afew pages later, Shipler dedicated part of his multi-pageeditorial to affirming Bowie’sletter and urging support for his organization. After reiterat- ing the number of Christians displaced as refugees, Shipler pointed out that Hit- ler’sseizure of the Sudetenland would onlyincrease the refugeepressure: “Here, surely,” he exhorted, “is achallengetothe generosity of the Christian church in the United States.” Once more, he restated the refugeecrisisasaChristian prob- lem:

 GuyEmery Shipler, “AJewish-ChristianCause,” The Churchman (June 1, 1938): 8.  Taylor’sestimates onlyincluded potential refugees who wereunder the ageof50.  W. Russell Bowie, “Victims of Nazism,” The Churchman (November 1, 1938): 3. 214 KyleJantzen

Hundreds of thousands of our fellow-Christians arefleeingbeforeNazi brutality.Itisim- possible to exaggeratetheir suffering. They are victims of the ruthless philosophyof “race,blood and soil”;aphilosophywhich finds the religion of Jesus astumbling block which must somehow,ifpossible,beeliminated.And let us make no mistakeabout it. The assaultofthe Nazi on Christianityisacarefullyplanned program of extermination; it has not stopped short of the fearful barbarism of the concentration camp and all the ter- rors of exile.³³

With that,using languageweare more accustomed to hearing in the context of the subsequent events of the Holocaust,Shiplerrecapitulated Bowie’srequest for Americanchurches to give generouslytothe AmericanCommitteeofChristi- an German Refugees. Shipler’slinking of anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews to anti-Chris- tianity and the suffering of Christian refugees typified U.S. mainline Protestant efforts to aid Jews. As Haim Genizi has shown, both Jewishand Christian leaders werereluctant to pushthe RooseveltAdministration to relax immigration quotas in order to save Jewish refugees, because they feared apublic discussion would “let loose aflood of bitter,anti-alien and anti-Jewish agitation, which will inten- sify inter-group antagonism in the United States.”³⁴ Rather,prominent Christian leaders tried to assist Jews in peril by repeatedlyattemptingtoconvince Ameri- can Christians that the refugeecrisis was as much aChristian problem as aJew- ish one. The failureofthis initiative betraysthe fact that the broader Protestant public was far more likelytoview Shipler’srefugees through the lens of Nazi ra- cial ideology – as Jews – than it was to see the refugees through the lens of Chris- tian theology – as brothers and sisters in Christ. Other Protestantpublications wereslower to enter the fray,but,like The Churchman,the Episcopalweekly TheLiving Church and the more conservative publications like ThePresbyterian and Zion’sHerald (Methodist) expressed clear sympathyfor the plight of Jewishrefugees, especiallylater in 1938, as con- ditionsinGermanyworsened. From time to time – though not often – Protestant sympathyalso included the contemplation of Jewish immigration to Africa, Aus- tralia, or the United Statesitself.³⁵

 GuyEmery Shipler, “Shall We Help the Persecuted?” The Churchman (November 1, 1938): 7–9.  Haim Genizi, “American Interfaith Cooperation on Behalf of Refugees from Nazism, 1933 – 1945,” American Jewish History 70:3 (March 1981): 347–61.  In the case of The LivingChurch, for example, see “Prayer DaySoughtbyFederal Council,” The LivingChurch(October5,1938): 332; “Nazi Oppression of Jewish ChristiansCreates Serious Problem for Lutherans Here,” The LivingChurch(October 26,1938): 429; “Churches Called to FightAnti-Semitism,” The LivingChurch (November 9, 1938): 486; “President Asked by Synod Nazi Racism, American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 215

Condemnation and PerpetuationofAnti-Semitism

One important obstacle to U.S. Protestant sympathyfor Germany’sJews was the persistent prejudicialstream that ranthrough Americansociety.Interestingly, Protestant commentators in the churchpress here analyzedinteracted in differ- ent ways with the racism and anti-Semitism in U.S. society.Itwas not uncommon for editorialsand articles in mainline Protestant publicationstoacknowledge,as did William E. Gilroy,the editor of Advance,that, “Our protest of Hitler’streat- ment of the Jews is partlyineffectivebecause the Germans have been well pub- licized concerning our treatment of the Negro. […]Wecannot speak with the powerful and authoritative moral voice of aclear conscienceoraclean record.”³⁶ Gilroy went on to chastisehis readers about their lack of lovefor minorities, pro- claiming that “if God’slovehad been onlyfor white, one-hundred-per-cent Americans there would be no gospel worth proclaiming.”³⁷ Similarly, TheChurch- man featured condemnations of U.S. racism, such as aFebruary 1, 1938, article which reprinted aFederalCouncil of Churches’ messageonrace relations.Init, the FCC took issue with racism directed towards Mexicans, Orientals, and Blacks in the United States. “We in America have felt keenlyand said much about the treatment of Jews in Germany,” the text ran, adding that “Anyreal solution of race relations requires that each nation face its own problems.Before we in America can tell other nations what to do we must confront our owndistressing situation. […]Each national group has made alasting contribution to our com- posite civilization.” In particular, the FCC report singled out the “decidedlyun- christianand unstatesmanlike” Oriental Exclusion Act, and asserted that “the churches cannot escape responsibility for such living conditions” as wereen- dured by the “poor Mexicans” in their midst.³⁸ But if racism was an easy targetfor these Protestant writers and editors,anti- Semitism proved much more complicated. Likeracism,anti-Semitism was wide- spread in U.S. society,and even whenAmericanswerehighlycritical of the Hitler

to Help Jews,” The LivingChurch (November 9, 1938): 492; “Terror Over Germany,” The Living Church (November 23,1938): 537–8; “Church Groups Hit Nazi Persecutions,” The LivingChurch (November 23,1938): 547, 557; “ChurchGroups MakeNation-Wide Protest,” The LivingChurch (November 30,1938): 581,585; “The FutureofGerman Jews,” The LivingChurch(December 7, 1938): 596; William G. Peck, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” The LivingChurch (December 14, 1938): 635 – 6.  William E. Gilroy, “The Editorial Outlook,” Advance (April 1, 1938): 156.  William E. Gilroy, “The Editorial Outlook,” Advance (November 1, 1938): 494.  “Race Relations:Federal Council Issues Message for February 13,” The Churchman (Febru- ary 1, 1938): 21. 216 KyleJantzen regime, they remained antipathetic towards Jews. Opinion polls confirmed this time and again. Forinstance,aRoper poll from April 1938 found that48percent of United States citizens surveyedbelieved thatthe persecution of Jews in Eu- rope was at least partlythe fault of the victims, while 10 percent felt it was en- tirelytheir fault.³⁹ In November 1938, just after the Kristallnacht pogrom, Roper polls found thatone-third of respondents believed thathostility towards Jews in the United States wasrising,with manyblaming Jewish financial power,busi- ness practices,and avarice. Moreover,77percent opposed allowing more Jewish exiles from Germanyinto the United States,while 43 percent even opposed the U.S. government contributing “money to help Jewish and Catholic exilesfrom Germanysettle in lands likeAfrica and South America.” And fullytwo-thirds of thosesurveyedrejected the proposed Wagner-Rogers Bill to permitrefugee children from Germanytobeallowed into the country.Afew months later,in April 1939,almost85percent of Protestants and Catholics opposed increasing immigration quotas for European refugees.Infact,polls conducted throughout 1938 and 1939 discovered that 12 percent of the Americanssurveyed consistently favored acampaign against Jews in America,while another poll takeninJuly 1939 found that 42 percent of Americans who wereasked wanted either to take measures to prevent Jews from gaining too much economic power in Amer- ica, or (less often) to deport them as fast as humanelypossible.⁴⁰ While these members of the Protestant church press frequentlycriticized Americananti-Semitism,⁴¹ their writers and editors oftenemployed aconfusing and contradictory discourse about Jews. Forinstance,inthe summer of 1938, Frederick C. Grant perpetuated aspects of traditionalChristian anti-Jewish rhet- oric in an article he wrotefor the journal Christendom,which was affiliated with the AmericanSections of the World Conference on Faith and Order and the Uni- versalChristian Council for Life and Work. Discussing the place of Jews in Chris- tian history,hepresented the long history of the Jews as aseries of crises, ex- plaining how Jesus had offered the Jewish people achance to become “the church, apeople of God, mixed like leavenamong the peoples of the earth, […]the conscienceofmankind.” This they refused.Grant continued:

 Hadley Cantril and MildredStrunk, Public Opinion 1935–1946 (Princeton, NJ:Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1951), 382–3.  Ibid., 382–3, 385, 1081, 1150.  Forexample, Zion’sHerald repeatedlycondemned the rise of fascist and anti-Semitic speech and groups in the United States, in articles like “Jersey City – Fascist Cell,” Zion’sHerald (May25, 1938): 676. NaziRacism, American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 217

Idonot bringchargesagainst our brethren in the synagogue; but Icannot help feelingthat the long tragedyofIsrael’swanderings, the bitterpersecution even unto this day, might have been avertedhad […] ‘the proposal of Jesus’ been adopted rather than rejected by his own people.

While Grant was actuallytrying to use Judaism as an illustration for alesson Christians needed to learn, his assessment of the Jewish condition shows how even liberal Protestants intent on acting with good will towards Jews could not quite refrain from placing part of the blame for Jewish suffering squarely on the victims themselves.⁴² Although TheChurchman was astrongopponent of anti-Semitism in both Europe and the United States, like Christendom,ittoo published material which reinforcedtraditionalanti-Semitic stereotypes. In acase of supremely bad timing,Alfred Artyn Gross,aformercleric, published “Mannersand Morals of Anti-Semitism: WhyDoWeDislike Our Neighbors?” in the November15issue of TheChurchman. In this extensive article on anti-Semitism in America,Gross argued that Hitler’spersecution of Jews – he could not have known about the Kristallnacht pogrom when he wrote – reminded Americans of their own anti- Semitism problem. In an effort to explain contemporary rationalizations for anti-Semitism, however,Gross proceeded to discuss Jewishcustoms – ways of eating,drinking,and celebratingholidays – which he felt were different,but not immoral. Then, he turned to Jewish business practices.Herehedid not en- tirelyreject the ideas that Jews tendedtowards dishonesty or that they dominat- ed the learned professions,but blamed Christians for putting Jews in these po- sitions:

What about the responsibility the Christian world must face for makingthe Jews the sort of people they are? When did along history of persecution create apeople of consistently noble characters?Ought we not to exultinthose Jews,who despitetheir handicaps, have achieved greatness of soul?[…]Undoubtedlythereare unlovelyJews;itisdoubtful that unloveliness is aJewish monopoly.

Gross then brought up the old accusation that the Jews werethe Christ-killers, rejectingitbyarguing that first-centuryJews acted as anymob might have,stir- red up by “the priests and their satellites.” Moreover,heobjected to the confla- tion of first-and twentieth-centuryJews: “To hold the Jews of 1938 responsible for the sins of the mob of the year 30 is repeatingthe mentality which brought about the tragedyofCalvary.The world misunderstood Jesus and thought him dangerous.Itexecuted him. There have been Calvaries before and since.”

 Frederick C. Grant, “Our Basic Faith,” Christendom 3:3(Summer 1938): 340. 218 Kyle Jantzen

In the end, Gross put forward ahopeful solution: the curefor anti-Semitism “lies in the recognition of our common humanity.” As he wrote:

Aman is no betterand no worse than his neighbor because he views the eternal verities differently. He becomes better or worse as he translates his insights intoaction. […] What is religion?Jesus tells us it is very simple: “Love God. Loveyour neighbor.” Jews fall within the category of neighbours.You can call anti-Semitism adenial to Jews of the status of neighbors. As anti-Semitism succeeds, religion must fail.

To be sure, writers such as Grant and Gross meant well, and soughtvigorouslyto combat anti-Semitic stereotypes. Still, they themselveswereunable to avoid these very prejudices in their ownwriting. Such mixed responses werenot limited to the liberal wingofmainlineProt- estantism. Take, for example, aguest article on “The Plight of the Jews” penned by Dr.Joseph Taylor Britan, co-publisher of Israel My Glory,for the fundamental- ist Friends of Israel GospelMinistry,which appearedinthe November10, 1938, edition of ThePresbyterian. ⁴³ (This is another case of terrible timing.Published on the dayofthe Kristallnacht pogrom, the article was quiteobviouslywritten beforehand.) Britan’sassessment of the Jewishsituation begins with compassion for Jews who had suffered persecution, even as it depicts them in acompletely undifferentiated manner:

The Jewstands todayinthe center of the world’sstage.Heisfrequentlyinthe headlines. What he does not onlyarouses the interest of the world, but what is done to him is no less important. He is still the man without acountry […]. Persecutedinmanynations,deprived of almost every economic, social, cultural and political opportunity,manyofthe greatest scientists,merchants and professional men aredrivenfromthe land of their birth, their property is confiscated and they themselvesare reduced to abject poverty and ruthless power.

Britan wrotedramaticallyofJewish misery,interms that both mirrored the Nazi racialimageofJews and grasped the Nazi intent to destroy European Jewry:

No one knows the number of suicides amongthis race which have followed their persecu- tion in certain nations in Europe. No one knows the number of innocent men, women and children starved to death or killed by the hostile powers which aredetermined to removeall Jews from their midst.Reliable authorities have estimated that manymillions have been starved and otherwise “liquidated” during recent years in twoorthreenations in Europe.

 Joseph Taylor Britan, “The Plight of the Jew,” The Presbyterian (November 10,1938): 11–2. The quotations which follow areall takenfromthe article. Nazi Racism,American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 219

Thousands,ifnot millions,ofJews aretoday beingdrivenfromone country to another with no placewhereon the soles of their feet maypermanentlyrest.

ForBritan, these developments werea“reversion to the terrible racial antipathies of the Dark Ages,” and he added that therewas “every indication that it will con- tinue.” Britan goes on to meld philosemitic sentiment and abid for support on the one hand,with prejudicial stereotypes and supersessionist theologyonthe other. Surveying the “alleged reasons” for the present-day persecution of the Jews, he observed that the Nazis believed Jews to be the leaders of the Communist move- ment,while others believed in aglobalconspiracy of Jews to establish adictator- ship. While he disparaged these ideas as false propaganda, he further opined that “The Word of God declares thatthe sufferingsofIsrael are His judgments for idolatry and for their rejection of His son and their own Messiah.” Immedi- atelythereafter,though, Britan pivoted away from the implications of this con- demnation: “This, however,gives no nation and no individual the Divine permis- sion to persecute the Jew; and the penalties promised to thosewho do persecute the Jews are certain to be visited upon offending persons and nations.” From there, Britan turned to the danger of anti-Semitism in the United States and the of Jews in U.S. society.Yet even as he defended from stereotypingunder the collective identities as communist or financier, he continued to draw on the very languageofcollective identity: “Even if it were discovered that all the leaders of Communism are Jews (a supposition contrary to fact), there still would be no reason to persecute the Jews as arace and make the trulypatriotic and righteous members of the race to suffer for the economic and political sins of the Jew.” At this point in the article, Britan returned to the “dire need of the Jew” in foreign lands and the “ungodlyand un-Christian persecution of innocent Jewish men, women, and children over the face of the earth,” commenting that Amer- icans “would surelyrise as one man and demand the cessation of persecution […]ifthe emotionsand sympathiesofthe world had not been deadenedby the diabolical deeds of the World War.” Having diagnosed the ills of anti-Semitism and persecution, Britan turned to address the question of cure. First,hemaintained, Christians should protest and work to educateAmericans so that anti-Semitism “mayfind no place in Ameri- can life.” Pastors,Bible teachers,and leaders werethe keyfigures Britan claimed could erect “barriers against the evil tides of prejudice and persecution.” The second response Britan advanced, and the one he spent the most time discus- sing,was financial and spiritual support for Jewishmissions. Enumeratingdiffer- ent Philadelphia Presbyterian attempts to evangelize Jews, he observed both the 220 KyleJantzen eager interest of Jews and their reluctance to convert,which he blamed on Jewish spiritual blindness –“Forthe veil is stilloverthe eyes of manyJews […]”–and centuries of prejudicialtreatment at the handsofChristians. ForBritan, the “278,000 Jews of Philadelphia” constituted “one of the most neglectedmission fields for evangelistic work in the city,” important to undertake “if the powerful paganism of our dayistobemet and our Christian institutions preserved.” While American Christians were supposedtorespond with protests against injustice, education for tolerance, and the evangelismofJews at home, they were not to forgettheir responsibility to Jews in Europe. Likeother Protestant writers, Britan reframed the suffering of Jews as the suffering of Christians and Jews: one and ahalf million “Hebrew Christians” in Europe required immediate aid, he specified, adding that British churches werealreadyhelping “Jews and Jewish Christians.” He quoted aScottish churchman to arguethat “the non-Aryan Chris- tians of Germanyare aproblem sidebyside with the Jewish problem: or rather they are part of the problem, for no distinction is made on grounds of faith.” Jews, Briton declared, were “completelyastounded” that Christians werenot helping fellow Christians of Jewish origin, and deplored that “hardlyany help has been forthcomingfrom Christian sources” to aid the tens and hundreds of thousands of non-Aryans who have never known of anyotherfaith thanChris- tianity,evenaswordfrom Germany was thatthese people “are slowlyand inex- orablybeing annihilated.” Britanclosed with an appeal for money and prayer, invoking the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew: “Inas much [sic] as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren (the Jews), ye have done it unto me.” It is hard to guess the conclusions drawnbyreaders who made it to the end of Britan’sarticle. Would they have been swayedbythe author’spassionate de- fense of Jews from anti-Semitic prejudice and persecution, or,rather,absorbed his manytraditional anti-Jewishstereotypes, supersessionist theology, and calls for Jewishconversion?Difficult to categorize, this article illustrates how Protestant publicationsmirrored the internal tension within 1930s U.S. conserva- tive Protestantism, both condemning and perpetuating anti-Semitism, and the wayinwhich Protestant support for persecuted Jews always took place under the theological and socio-cultural shadows of the long history of Jewish-Protes- tant relations.⁴⁴

 Amongother examples of this mixtureofpositive and negative responses to Jews and Juda- ism in the context of Nazi persecution, see James C. Clark, “The Christian Church and the Jew,” The Presbyterian (September 15,1938): 7–8. Nazi Racism,American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 221

The Cosmic Battle of Christianity and Irreligion

Finally, it must be said that although mainline Protestant leaders fought against anti-Semitism, decried the plight of German Jews, and worked to generate finan- cial and practical support for Jewish (and Jewish-Christian) refugees, all of these concerns were subsumed by theirbroader preoccupation with the cosmic strug- gle between Christianityand irreligion, which emergedfrom aprofound sense of crisis related to both global political turmoil and religious upheaval. In the Prot- estant church press analyzed in this chapter,this battle of good and evil took two forms: liberal and conservative. On the liberal side, these Protestant writers and editors warned their readers about the forces of barbarism, totalitarianism, and war which threatened to de- stroy civilization, democracy,and freedom.Time and again, they reinforced the link between religion, specificallyChristianity,and democracy and civilization. An attack on anyone of these institutions was an attack on them all. Arthur E. Holtcaptured this idea astutelyinhis article, “Shall Protestantism Implement Democracy?” published in Advance in February 1938:

It will remainfor Protestantism to be the spiritual energizer of these democracies. Cathol- icism is not interested in the democratic process. […]Ifthe democracies of the world areto be spiritualized, energized, it will remainfor the Protestant churches to carry on the task. There is an interplaybetween Protestantism on the one hand and the democratic govern- ments on the other.[…]These twomovements – democracyinpolitical life and democracy in religious life – reinforceeach other or die together.[…]Somethingterrible will happen to the world if the world givesuponthe idea of livingbypersuasion, by social cohesion, by fellowship, by progress and by mutual exchange of ideas. That is essentiallythe philoso- phy, it seems to me, of democracyand Protestantism.⁴⁵

In the same issue, Henry Smith Leiper wrote,

Efforts to avert war have onlybeen substitutes for religion. Peace must be grounded more deeplythat upon anythingthat has as yetbeen tried. We must go down deeper.Onlyreli- gion can save us.The churches must getonwith their job. The responsibility rests with them. Religion is peace.⁴⁶

In August,T.W.Graham argued that Christianityelevated individual human worth, which was asignificant contribution to the Greek idea of democracy.

 Arthur E. Holt, “Shall Protestantism Implement Democracy?” Advance(February 1, 1938): 57–8.  Henry Smith Leiper, “The Stateofthe Church,” Advance (February 1, 1938): 62. 222 KyleJantzen

“Areyou concerned for the opportunityfor the ordinary man to make judgments as to the common good?” he asked. “Then the world must be fashionedafter the mind of the great democrat of the ages: Jesus Christ.Thenwemustset ourselves to drive war out of the world. Then must yougiveyourselvesinevery areaoflife to make democracyeffective.”⁴⁷ If Jesus was Graham’s “great democrat of the ages,” Wilbur Larremore Cas- well of TheChurchman presented Paul as the originator of agreat liberal tradi- tion that carries on into the twentieth century!⁴⁸ And, as former U.S. ambassador to GermanyWilliam Doddput it in aspeech to the Church League for Industrial Democracy, “If we abandon democracy,wecannothelp but abandon Christian- ity,and then we will go into another system which reminds one of the autocratic rule of the late Middle Ages wherethe government was everything and the indi- vidual counted for nothing.” Distressed, he described fascism as “the worst sit- uation the world has ever known” and called on “Christians in democratic coun- tries” to cooperate to save democracy,freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.⁴⁹ Aletter to the editor on May1st echoed these sentiments: “At first slowly, now suddenlyand dramatically, the world, all who see and understand and hope for order and freedom and the survival of civilization, Christian, Jewand even non-believer,seems to look to the great religions of the world to save it from suicide.” After the failureofthe LeagueofNations and its membergovern- ments to maintain world peace, the world looks to “Christian or religious con- cepts of right and wrong,ofjustice, freedom, peace and – our last and greatest hope – of human brotherhood.”⁵⁰ More apocalyptic still was Sturgis Lee Riddle’sSeptember article entitled, “Civilization Takes Refuge in the Church,” in which he argued:

Now that self-sufficient has run its course, sown its seed, now that science, un- directed by Immortal Mind, is loosing anew barbarism upon us,now that man’sfive-cen- tury-old determination to live untohimself alone is turningthe world againinto aplaceof horror,the church of God is once morecalled upon to assume the trusteeship of civiliza- tion.⁵¹

 T.W. Graham, “Democracy or War,” Advance (August 1, 1938): 365.  Wilbur LarremoreCaswell, “New Orthodoxy and Old Liberalism: Liberalisms MayPass but Liberalism Never,” The Churchman (March 1, 1938): 14 – 5.  “Democracy: Dodd Describes Nazism at CLID Annual Meeting,” The Churchman (March 1, 1938): 18.  Robert R. Reed, “Hull or Hitler?” The Churchman (May1,1938): 4.  Sturgis Lee Riddle, “CivilizationTakesRefuge in the Church,” The Churchman (September 1, 1938): 10 –1. Nazi Racism,American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 223

If liberals tied the salvation of Western civilization to the strength of Christianity, conservativeshoned in on apolitical Christian spiritual renewal and prayer as remedies for the world’sills. Forexample, in November1938, TheLiving Church publishedapublicaddress delivered by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Francis B. Sayre, in which the politician outlinedthe task of Christianityinthe face of “the increasinglyacute human need and the growingworld problems which press in upon us from every side.” After depicting the collapse of “old institu- tions, old beliefs, old standards,” and “the “prodigious change[which] every- whereaffects the very foundationsofour life,” Sayre urgedChristians to “take stock of their own beliefs, to evaluateand formulate their own faith and, if theirs is to be aconqueringfaith, to reach some kind of agreement on aprogram for action.”⁵² ForSayre, this program included faith in God rather than physical force; “the freegiving of oneself to otherpeople, irrespective of race, nation, or creed,” rather than selfish “material acquisition;” and international human brotherhood rather thannational rivalries. What wasrequired was areturn to “arevitalized and purified Christianity.” Sayre propounded belief in the good- ness and loveofGod at work in the world, and stated, “We believethat actually the world cannot function effectively until men learn to put Christ at the centre of their lives.” In terms of aprogram of action,Sayre called for “athoroughgoing loyalty to all mankind beyond the narrow confines of class, nation, or race.” He went on to petition for the cessation of war,the creation of ajust social order, and the elimination of “race, color,orcreed discrimination.” Allofthis, though, was an appeal for individual Christian belief and action, not apolitical buttress- ing of Western civilization by institutional Christianity. Prayer as aresponse to the crises of totalitarianism and irreligion was are- curring themeinTheLiving Church. As aSeptember article on “The Clouds of War” proclaimed: “It is atime for Christians of all nations to pray without ceas- ing – and to endeavortoraise up atrulyChristian generation thatmay be able to build abetter world than that of which the present generation has made such a mess.”⁵³ And in mid-December, the editors printed “APrayerfor the Oppressed” from aminister in Colorado.Itread:

OGod, the Creator of men and of nations:weimploreThy fatherlycare and protection in behalf of all Thychildren everywherewho suffer persecution. In all their trials and tribu- lations be Thou their refugeand strength. Imparttothem Thine own comfort and courage. Turn the hearts of the oppressors from evil to good. Stop the hands and convert the wills of

 Francis B. Sayre, “Christianity Facesthe World,” The LivingChurch (November 16,1938): 509–10.  “The Clouds of War,” The LivingChurch (September 7, 1938): 209. 224 KyleJantzen

those whowould array brother against brother in racial strife. Restore to all men every- where the blessingofreligious freedom. Fill our hearts and inspire our minds with adesire firmlytoestablish peaceand , liberty and fraternity,throughout the world; for His sake whosuffered for all mankind, ThySon Jesus Christ,our Lord. Amen.⁵⁴

Similar calls for individual spiritual renewal weretobefound in ThePresby- terian,wherepleasfor prayer also appeared. In astriking example, Dr.Mark A. Matthews, pastor of the largest Presbyterian churchinthe United States, asked readers, “Have YouForgottenHow to Pray?” He warned of “aworld on fire,” totalitarian attacks on liberty,individual rights, and democracy,and acom- ing war for “the preservation of liberty and the right to exist.” His response was this question: “Have we forgottenhow to pray,why we should pray,and when we should pray?”⁵⁵ One week later,Arthur Burd McCormick reported on the manycalls to pray- er,prayermeetings,and intercession services which had recentlytaken place in response to the Czech Crisis and Munich Conference. In this context,hetoldof the requestofawomen to her pastor that the ministerial association set aside its meeting to pray,and that churches around the city of Philadelphia be opened to prayer meetings. Within the hour,arrangements had been made, and even city hall and some schools stopped their work for prayer. “Things likethis were going on all over the earth,” McCormick wrote. “Who daresay that those prayers had nothing to do with the settlement at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninthmi- nute.”⁵⁶ ForMcCormick and others in the conservative wing of mainline Protestan- tism, spiritual renewal was key to combatting the evils of the current age. As he argued:

The onlyremnants of internationalism left in the world aretobefound among the churches (including synagogues). This new emphasis on Aryanism, race, blood, nation; this new re- sort to brute force; this new policyofterrorism;this absolute denial of freedom, justice and love; this disregard of decency and common morality;this settingofgovernments outside of the idea of law – all this is areturnonaworld scale to the ruthlessness of the tribal or the cry of the wolfish pack. We have witnessed Mussolini’scontemptuous indifferenceto the Church. We have seen the Nazi attempt to create apagan-Christian church which will give blind support to the government.

 “APrayerfor the Oppressed,” The LivingChurch(December 14,1938): 636.  Mark A. Matthews, “Have YouForgottenHow to Pray?” ThePresbyterian(October6,1938):3,6.  Arthur BurdMcCormick, “The World As ISee It,” The Presbyterian (October13, 1938): 5. Nazi Racism,American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 225

HereMcCormick gave examples of Nazi attacksonboth Christians and Jews, and asked:

Is it not therefore evident that the time has come for all whobelieveinspiritual religion, for all whoare opposed to totalitarianism, for all whoprize their freedom to gettogether and present acommonfront against this new savagery that threatens the destruction of all we hold dear?Jews,Catholics and Protestants face acommon foe: whynot face it together? ⁵⁷

Other conservative appeals for spiritual renewal and devotional activity as the weapon with which to defeat the forces of irreligion appear in the Methodist weekly Zion’sHerald. Forinstance, during Easter 1938, an article entitled, “Look- ing for the Resurrection” explored the meaning of the resurrection of Christ in the context of the modern totalitarian state. When dictatorships dominate the manydomains of life, then “Jesus Christ,the living Jesus Christ,has once more been crucified and placed in atomb whose entrance has been doubly sealed,lest He should escape and once more proclaim hope and freedom and faith to men.” As the states make power their god, as they suppress human free- dom, “the pagans are having theirday.” Observingthe persecution of Christians in Germany, the author declares: “The scene is not new.Nero – Hitler; catacombs – prison camps; Colosseum – execution grounds.Adifferent year,afew changes in costumes,another location – that is all. History is repeatingitself.”⁵⁸ Most conspicuous in this article, as in so manyother cases, is not so much the emphasis on Christian suffering rather thanJewishsuffering as the contest between the spiritual power of Christ over and against the paganism of totalitar- ianism. As the author continued,

There aresignsthat the tomb […]isbeginningtocrack. There areevidences of newness of life […]for the livingChrist cannot be bound in the grave-clothes of pagan power.[…] [T]hereisaflush in the east,and little streaks of light that proclaim the advent of anew dayofloveand righteousness.Beofgood cheer.Christ shall rise again – hereand now in this sin-distracted world.⁵⁹

Twomonths later,another article, entitled “Witness-Bearing – 1938,” advised Christians how to participate in the spiritual subversion of totalitarian irreligion. Witness-bearing, the author counseled, must go beyond personal religious devo- tion. “In this twentieth century of confusion when men have gone so far astray in their wider relationships,” the author called for witness-bearingright across the

 Ibid.  “Looking for the Resurrection,” Zion’sHerald (April 13,1938): 464.  Ibid. 226 Kyle Jantzen world.⁶⁰ But what wereChristians supposed to bear witness to?The answer: “First of all, to the sovereignty of God. This is not Hitler’sworld, Mussolini’s world, the Mikado’sworld, the politician’sworld, the capitalist’sworld, the labor leader’sworld. It is God’sworld. We are to do His will first,last,and al- ways,and let consequences be what they will.” Next,Christians weretobear wit- ness to the significanceand purpose of life and to the supremacy of love, and to do so through the proclamation of the gospel. “Preach the word! Preach the word – not empty words.” And laypeople had aroletoo, to speak out,work in com- mittees,pass resolutions, and “seek to put the principles of the gospel to work wherever youhavethe opportunity.”⁶¹ This was aspiritual renewal to defeatthe forces of irreligion with spiritual weapons:

The church cannot and should not attempt to operategovernments, settle economic prob- lems,dictatelabor policies,pose as an expert in the technique of industry,drawuptrade agreements,point out in concrete detail all the proper relationships among the nations.The church’sbusiness is to bear witness,toinsist upon the application of gospel principles to all life. When it does this it livesinChrist; when it fails to do this it dies, though the empty forms of its organization maysurvive for years.⁶²

In another case, Charles M. Laymon, aprolific writer of biblical commentaries and , published in August 1938 an article about how pastors should preach apocalyptically. In times of wickedness,preachers ought to pro- claim the breakthrough of anew work of God. Thisheapplied to the present time, first noting the economic uncertaintyinthe United States,after which he turned to the international scene:

From pressand radio come reportsofevengreateruncertainty abroad.The chess-game of European politics is beingspeeded up with dizzyingrapidity.Noone would predict with confidencethe national boundary lines of Central Europe twelvemonths hence. This is the type of soil that grows apocalyptic thinking. Culture seems to have failed. Self-interest has cocained [sic] reason. Man is not surehecan trust himself, and less surethat he can trust his brother.Ifthe world is to be saved, God alone can save it,and because He must,He will!⁶³

 “Witness-Bearing—1938,” Zion’sHerald (July6,1938): 868.  Ibid.  Ibid.  Charles M. Laymon, “Preachingand Apocalypse: Today’sNeed for aTriumphant Faith,” Zion’sHerald (August 3, 1938): 991. Nazi Racism,American Anti-Semitism, and Christian Duty 227

Laymon further explained the elements of what he called an apocalyptic spirit: aconviction of the purpose of history which willberealized in God’sultimate judgment,asense of urgency, agreater sensitivity to “the reality of the ‘Un- seen,’” and atriumphant faith that God will ultimatelywin the day.⁶⁴ Later in the fall, in the wake of the Czech Crisis, Zion’sHerald published an article entitled “The Four Horsemen”–another reference to the apocalypse, or the end of the world. In the article, however,the four horsemen refer to the four political leaders who negotiated the dismemberment of the Czechoslovak state. Decrying the Munich Agreement as abreakingofagreements and an aban- donment of ethics,the writer interpreted the pact as ademonstration that:

[…]the onlysolution of the world’swoesisthe practice of Christianity. Not Communism with its shifty ethics and appeal to force, not Naziism [sic]or Fascism with their sword-rat- tling and their blatant denial of morals, will save the world […]. Turn away from Munich and look at Calvary. In the crucified Christ is the honest word of God, love, truth, integrity, peace, justice, which must prevail not through bruteforce but by example and persuasion. He can deliverthis sin-sick world from destruction.Healone can do it.There is none be- side.⁶⁵

Conclusion

In 1938, against the background of Germanracism, American anti-Semitism, and agrowingJewish refugeecrisis, the writers and editors of the mainline Protestant church press examined in this chapter understood their Christian duty as acall to respond to aprofound sense of crisis. Democracy,civilization, Christianity, and all religion wereunderattack from the forces of war,totalitarianism, racism, and paganism. Clergy writing in mainline church periodicals responded by nam- ing the evils of war and totalitarianism, in particularthe threat thatHitler and Nazi Germanyposed to the civilized world. They also fought against anti-Semi- tism and tried to aid Jews, though not withoutslipping into the languageofen- duringanti-Jewish prejudices,and alsonot without reframingthe persecution of Jews and the Jewishrefugee crisis as the persecution of Christians and Jews, and the Christian and Jewishrefugeecrisis. Of paramount importance to these main- line Protestants, however,was the affirmation that it was Christianity,and Chris- tianity alone, that had the power to rescue civilization, save democracy,and pre- servethe world from self-destruction.

 Ibid., 991–2.  “The Four Horsemen,” Zion’sHerald (October 12, 1938): 1236.

Ursula Rudnick Lutheran Churches and Luther’s Anti-Semitism

Repression, Rejection, and Repudiation

Introduction

The commemoration of Martin Luther’squincentenary in 1983saw the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) tackle, for the first time, the famous theologian’santi- Semitism. In apioneering move, the LWForganized ameetingwith the Interna- tional JewishCommittee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), aconsultation that resulted in apublished document.The document is composed of threestate- ments, one made by the meeting’sLutheran participants, asecond one made by its Jewishparticipants, and athird one made jointly.¹ The Lutheran part states unambiguously: “The sins of Luther’santi-Jewish remarks, the violence of his at- tacks on the Jews, must be acknowledgedwith deep distress.And all occasions for similar sin in the present or the future must be removed from our churches.”² Never before had abodyofLutheran churches recognizedand condemned Lu- ther′sjudaeophobia and committed itself to combattinganti-Semitism. Arguably, we witnessed awatershed. One might well ask: what prompted the Lutheran Church to make this extraordinary decision?How did it happen that this impulse wastaken up and put into practice? Thisessay examines the ques- tion of how the Lutheran churches in Europe – as represented by the Lutheran

 The consultation tookplaceinStockholm, Sweden, fromJuly11–13,1983. Jean Halpérin and Arne Sovik, eds., Luther,Lutheranism and the Jews:ARecordofthe Second Consultation be- tween Representativesofthe International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation and the Lutheran World Federation, held in Stockholm, Sweden, 11–13 July 1983, Lutheran World Federation Studies (: The Lutheran World Federation, 1984). An earlier consulta- tion had taken placeinBossey,Switzerland, in 1982 and its results were published: The Lutheran World Federation, ed., The SignificanceofJudaism for the Life and the Mission of the Church (Geneva: The Lutheran World Federation, 1983).  Statement from the InternationalJewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Consultation, Stockholm 1983. QuotedinAShift in Jewish-Relations?, eds.Wolfgang Greiveand Peter N. Prove(Geneva: The Lutheran World Feder- ation, 2003): 196.Available at: https://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-state ments/interreligious/759-lwfijcic1983

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-014 230 Ursula Rudnick

Commission on the Church and the Jewish People (LEKKJ) – have begun to con- front Luther’santi-Semitism, how this moveisreflected in official statements, and what steps have been taken towards anew and respectful relationship be- tween the Lutheran Church and the Jewish people.

The European Lutheran Commission on the Church andthe JewishPeople

The European Lutheran Commission on the Church and the JewishPeople (LEKKJ) is anetwork of Lutheranchurches that deals with questions concerning the relationship between the churches and the Jewishpeople. The onlyumbrella Protestant institution in Europe that has operated continuously since its estab- lishmentin1976, the LEKKJwas founded in Christiansfeld, Denmark, by eight Lutheran churches and missionary organizations from Scandinavian countries, the FederalRepublic of Germany, and the Netherlands. Church delegates meet annually for aconference at the invitation of amember church. The conferences engagewith awide rangeoftopics pertinent to Jewish-Christian relations and theological questions, specificallyLutheran-Jewish relations.Asampling of themesincludes:the relevance of Judaism for Christian self-understanding; anti-Judaism and the renewal of Lutheran theologyinthe face of Judaism; her- meneutics of the Hebrew Bible; as well as the organization of practical work in church communities and schools and the fight against anti-Semitism. Over the decades, the conference discussions have yielded significant output, including official statements,articles, and books.

Luther’sHeirs

The book LuthersErben: DasVerhältnislutherischer Kirchen Europas zu den Juden (Luther′sHeirs: TheRelationship of European Lutheran Churches to the Jews)³ is one such literary product of the LEKKJ conference circuit. Luther’sHeirs emerged from the organization’sfirst study project,started in the second year of its exis- tence. In its earlystages, the project was referred to by the general title Christians Meet Jews – Jews Meet Christians. During the course of the studyprocess, how- ever,LEKKJ members decided to tackle explicitlyLuther′sideas on Jews and Ju-

 Arnulf H. Baumann, Käte Mahn, and Magne Saebø, Luthers Erben und die Juden: Das Verhält- nis lutherischer Kirchen Europas zu den Juden (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus,1984). Lutheran Churches and Luther’sAnti-Semitism 231 daism and Lutheran issues within the wider context of Jewish-Christian rela- tions.⁴ Published in 1984, Luther’sHeirs is acollective volume edited by German Lu- theran ministers Arnulf H. Baumann and Käte Mahn, along with aNorwegian Lutheran scholarofthe Hebrew Bible, Magne Saebø.⁵ The publication, which features Lutheran authors as invited contributors,was funded by the national Lutheran Church office in Hannover,the Norwegian Israel Mission, and the Fin- nish Lutheran mission.⁶ Luther’sHeirs was writtenfor atargetreadership, namely, “Lutheran Chris- tians across Europe to whom the relationship between Jews and Christians is dear,” and with aspecific aim, that is, to contribute to the “dismantling of prej- udices for adeeper understandingand better coexistence of Christians and Jews in the future.”⁷ The book represents agroundbreaking attempt to sketch the his- tory of relations between Jews and the Lutheran churches in Europe, to under- stand the difficulties of present Lutheran-Jewishrelations, and to set forth boldly the relevant theological challenges. Furthermore,itraises the profound question of how “Luther’sheirs” have thus far approached Jews and Judaism. In this re- spect, “It shows how extremelydifferent attitudes and behaviors have manifest- ed themselvesatvarious times in different countries.”⁸ The publication, which gathers previouslyunavailable information and materials from manydifferent churches,isavailable in auseful handbook form. The first chapter of Luther’sHeirs sketches the situation of the Jewishpop- ulationinGermanyatthe beginning of the sixteenth century,brieflydescribes Luther’sperception of and relationship with the Jews, and discusses the repre- sentation of Judaism in Lutheran confessional writings. The final part of the first chapter is dedicated to the question of how Judaism features in aspecific

 “Bei der Tagung in Hoekelum/Niederlande 1978 wurde Übereinstimmung darüber erzielt, dass es notwendigist,einen historischen Überblick über die Juden in der Reformationszeit und eine Darstellungder theologischen AnschauungenLuthers und der lutherischen Bekennt- nisschriften über die Juden voranzustellen”;Baumann, Mahn, and Saebø, Luther’sErben, 10.  Ibid., 11.  Ibid., 9  Translations from the German aremine. “Die Studie wendet sich an lutherische Christen in ganzEuropa, denen das Verhältnis vonJuden und Christen am Herzen liegt,insbesonderean solche, die aktivimkirchlichen Dienst stehenoder sich in der Begegnungmit Juden engagiert haben. Sie kann zur VertiefungihrerKenntnisse über die Entwicklungimeigenen Land helfen, aber auch zur Erkenntnis, wie und warum es in anderenLändern anders gelaufen ist”;ibid., 11.  “Es zeigt,wie außerordentlich unterschiedlich sich die Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen zu verschiedenenZeitenund in verschiedenenLändern ausgeprägt haben. Es bietet Material zur Beantwortungder eingangsgestellten Fragen, wie es sonst nirgends zugänglich ist”;ibid. 9. 232 Ursula Rudnick

Lutheran confessional text,namely, the Confessio Augustana,afoundational Lu- theran work that remains apoint of reference for Lutherans today. Additionally, the chapter pointstothe unique relationship between the Lutheran Church and the Jewish people, stemmingfrom their shared foundation in the Bible: “the pro- phetic and apostolic writingsofthe Old and the New Testament.”⁹ In the second chapter of the book,one reads of the historicalrelationship between the Lutheran churches and Jews in some European countries,with a special focus on Germany. The third chapter – the most extensive of the volume – discusses the relationship between the European Lutheran churches and con- temporary Jews. The focal point of the fourth chapter is the issue of foundational theological questions from the Lutheran point of view,such as the relationship between Old and New Testaments, the particularrelationship between the Church and Judaism, and the testimonyofChrist. The book’sbrief account of Martin Luther’sportrayal of Jews and Judaism follows the established pattern by depicting the earlyattitude and writingsofLu- ther as friendlytowards Jews and Judaism, especiallyhis treatise Dass Jesus Christus ein geborener Jude sei (“That JesusChrist was Born aJew”), published in 1523. The authors present Luther’searlywritingsasanexpression of appreci- ation, neglectingthe fact that Luther’spolitical advice wasdrivenbyhis hope of the Jews’ conversion to Christianity and thus wasnot an appreciation of Jews and Judaism as such.¹⁰ The late writingsofLuther, Vonden Juden und ihren Lügen (Onthe Jews and Their Lies) and VomSchem Hamphoras und vom GeschlechtChristi (Of the Ineffa- ble Name and the Generations of Christ), written in 1543, are characterized as fol- lows:

These writings,which have amuch sharper tone, arose within the framework of atheolog- ical discussion which was characterizedbyhistorical and exegetical arguments […]. Thus, from these writings we hear not onlyvenom and indignation, but,aboveall, fear that his words,which weresoclear to him, had no effect on the Jews.This could onlybedue to their ‘blindness’ and ‘stubbornness.’ At the same time, Luther was afraid of the effect of their

 “[…]zuden prophetischen und apostolischen Schriften Alten und Neuen Testaments als zu dem reinen, lauteren Brunnen Israels,welcher alleine die einigewahrhaftige Richtschnur ist, nach der alle Lehrerund Lehre zu richten und zu urteilen seien”;ibid., 15.  “Das Ziel der Schrift bestand demnach vorallem darin, Christen oder Konvertiten ausdem Judentum, die missionarisch wirkten, eine Orientierungshilfe zu bieten”;Thomas Kaufmann, Lu- thers Juden (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2014), 66.Towards this end, Luther advocated friendlybehavior towards Jews. Lutheran Churches and Luther’sAnti-Semitism 233

arguments.Drivenbyfear that faith in Christ might be lost,hewould be led to the infamous statements,which Protestant enemies of the Jews later invokedtime and again.¹¹

Hence, on the one hand, the authors distance themselvesfrom Luther’svitriolic anti-Jewishdiatribes. On the other,however,their analysis is marked by apology. Luther’sinvectivesand the demonization of Jews and Judaism, his literalidenti- fication of Jews with the devil, are glossed over as ‘ugliness’ (Gehässigkeit)and ‘indignation’ (Entrüstung).¹² Hishostility towards Jews and Judaism is explained, in part,via the Zeitgeist and his Weltanschauung,political circumstances as well as Jewish (re)actions.The text’sattemptstoanalyze, understand, and explain Lu- ther’sjudaeophobia are, thus, colored by adefinite defensive mode. The authorsstate the necessity that “[…]theologyand the church clearlydis- tance themselvesfrom all Luther’santi-Jewish statements,”¹³ since anti-Semites invokedthem over and over again during the course of history.¹⁴ Tellingly,how- ever,nowheredoes one find the notion that arepudiation of these statements could be necessary for the sake of the church itself: its faith and theology. In sum, while the authorsraise important questions and formulate lucid and laudable goals, they oftenfall short of achieving these aims.This decidedlypar- tial accomplishment can be variouslyaccounted for.Most prominently, perhaps, the volume would have profited from the inclusion of non-Lutheran perspectives – Jewishscholars, in particular. It might have takenits cue from the Lutheran World Federation, which jointlyorganized aconsultation with the International JewishCommitteeonInterreligious Consultations and in which members of LEKKJparticipated and wereeveninstrumental in its preparation.¹⁵ Although

 Ibid, 15.  Ibid.  Ibid., 16.  The invocation of Luther’santi-Semitism continues until today. Duringthe federal election campaign in 2017 the NPD (Nationaldemokratische ParteiDeutschlands), an extreme right- wing party,put up election posters showing Luther with the caption: “Ichwürde NPD wählen – Ich könnte nicht anders” (I would vote NPD – Icouldn’tdootherwise), alluding to Luther’s words,allegedlyspoken at the ReichstaginWorms: “Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders” (Here Istand, Icannot help it.) The Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) protested this strategy.  The Report of the AssemblyCommittee on the Church and the Jewish People explicitly thanks LEKKJ: “We do not want to leave unspoken our recognition of the very extensive and helpful work in Lutheran /Jewish relations that has taken placeinour member churches,par- ticularlyinthe USAand in Europe. The chief coordinatingagencies werethe European Lutheran Commission on the Church and the Jewish People in Europe and the Lutheran Council in the USA”;Greive and Prove, AShift in Jewish Lutheran Relations?, 199. 234 Ursula Rudnick the depiction of Luther’sattitude towardsJudaism is characterized by defensive- ness and an apologetic stance, these shortcomingsdonot detract from the fact the book represents the first post-1945Lutheranattempt to deal with these acute- ly painful topics.¹⁶

The Declaration of Driebergen

After the Shoah, the awareness of the need for arenewal of Christian-Jewish re- lationsdevelopedslowlyinthe churches.Inthis vein, an important Protestant statement,the declaration of the Synodofthe Rhineland, Germany, was pub- lished in 1980.¹⁷ In the past decades, manyProtestant – as well as Catholic – churches in Europe, North and South America, and , have published statements that express afundamental theological shift.Among these are the condemnation of anti-Semitism, the rejection of anti-Judaism, the insight of God’senduringcovenant with the Jewish people based on are-interpretation of Paul’sletters to the Romans, the focus on Jesus’ and Paul’sJewishness and consequent perception of them as part of the Jewish people and Jewishculture of the first century CE – and finally, arejection of the teachingofsupersession- ism. Thistheological shift can be seen as the attempt to departfrom the “theol- ogyofcontempt”–as the French historian Jules Isaac termed it – and to estab- lish anew relationship between the churches and the Jewish people. In 1990,the LEKKJ published acomprehensive theological Statementon the Encounter between Lutheran Christians and Jews.¹⁸ Thissuccinct declaration, also known as the DocumentofDriebergen,iscomposed of four parts. The first section sets forth basic theological insights, such as the enduringchosenness of Israel and the unique relationship between Christians and the Jewish people. The second section reflects on the Shoah and the history of Christian anti-Juda- ism, condemningChristian triumphalism and calling for repentance: “In order to

 Foradetailed discussion, see Andreas Pangritz. Theologie und Antisemitismus:Das Beispiel Martin Luthers (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2017).  Rolf Rendtorff and Hans Hermann Henrix, eds,Die Kirchen und das Judentum: Dokumente von1945–1980.(Paderborn:Bonifatius, 1988), 593–6.  European Lutheran Commission on the Church and the Jewish People, Statement on the En- counter between Lutheran Christiansand Jews (Driebergen, The Netherlands, May8th, 1990). AGerman version of the textcan be found in Hans Hermann Henrix and Wolfgang Kraus, eds., Die Kirchen und das Judentum: Dokumentevon 1986–2000 (Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2001), 448–51. Lutheran Churches and Luther’sAnti-Semitism 235 gain anew relationship with the Jews, we must learn to do as a church.”¹⁹ The question of missionizing among Jews was ahighlycontroversial topic among the members of LEKKJ. This document eschews the term “mission” and instead usesthe word “witness,” speaking of the role of “mutual witnesses” to which Jews and Christians are called.²⁰ “He [God] frees [us] from the pressure of having to accomplisheverything by oneself. This insight places Christians under the obligation to give witness and renderservice with duerespect to the conviction and the faith of their Jewishpartners.” Members of the LEKKJ have understood these lines as rejecting anyproselytizing attempts of Christians among Jews.²¹ However,one finds no consensus among the Lutheran churches in Europe on this topic. Most significantly, the document calls for an overhaul of Lutheran education and preaching, demanding:

We also urge that the fundamental patterns of Lutheran theology and teaching such as “Lawand Gospel,”“faith and works,”“promise and fulfilment,” and the “two king- doms/realms” be reconsidered in view of their effects on the relationship between Christi- ans and Jews.²²

 “In this context,the extent to which Christians – even after the Holocaust – still have to change their preachingand teaching – as well as their whole practice – has become clear”; “Dabei wurde immer klarer, wieviel die Christen nach der Shoa noch in ihrer Verkündigung. im Unterricht und in ihrergesamten Praxis ändern müssen.” In: Hans Hermann Henrix and WolfgangKraus, eds., Die Kirchen und das Judentum: Dokumente von1986–2000 (Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2001), 448.  “Anyencounter between Christians and Jews must be based on the understandingthat God Himself is the one whosends out,that is, whoisthe missionary.This insight intothe missio dei helps us to understand one’sown possibilities and tasks.God authorizes us to mutually witness our faith, trustinginthe independent working of the HolySpirit; for it is God whoalone decides what effect our witness will have;and it is His decision with regard to the eternal salvation of all mankind. He frees us from the pressure of havingtoaccomplish everythingbyourselves. This insight places Christians under the obligation to give witness and renderservicewith duere- spect to the conviction and the faith of their Jewish partners”;Ibid., 450.  The synod of the Austrian Protestant Churches quotes these lines and continues understand- ing it as aclear “no” to anyform of missionary activities: “Da der Bund Gottes mit seinem Volk Israel auslauter Gnade bis ans Ende der Zeit besteht,ist Mission unterden Juden theologisch nicht gerechtfertigt und als kirchliches Programm abzulehnen”;Erklärungder Generalsynode: “Zeit zur Umkehr – Die Evangelischen Kirchen in Österreich und die Juden.” November 1998. https://evang.at/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/umkehr_011.pdf  http://www.lekkj.eu/dokumente. 236 Ursula Rudnick

Furthermore, the statement calls for “joint theological work with Jews, especially in the field of Bible.”²³ Thus, it understands Jewishexegesis as enriching Chris- tian exegesis of the Bible. This text is asignificant theological articulation of the position of Lutheran churches in Europe on Jews and Judaism. It contains crucial statements such as the recognitionofguilt, combined with the call for repentance; the condemna- tion of anti-Semitism; the emphasis on the unique relationship of Christianity to Judaism; and acontinuingrelationship with Judaism and the Jewishpeople. The explanations on mission and testimonyare to be understood as arejection of anyChristian missionizing activities among Jews. The distinctivecharacter of this statement lies in its call for atheological examination and reformulation of Lutheran theology, as well as the call to theological collaboration. In agesture of striking humility,the authors observe: “Great learning tasks lie before the churches,theirorganizations,theircommunities and all employees in preaching and teaching.”²⁴ The impact of the Declaration of Driebergencan be seen in several European Lutheran churches.InGermany²⁵ and in Austria,for instance,the text is quoted in the 1998 declaration of the Evangelical Austrian Church and in a2015 state- ment of the synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany(EKD) on Luther′s anti-Semitism.²⁶

Recent developments

After the Declaration of Driebergen, the LEKKJcontinued its work with anumber of smaller projects,publishing educational material and brieferstatements,such as the text entitled Martin Luther and Judaism – Challenges for Lutheran Churches

 http://www.lekkj.eu/dokumente.  http://www.lekkj.eu/dokumente.  Lutheran Churches in Germanywereaskedtoformulate an assessment by the VELKD: this was formulated by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and the Lutheran Church of Han- over.VELKD archive (AZ: 17/8 – 1– 4). The Hanovarian church even published aflyer; see Henrix and Kraus,eds., Die Kirchen und das Judentum: Dokumentevon 1986–2000,448.  Erklärungder Generalsynode: “Zeit zur Umkehr – Die Evangelischen Kirchen in Österreich und die Juden.” November 1998. https://evang.at/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/umkehr_011.pdf und “Martin Luther und die Juden – NotwendigeErinnerungenzum Reformationsjubiläum” . https://www.landeskirchehannovers.de/damfiles/default/evlka/frontnews/2015/11/19/EKD-Bes chluss-11-11-2015-6da1af1131c1b4a18be18ced723cd082.pdf Lutheran Churches and Luther’sAnti-Semitism 237 of Today (2011).²⁷ In this document,the LEKKJdraws attention to the declaration of the Lutheran World Federation of 1984 and points out that the Reformation Jubilee in 2017 ought not to pass withoutrecallingand repudiating Luther’sju- daeophobia. In this document,reference is made to the coremessageofthe dec- laration of the Lutheran World Federation from 1983.²⁸ Furthermore, the central challengeformulatedinthe statement of Driebergento“rethink fundamental Lu- theran theology” and to bring scholarlyinsights into the churches and congre- gations,isrestated as atask still not realized.²⁹ The statement ends by pointing to Luther’sappreciation of the entireBible – not onlythe New Testament – and recallingthe theological challenge: “We believeitisaprimary task of the Luther- an Church todaytofurther Christian hermeneutics of the Hebrew Bible and con- sider the Jewishinterpretation as enrichment to the understanding of our com- mon biblical basis.”³⁰

Conclusion

The quincentenary of Martin Luther’sbirth proved to be acrystallization point on an international level for the critical self-reflection of Lutheran churches on the famed theologian’santi-Semitism. In the Lutheran World Federation as well as in the European Lutheran Commission on the Church and the JewishPeople (LEKKJ), an awareness arose regardingthe urgent need for historical and theo- logical discussion. The ensuingdiscussion of Luther’santi-Semitism in the LEKKJtook place almost exclusivelyamong Lutheran ministers and scholars, which explains, among other things, the apologetic tone of Luther’sHeirs. In the studypublished by LEKKJ members, the anti-Semitism of the late Luther is roundlyrejected.Yet,comprehensive scholarlytreatment of it and its long-term effects awaits future inquiry. The Declaration of Driebergenformulates afundamental theological renew- al: this includes ecumenicalinsights such as the condemnation of anti-Semitism and an affirmation of the unrevoked covenant.Furthermore, the statement makes patent the need for areconstruction of Lutheran theologyand practice. Core elements of Lutheran theology, such as the relationship between , contain anti-Jewishaspects. Thus far,however,onlyahandful of

 http://sakasti.evl.fi/sakasti.nsf/0/9C5E043DDFA43B10C22579AA00497F54/$FILE/LEKKJ% 20zu%20Luther-Helsinki%202011%20-English.pdf and http://www.lekkj.eu/dokumente.  http://www.lekkj.eu/dokumente.  Ibid.  Ibid. 238 Ursula Rudnick theologians,including, notably, Friedrich Wilhelm Marquardt,³¹ has tackled these constitutive theological conceptsinany serious and systematic fashion. Nonetheless,itcan be said that, to an increasingdegree, sober historical and theological analyses are replacingapologetics. The celebration of 500 years of the Reformation in Germanygaverise to important research and discourse. The impact of Luther’sjudaeophobia on the churchand society at large in Ger- manywas debated fiercely,³² in the churchpews no less than in the hallways of academia.³³ As part of the Lutheran Church’seducational project,several exhi- bitions on this topic wereprepared³⁴ and various ecclesial boards released state- ments, among them the synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany.³⁵ And, on November9,2015,inWittenberg – and ayear later in other German cities – a poignant public gesture was made: in areversal of the iconographic Christian imageofthe blindfolded synagoga,the eyes of the statue of Martin Luther werecovered with ablindfold, signaling, with this switch, Luther’sblindness and thatofhis heirs.

 Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt, VonElend und Heimsuchungder Theologie: Prolegomena zur Dogmatik (Munich:,1988); idem, Das christliche Bekenntnis zu Jesus,dem Juden: Eine Christologie, 2vols.(Munich: Kaiser,1990/91); idem, Wasdürfen wir hoffen, wenn wir hoffen dürften?Eine Eschatologie, 3vols.(Munich: Kaiser and Gütersloher Verlagshaus,1993–1996); idem, Eia, wärn wir da – eine theologische Utopie (Munich: Kaiser and Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997).  HarryOelke,WolfgangKraus,GurySchneider-Ludorff,AxelTöllner,and Anselm Schubert, eds.,MartinLuthers Judenschriften:Die Rezeptionim19. und20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen:Vanden- hoeck&Ruprecht, 2016); ChristopherOcker, “Martin Luther andAnti-Judaismand Anti‐Semitism” http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-978019 9340378-e-312  Foranexample of acontroversial publication,see Johannes Wallmann, “ZumUmgangmit Martin Luthers Judenschriften: Die Evangelische Kirche verleugnet ihre Geschichte,” part 1. http://www.pfarrerverband.de/pfarrerblatt/index.php?a=show&id=3621  Evangelische Kirche Berlin-Brandenburg-Schlesische Oberlausitz and TouroCollegeBerlin, eds., Martin Luther und das Judentum: Rückblick und Aufbruch (Berlin: Evangelische Kirche Berlin-Brandenburg- Schlesische Oberlausitz, 2016).  Synode der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, “Martin Luther und die Juden – Notwen- dige Erinnerungzum Reformationsjubiläum” 2015;https://r2017. org/fileadmin/downloads/ekd_ kundgebung_luther_und_die_juden.pdf Lutheran Churches and Luther’sAnti-Semitism 239

Luther’sblindness Picture: Stefan Heinze

Johannes Becke German Guilt and Hebrew Redemption

Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste and the Legacy of Left-Wing Protestant Philozionism

Introduction

The history of AktionSühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ASF) in Israel constitutes an intriguingpoint of departure to studythe legacyofleft-wingProtestantPhilo- zionismwithin German-Israeli relations.Eversince ASF began sending volun- teers to Israel in 1961, the encounter between left-wingProtestant pacifists and the Jewishnation-state producedvarious forms of converts: converts to Judaism, converts to Zionism, and converts to the Palestinian cause.¹ While manyvolun- teers chose Israel for the sun, the beach,² and the promise of romantic encoun- ters in the exotic Levant,³ few left the region unchanged. The graduates of ASF’s Israel program frequentlymoved on to fill Israel-focused (or -fo-

The author would like to thank BernhardKrane,head of the Israel desk at Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, foraninterview on the topic and forhis generoussupport in researching ma- terial forthischapter.Many thanksalso to Jenny Hestermann forher advice on locating the Süh- nezeichen diaries from the first cohortsand of course to the anonymous reviewer for the de- tailed and helpful criticism.

 In the thirdcohort alone, four volunteers convertedtoJudaism, “twostayedoninIsrael; and all remained strongly pro-Israel”;see Lilach Marom, “‘On Guiltand Atonement’:Aktion Sühne- zeichen Friedensdiensteand ItsActivity in Israel,” YadVashem Studies 35 (2007): 187–220, here at 196.  Harald Martenstein, “Das volle Utopieprogramm,” Tagesspiegel (January 10), 2004,http:// www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/das-volle-utopieprogramm/480722html (last accessed September 28,2018).  The first bashful hint towards romantic encounters between German volunteers and Israelis is contained in the diary of the first cohort,which explains that native-born Israelis arecalled “sa- bras” after the pricklypears,which arepricklyonthe outside but sweet on the inside –“espe- ciallythe women, ‘according to reports’”,Evangelisches Zentralarchiv (EZA)19/735[all transla- tions by the author]. Later accounts by Aktion Sühnezeichen volunteers aremuch moreexplicit. The third issue of the volunteer journal Memrachit (1986) contains practical advice for female German volunteers on how to escape unwanted male Israeli attention, including “entangling people in political conversations” and “reactingtophysical come-ons with aslapinthe face,” EZA 19/1868.

OpenAccess. ©2020 Aue-Ben-David et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9783110664713-015 242 Johannes Becke cused)positions in the German media, Protestant churches, political founda- tions, and academia. Both the current president of the German-Arab Society (and avocal critic of Israel’sforeign policy), Michael Lüders, and the late Eike Geisel, akey inspiration for -wingpro-Zionistmovement known as ‘Anti-Germans’ (Antideutsche), begantheir intellectual careers as Aktion Sühne- zeichen volunteers in Israel.⁴ Within the Protestant churches,the impact of pas- tors who served as volunteers in Israel can be felt in the Protestant Middle East Commission (EvangelischeMittel-OstKommission),⁵ in the Working Group “Jews and Christians” at the Protestant Church Congress (Evangelischer Kirchentag),⁶ in key policydocuments on the Arab-Israeli conflict,includingthe recent position paper “Promised Land” (Gelobtes Land),⁷ and in the transformation of Israel Sunday(Israelsonntag) from an obscure remainder of and the Protestant missions to the Jews into ayearlycelebration of Christianity’sJewish roots.⁸ When the researchfield of Israel Studies was strengthened within Ger- man universities in 2015 on the occasion of half acentury of German-Israeli dip- lomaticrelations,⁹ two junior academic positions were created in Heidelbergand Munich – and both werefilled with graduates of ASF’sIsrael program.¹⁰ The history of ASF,¹¹ the attitude of German Protestants and the German Left towards Israel,¹² as well as the embeddedness of ASF volunteersinthe politics of

 Foranumber of introductory essays on the “Anti-Germans,” see Moshe Zuckermann, ed., Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte2005:Antisemitismus,Antizionismus,Israelkritik (Göt- tingen: Wallstein Verlag,2005).  Kirchenamt der EKD,ed., Israel-Palästina: Eine Positionsbestimmung der Evangelischen Mit- telost-Kommission (Hannover: EKD,2009).  Gabriele Kammerer,Indie Haare, in die Arme: 40 Jahre Arbeitsgemeinschaft “Juden und Christen” beim DeutschenEvangelischen Kirchentag(Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2001).  Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), Gelobtes Land?Land und Staat Israel in der Dis- kussion: Eine Orientierungshilfe (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus,2012).  Foradetailed theological engagement with Israel Sundaybytheologians close to ASF,see WolfgangRaupach, ed., Weisungfährt vonZion aus, vonJerusalem Seine Rede: Exegesen und Meditationen zum Israel-Sonntag(Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste,1991).  JohannesBecke, “Land and Redemption: The Zionist Project in Comparative Perspective,” Trumah 23 (2016): 1–13.  This includes Daniel Mahla, the current coordinator of the Center for Israel Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and the author of this article.  Gabriele Kammerer,Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste: Aber man kann es einfach tun (Göttingen: Lamuv, 2008); Anton Legerer, Tatort: Versöhnung.Aktion Sühnezeichen in der BRD und in der DDR und Gedenkdienst in Österreich (Leipzig:Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2011).  Martin Kloke, Israel und die deutsche Linke(Frankfurt: Haag und Herchen, 1990); Gerhard Gronauer,Der Staat Israel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,2013). GermanGuilt and Hebrew Redemption 243 post-war reconciliation,¹³ have all receivedample scholarlyattention. Despite its enormousimpact on German-Israeli relations,however,the history of Aktion Sühnezeichen in Israelawaits its scholarlydue.¹⁴ This chapter lays the ground for asystematic examination of ASFinIsrael by presentingaframework for the studyofPhilozionism, atonement,and the politics of German guilt.

Philosemitism and Philozionism: YoungGermans playing Israelis?

When it comes to the German-Israeli dimension of the largerProtestant-Jewish encounter,the affinityfor Israel is frequentlyframed as part of the broader phe- nomenon of Philosemitism.¹⁵ With respect to studying the activity of ASFinIs- rael, though, amoreadequate framework might be Philozionism, atype of affin- ity for Jewish nationalism which openlysympathizes with the Zionist motif of a radical break with the history,politics,and cultureofthe Ashkenazi Jewish Dia- spora. Liliane Weissbergfamouslymocked the German Philosemitism of the by- gone Klezmer craze as “young Germans […]playing Jews.”¹⁶ In examining the phenomenon of German Philozionism (whether within ASF or among the Anti- Germans), we might adapt this phrase to speak of young Germans playing Israelis with regard to language, habitus,dress code, or an overall perspective on Jewish life and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 ChristianeWienand, “From Atonement to Peace? Aktion Sühnezeichen, German-Israeli Re- lations and the Role of Youth in Reconciliation Discourse and Practice,” in Reconciliation, Civil Society,and the Politics of Memory,eds.Birgit Schwelling (Bielefeld:transcript,2012), 201–35;Christiane Wienand, “Reverberations of aDisturbingPast: Reconciliation Activities of YoungWest Germans in the 1960s and 1970s,” in Reverberations of Nazi Violence in Germany and Beyond, eds. Stephanie Bird et al. (London: Bloomsbury,2016): 223–50.  Foranoverview,see Jörn Böhme, “Die Arbeit der Aktion Sühnezeichen/Friedensdienstein– Geschichteund Entwicklung,” in 20 Jahre Deutsch-Israelische Beziehungen, ed. Karlheinz Schneider (Berlin: Deutsch-Israelischer Arbeitskreis für Frieden im Nahen Osten, 1985: 137–50;Marom, “‘On Guiltand Atonement.’ Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdiensteand ItsActiv- ity in Israel”;Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste,50JahreAktion Sühnezeichen Friedens- dienstein(Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, 2011).  Adam Sutcliffe and Jonathan Karp, “Introduction: ABrief History of Philosemitism,” in Phil- osemitism in History,eds.Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (Cambridge and New York: Cam- bridge University Press, 2011): 1–26.  Liliane Weissberg, Reflectingonthe Past,Emvisioningthe Future:Perspectivesfor German- Jewish Studies (New York: LeoBaeck Institute, New York, and German Historical Institute,Wash- ington, 2003), 12. 244 Johannes Becke

While Philosemitism and Philozionismrelyonasimilar set of textual and historical symbols in their perception of “the Jews as aresolutelydistinct people, with distinctively admirable characteristics,”¹⁷ they tend to draw rather different conclusions. At the risk of over-simplification, one might suggest the following typology: Philosemites studythe Talmud (through the eyes of Daniel Boyarin), but Philozionists read the Hebrew Bible (through the eyes of David BenGuri- on)¹⁸;Philosemites admire Diasporic statelessness, but Philozionists celebrate state-makingand military prowess; Philosemites learn Aramaic and Yiddish, but Philozionists studymodernHebrew;finally,Philosemites dream of convert- ing to Judaism (the Orthodoxstream, to make it more authentic), but Philozion- ists mimic the traits of Israeliness(secular Ashkenazi Israeliness, to make it more prestigious). Foranorganization whose very name carries the loadedterm ‘atonement,’ the salient phenomenon of conversions to Judaism as aform of Vergangenheits- bewältigung (overcomingthe past)¹⁹ might not be terriblysurprising.²⁰ Conver- sions to Zionism(or Anti-Zionism, for thatmatter)haveproved to be moreprob- lematic, however,both for political and theological reasons.Inthe context of ASF’sactivities in Israel, engagementwith the question of Philozionism left an enduringimpact on the organizational cultureofthe organization. Countering the romantic Christian ZionismofASF’sfounder, Lothar Kreyssig,the Israel vol- unteers on the ground quicklydeveloped an abidingorganizational culture of sarcasm (with significant traces of Israeli humor). Second, in response to the

 Sutcliffe and Karp, “Introduction: ABrief History of Philosemitism,” 7.  In this context, left-wing German Protestantism developed its own tradition of studyingthe Talmud, but in adecidedlyJewish-Israeli setting, aclose entanglement of Philosemitism and Philozionism. As acritical intervention against Christian Anti-Judaism (often based on distorted readingsofthe Talmud), the studyprogram Studium in Israel (Studies in Israel) has brought morethan 600 German students of Protestant theology to Israel to studyRabbinic literature at the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem. Unsurprisingly, the studyprogram has astrong Sühnezei- chen connection: Michael Krupp, one of its founders,was the former head of the ASF officein Jerusalem. The studyprogram also produced an influential series of preachingmaterial that deals with Christian-Jewish relations; see WolfgangKruse, ed., Predigtmeditationen im chris- tlich-jüdischen Kontext: ZurPerikopenreihe I(Neuhausen: Kruse, 2002).  On conversions to Judaism as Vergangenheitsbewältigung see Barbara Steiner,Die Inszenier- ung des Jüdischen: Konversion vonDeutschen zum Judentum nach 1945(Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2015), chapter5.  Forthe conversion account of Christel Eckert (Michal Evenari), whobelongedtothe first co- hort of Aktion Sühnezeichen volunteers and was married to an Israeli, see Michal Evenari, “The Story of aLife: From GermanytoIsrael,” , 2008, http://.www.chabad.org/theJewish Woman/article_cdo/aid/704922/jewish/The-Story-of-a-Life.htm (last accessed September 29, 2017). GermanGuilt and Hebrew Redemption 245 radical critique of ASF’sone-sided identificationwith the Zionist project (both real and imagined) which was voicedbyAktion Sühnezeichen volunteers from the ,ASF’sleadership attempted to promoteanethos of ‘critical solid- arity’ with Israel, based on the writingsofthe left-wing theologian Helmut Goll- witzer (1908–1993).²¹ ASF’scultureofsarcasm mayseem somewhat puzzling;after all, the organ- ization is known for its nuanced and theologicallycomplex position towards German memorial culture.²² In aspirit of camaraderie, former volunteers joking- ly refertoone another as “fellow atoners” (Mitsühner), and formerIsrael volun- teers are known as “first-class atoners” (Edelsühner). Such sarcastic humor seems to have emergedfrom the gapbetween the organization’ssublime theol- ogyofatonement and the mundane reality of difficult volunteer work done in nursing homes, kindergartens and Holocaust memorial sites.Among the Israel volunteers, however,this dark wit,which was alreadyarticulated by the very first cohort,might also be understood as backlash to the organization’sguilt- drivenPhilozionism. The letters of Lothar Kreyssigfrom that period, for instance, depict Israeli state formation from adecidedlyChristian Zionist perspective,with German volunteers playing the role of the biblical spies (Numbers 13:1–33)and the eschatological ingathering of the gentiles (Isiaiah 56:6–7). Kreyssigpor- trayed the first cohort of Israel volunteersasthe “first reconnaissance patrol, with which we willarrive in Israel after along and arduous wandering across the mountain ridgesofGerman guilt.”²³ When the volunteershad to wait in the Netherlands before being allowed into Israel, Kreyssiglikened their journey to the biblical wandering across the desert, “when the People of Israel livedin tents for forty years on the waytothe conquest of the Land (Landnahme). What adeep referencetothe end of all ways,thatwecan now accompanythe People of God on the waytoits final conquest of the land!”²⁴

 Helmut Gollwitzer,Vietnam, Israel und die Christenheit (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1967). On ASF’sactivities in Israel, see esp. Helmut Gollwitzer, “ZurIsrael-Arbeit der Aktion Sühnezeichen” (February 1977), EZA 97/719.  Christian Staffa, “Die ‘Aktion Sühnezeichen’:Eine protestantische Initiative zu einer beson- derenArt der Wiedergutmachung,” in Nach der Verfolgung:Wiedergutmachungnationalsozia- listischen Unrechts in Deutschland?, eds.Hans Günther Hockerts and ChristianeKuller (Göttin- gen: Wallstein-Verlag, 2003): 139–56.  Letter from Lothar Kreyssig to Harald Schlagowski, January 28 1962, EZA 19/735.  Letter fromLothar Kreyssig to EleonoreDannemann, January 10 1962, EZA 19/735. Formore examples of Kreyssig’sidiosyncratic theology of atonement,see Konrad Weiß, Lothar Kreyssig: Prophet der Versöhnung(Gerlingen: Bleicher Verlag,1998), chapter18–includingthe idea to have Aktion Sühnezeichen volunteers build atemple for Jews,Christians and Muslims in Jeru- salem or to establish a24/7prayerteam of volunteers at YadVashem. 246 Johannes Becke

Yetitdid not takelong for the initial romanticism of encountering the from the deck of aship in Haifa to be replaced by an acid wit.The first cohort referred to itself as an “atonement team” (Sühnemannschaft)and an “atonement family” (Sühnefamilie)guided by their “atonement father” (Süh- nevater,the group’spastor). Volunteers who picked potatoes for up to ten hours each dayweresaid to be engagingin“real atonement” (echtzusühnen) while femalevolunteersor“atonement girls” (Sühnemädchen)who fell ill were described as “incapacitated to atone” (sühnekampfunfähig).²⁵ Manyofthe terms appear alreadycrossed out in the original manuscript, and none made it into the official publication of parts of the diary of the first cohort in Ansgar Skriver’s book on Aktion Sühnezeichen.²⁶ The self-deprecatinghumor,however,prevailed: decades later, the volunteer journal Memrachit would feature mock advertise- ments poking fun at Israel as the “atonement paradise,” pretended to offer T- shirts with the logo “Atone with us. Atoningisfun,” and inquired of its readers, “Have youatoned today?”²⁷ While such satire might have helped ASF volunteersdeal with the disillu- sionments of romantic Philozionism, it was no match for the ideological battles that came to shape the organization’swork in Israel after the Six DayWar in 1967. When ASF opened its doors to conscientious objectors in 1969, an increasing number among the volunteers arrivedwith affiliations to the NewLeftand werenolonger willingtoreadthe “conquest of the Land” (Landnahme)inthe occupied territoriesinlight of biblical prophecy.Politicalviolence began to af- fect the organization’sactivities, and when aPalestinian terrorist attacked an ASF bus in Nablus in 1976 with anail bomb,two young Germans werekilled and many more wereinjured.²⁸ The traumatic experience made astrongimpres- sion on future generations of volunteers, but the terror attack did not seem to disillusion thosevolunteers who openlyidentified with the Palestinian cause. Volunteer projects that focused on the Palestinian Arab minorityinIsrael, in par- ticular,produced vocal opponents of Israel’ssettlement policy.²⁹ In the first issue after the outbreak of the First Intifada, the volunteer journal Memrachit printed

 EZA 19/735.  AnsgarSkriver, Aktion Sühnezeichen: Brücken über Blut und Asche (Stuttgart: Kreuz-verlag, 1962),120–38.  Memrachit 1–3, EZA 19/1868.  Kammerer,Aktion Sühnezeichen, 159–62.  Forpublications by former ASF volunteers on the occupied territories, see JanMetzger, Mar- tin Orth, and Christian Sterzing,Das ist unser Land: Westbank und Gaza-Streifen unter israel- ischer Besatzung(Bornheim-Merten: Lamuv, 1980); Dieter Bednarz und Michael Lüders,Palästi- na Protokolle: Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektive (Hannover: Fackelträger-Verlag, 1981). German Guilt and Hebrew Redemption 247 its name in Arabic instead of in Hebrew letters,published legal advice in case of being arrestedatdemonstrations, and included an angry accusation directed at the Israel desk at ASF headquarters:

Honestlyspeaking, Iamquitedisappointed by ASF’sIsrael policy.ASF invokestwo ele- ments that areimportanttome: The ‘ConfessingChurch’ and the phrase ‘learningfromhis- tory’.You know the situation in Israel. Would youdisagree when Isay that there is , ‘highlyarbitrary’‘democratic rights’,torture in the prison systemand racial prejudice? ‘Learningfromhistory’:How manypeople [still] need to be arrested,tortured, shot down beforeASF shows its true colors?I’mnot callingonyou to send us stones or Molotov cocktails.Like almost all the volunteers in the Arab sector, I’mfinallycalling for moreclear-cut statements and amoredefinitive advocacyfor the Palestinian cause.³⁰

From Critical Solidarity to aTheologyofIsrael

No such clear-cut statement would arrive from Berlin. On the contrary,inre- sponse to the First Intifada, ASF published along and carefullyworded open let- ter addressed to “all those in the Federal Republic who follow the news from Is- rael and the occupied territories with great concern and ask themselveswhat to do.”³¹ Framed as aGerman response to amuch more radical statement by Israeli peace organizations (which criticized the “wide-spread unconditional loyalty to- wards the State of Israel” and called for astruggle against “the moral and phys- ical decayofIsraeli society”³²), ASF’smissive showed all the hallmarks of the ‘critical solidarity’ with Israel which the Aktion Sühnezeichen leadership had begun to promoteinthe 1970sasaresponse to an influx of New Left volunteers: aconflicted sense of solidarity with both sides, arejection of simplifications, and an ethics of responsibility rooted in both the history of German guilt and left- wing Protestantism.³³

 Memrachit December 1987, EZA 19/1868.  UlrikeBergeretal., Offener Brief an alle, die in der Bundesrepublik die Nachrichten ausIs- rael und den besetzten Gebieten mit Sorge verfolgenund sich fragen, was sie tun können (Ber- lin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, 1988).  “Appell an die Freunde Israels,” ibid., 8; quotingJesch Gvul, Ha Schana ha 21,and Dai le Kibusch. “Appell an Die Freunde Israels.” In Offener Brief an alle, die in der Bundesrepublik die Nachrichten ausIsrael und den besetzten Gebieten mit Sorge verfolgenund sich fragen, was sie tun können, edited by Ulrike Berger,Jörn Böhme, Dietrich Gaede, BernhardKrane, and Heribert Krane, 8. Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, 1988.  Forearlier ASF statements on the topic, see Volkmar Deile, Heiner Holland, and Johannes Müller, “Richtliniender Arbeit der Aktion Sühnezeichen/FriedensdiensteinIsrael,” Zeichen 2 248 Johannes Becke

In contrast to the of Pietist and Evangelical origins (with its own Israel-basedvolunteer organization),³⁴ this left-wing Protestant Theology of Israel wasdecidedlynon-messianic, showing aclear sympathyfor the social- ist ideals of the kibbutz. Thus, in aspeech entitled “Israel – and Us” (Israel – und wir), held in Berlin in 1958 after returningfrom atrip to Israel,³⁵ Helmut Gollwit- zer famouslyidentifiedthree “moments”–that is, perspectives – on the State of Israel: from amoral perspective, “[every] German who travels to Israel should be clear: every Jewwho livestodaylives not because of us, but in spiteofus[…]in spite of me!” From atheological perspective,the renewal of Jewish life in the Land of Israel/Palestine could lead to arenewal of and Christian-Jewish dialogue; afterall, “anyone who dealswith Israel must – like it or not – be atheologian.” Finally, from asociological perspective,Gollwitzer argued that Israel (in sharp contrast to the FederalRepublic of Germany) repre- sented an example of a “non-restorative social structure,” aform of socialist awareness crystallized in the “phenomenon of kibbutzim.”³⁶ As an expression of this Gollwitzer-style ‘critical solidarity,’ the ASF open let- ter from 1988 emphasizes the “specific German background […]ofthe Shoah” and its consequenceof“astrongneed for security thatisfelt by manyJews in- side and outside of Israel,” onlytocontrast this with “the need for security by the , in whose history the flight and expulsion of 1948 known as ‘al-Nakba’ (the catastrophe) is acentral frame of reference.”³⁷ While underlining the self-understanding of Zionism as “the national liberation movement of the Jewishpeople” and the “non-colonial character” of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the text sheepishlyadmits “colonial aspectsinIsrael’sdevelopment,concerning, for instance, the appropriation of lands and the economic linkage between the occupied territoriesand the heartland.”³⁸ In addition, after rejecting the claim that Zionismrepresents “aform of racism,” the letter goes on to acknowledge “racist thoughtand actions” in Israel, includingthe “almosttotal lack of rights

(1977): 30 –1; “Präambel für die Arbeit in Israel,” Zeichen, 9:1(1981): 11–2; “Grundsätze der Is- raelarbeit,” Zeichen,14:2(1986): 16–7.  Andrea Schneider, “Hagoshrim – Die Brückenbauer: Freiwilligendienst in Israel,” www.rundfunk.de, 2016,https://rundfunk.evangelisch.de/kirche-im-radio/am-sonntagmorgen/ hagoshrim-die brueckenbauer-7826(last accessed August 28,2018).  Helmut Gollwitzer,Israel – und wir (Berlin: Lettner,1958).  All quotations according to W. Travis McMaken, “‘Shalom,Shalom, Shalom Israel!’ Jews and Judaism in Helmut Gollwitzer’sLife and Theology,” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 10:1 (2015): 1–22, here at 13–5.  Ibid., 3.  Ibid., 4. German Guilt and Hebrew Redemption 249 and the oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied territories.”³⁹ After strong- ly condemning the claim to a “special German responsibility towards the Pales- tinians” as “the victim’svictim,”⁴⁰ the text also rejects the temptation to “whole- heartedlytakeaposition for one of the two sides. Such wholehearted support could onlyrefer to both peoples’ right to exist in Israel/Palestine.”⁴¹ Even the text’sconcluding call for action appears exceedinglywell-balanced by criticizing ’s “military cooperation with Israel and the Arab states,which makes it harder to find apolitical solution to the conflict.”⁴² This carefullyconstructed equidistance crumbled under the shock of an in- tense polarization in the German Left duringthe First Gulf Warand the two Pal- estinian intifadas. DIAK (Deutsch-Israelischer Arbeitskreis fürFrieden im Nahen Osten), the left-wing offshoot of the more mainstream German-Israeli Society (DIG, Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft), took asharp turn towardsamore radical- ized critique of Israel and the Zionist project.⁴³ Aktion Sühnezeichen,for its part, increasinglyreturned to its Philozionistroots,not least by abandoning all volun- teer projects that centered exclusively on Israel’sPalestinian Arab minority in 1994.This ideological shift comes into stark relief when one reads ASF publica- tions dedicated to the celebration of Israel Sunday: in 1995,for instance, the bro- chure contained an interview with EliezerFeiler,amember of the Israeli Commu- nist Party who had long been responsible for the party’sexternalrelations.⁴⁴ In its original form, the interview had been publishedbytwo ASFvolunteers de- ployed in the “Arab sector,”⁴⁵ preceded by the following tendentious introduc- tion:

The political activist Feiler […]repeatedly witnessed wrongful Jewish actions against Arabs and had to realize that chauvinism and national arrogance arenot typicallyGerman char-

 Ibid., 5.  In another example of ASF sarcasm, duringthe author’sstayinIsrael (2001–2002), aGer- man Protestant senior volunteerwas jokinglyreferredtoas“the victims’ victims’ victim” after agroupofyoungPalestiniansinJerusalem had stolen his wallet.  Ibid., 7.  Ibid., 8[emphasisadded].  Martin Kloke, “In aller Freundschaft: 50 JahreDeutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft,” haGalil.- com,2016,http://www.hagalil.com/2016/03/deutsch-israelische-gesellschaft/ (last accessed Oc- tober 9, 2017).  Yossi Melman, “He sawRed,” Ha’aretz, 2004,https://www.haaretz.cim/he-saw-red-1.111779 (last accessed October 9, 2017).  Dieter Bednarz and Michael Lüders,Blick zurück ohne Hass:Juden ausIsrael erinnern sich an Deutschland (Cologne: Bund-Verlag,1981), 116–39. 250 Johannes Becke

acteristics:Ominously, the attitude of manyJews in Israel towards the Arabs resembles in manyrespects the German positiontowards the Jews in the time of National Socialism.⁴⁶

In the 1995 ASF brochurefor Israel Sunday, this passagedisappeared. Nonethe- less, while keepingquiet about Eliezer Feiler’saffiliation with the Israeli Com- munist Party,the interview still contains the passagewhich had attracted the at- tention of its original publishers: “The Germans uncriticallyadopted the propaganda depiction [of the Jew], because amajorityofGermans had no idea what aJew wassupposed to be. Here[in Israel] the samething happens when it comes to the Arabs.”⁴⁷ ASF’spublications for Israel Sundayfrom recent years are decidedlyless open to aradical critique of Israel and the Zionistproject.Consider,for example, the content of the Israel Sundaybrochures from 2003 until 2017,which discussed the politics of Palestinian nationalism, includingBDS⁴⁸ and the Kairos Palestine Document.⁴⁹ However,although the textsfeatured Jewish-Israeli voices (often from the moderate Israeli left), duringthe sameperiod onlyasingle Palestinian author appeared in the brochures, tellinglytodiscuss Jerusalemfrom a Muslim (not,say,Palestinian) perspective.⁵⁰ While the collections of short texts include highlycritical discussions of Evangelical Christian Zionism,⁵¹ the overarchinglegacyofProtestant Philozion- ism is unmistakable. Forinstance, aliturgy suggestion for Israel Sundayfrom 2008 describes the establishment of the State of Israel as “God’ssign of protec- tion (Gottes Zeichen seiner Bewahrung)[of his people] after and within ahistory

 Ibid., 116.  Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste,Wenn die Propheten aufständen …:Handreichung zum Israel-Sonntag1995(Göttingen: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste1995), 39.  Christian Staffa, “Wastun mit der Kampagne Boykott,Desinvestition, Sanktionen?,” in Isra- elsonntag2015:Denkt nicht,ich sei gekommen, die Tora und die Prophetenaußer Kraft zu set- zen (Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, 2015), 25–28.  Hanna Lehming,Und es ist doch ein Kairos! (Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste 2011).  Abdallah Hajjir, “Jerusalem ausmuslimischerPerspektive,” in Israelsonntag2012: Jerusalem – Niemandwirddich noch “Verlassene” nennen (Jesaja 62,4)(Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Frie- densdienste, 2012), 37–38. In contrast to the title, the text itself does contain referencestoJer- usalem from aPalestinian perspective.  Martin Kloke, “ChristlicheZionisten – Eine kritische Darstellung,” in Israelsonntag8.August 2010. “Wünschet Jerusalem Segen …” Psalm 122,77–87 (Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedens- dienste, 2010. German Guilt and Hebrew Redemption 251 of homelessness and hardships among the nations, including Christendom.”⁵² In the confession of sins, the text recommends asking for forgiveness for the fact that “we failed to recognize it as asign of your faithfulness when [your people] returned to live within its borders as an independent state.”⁵³ The prayers of in- tercession ask God to “sharpen our attention for anything which appears as an indignant criticism of Israel (Israelkritik), but is in reality anti-Jewish (judenfein- dlich).” In asomewhat curious phrasing that seems undecided whether the di- vine promise ends at the , the prayer concludes by requesting divine protection “for the Jewish communities here and the Israeli cities and settle- ments over there.”⁵⁴ The most recent position paper on ASF’sactivities in Israel from 2014,writ- ten by Bernhard Krane, the headofthe ASF Israel desk, aptly captures this re- turn to the left-wingChristian Philozionism of Helmut Gollwitzer and his Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt.⁵⁵ With clarity that would have been unthinkable throughout AktionSühnezeichen’s period of anxious equidistance, the position paper notes:

Fortheological and political reasons, Aktion Sühnezeichen fights for the belief that aspe- cial bond links the People of Israel (AmIsrael)and the Land of Israel (Erez Israel)and that the modernStateofIsrael has the right to exist as the nation-stateofthe Jewish Peo- ple. Such apro-Zionist positioncreates both common ground as wellasdivisionsinASF’s cooperation with other civil society groups and parties.[…]ASF’sTheology of Israel is based on the continuingrelevance of God’scovenant with the People of Israel and the Di- vine Promise of the Land.⁵⁶

 Helmut Ruppel, “Liturgie Für den Gottesdienst am 10.Sonntagnach Trinitatis. ‘Israel 1948– 2008’.” in Israelsonntag2008 …und so wirdganzIsrael gerettet werden,wie geschrieben steht: ‘AusZion wirdkommen der Retter.’ (Brief an die Gemeinde in Rom, 11,26) (Berlin: Aktion Süh- nezeichenFriedensdienste, 2008), 18–22, hereat18.  Ibid., 19.  Ibid., 21.  Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt,Die Juden und ihr Land (Hamburg: Siebenstern-Taschenbuch- Verlag, 1975).  BernhardKrane, Grundsätzliches zur ASF-Israelarbeit (Berlin: Aktion Sühnezeichen Frie- densdienste, 2014).) 252 Johannes Becke

Atonement as At-One-Ment: From Christian to Post-Christian Philozionism

How exceptional is the history of ASF in Israel? remindsus that positive and negative exceptionalism are bothfruit of the sametree. He de- picts the long history of Western exceptionalism towards the Jewish people as “Allosemitism,”“the practice of setting the Jews apart as people radicallydiffer- ent from all the others, needingseparate conceptstodescribeand comprehend them and special treatment in all or most social intercourse.”⁵⁷ Thus, German Protestant Philozionismshould not be studied in isolation from its counter- image, namely, atheologicallygrounded Antizionism within the samemilieu: re- sentment towardsZionism and the State of Israel has along history within the German Protestant Church, especiallywithin left-wingProtestantism.⁵⁸ Thelevel of GermanProtestant investment(bothfinanciallyand emotionally) into the community of barely3,000 Palestinian Arab Lutherans in the HolyLand, for in- stance, faroutstrips their numbers and relevance for the declining minorityof Palestinian Arab Christians. Consequently, the studyofboth Protestant Philo- zionismand Antizionism needstobeintegratedinto abroader history of Allo- zionism,⁵⁹ an exceptionalist understanding of Jewish nationalism which, in the German case, goes backtoJohann Gottfried Herder’sfascination with the ancient Hebrews.⁶⁰ Such ahistoricizing approach oughttobeapplied as well to the phenomen- on of German guiltand Sündenstolz (sinner’spride): research on the German- Jewish-Israeli conundrum still tends to be approached as adenselyentangled cluster of exceptionalism, demarcated by asense of Jewishnationhood as an ex- ceptional people, the Shoah as an exceptional crime perpetrated by the Germans, and finally,the State of Israel as an exceptional state.Paradoxically, the recent establishment of separate chairs and research institutes for the study of the

 Zygmunt Bauman, “Allosemitism: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern,” in Modernity,Culture and “the Jew,” eds.Bryan Cheyette and LauraMarcus (Cambridge:Polity Press,1998): 143 – 56, hereat143.  Foraconcise overview,see Martin Kloke, “Deutsche Protestantenund der Sechstagekrieg 1967. Eine Biblanz nach 50 Jahren,” Compass-Infodienst,2017, https://www.compass-infodi enst.de/Martin-Kloke-Deutsche Protestanten-und-der-Sechstagekrieg-1967.15867.0.html (last ac- cessed October 11, 2017).  JohannesBecke, “Beyond Allozionism: Exceptionalizing and de-Exceptionalizingthe Zionist Project,” Israel Studies 23:2 (2018): 168–93.  Ofri Ilany, In Search of the HebrewPeople: Bible and Nation in the German Enlightenment (Bloomington,N:Indiana University Press, 2018). German Guilt and Hebrew Redemption 253

State of Israel and the Holocaust in Germanacademiahas the potential to fur- ther entrench this phenomenon, unless their teaching and research are closely integratedinto acomparative research agenda. In the case of ASF,such an approach might explore, for instance, linkages between transgenerationalguilt-drivenidentification with the victims and simi- lar historical processes. To put it in the sarcastic parlance common among former ASF volunteers: how does German Edelschuld (first-class guilt) and German Edelsühne (first-classatonement) differ from ordinary white guilt? What distin- guishesguilt-drivenGermanconverts to Judaism from figures like Rachel Dole- zal, the famous “trans-racial” convert to blackness?⁶¹ What are the commonali- ties and differencesbetween the many, manyGermanconverts pushing into JewishStudies and Rabbinical Studies, and what Native American scholars refer to as ethnic fraud,namely, the curious phenomenon of white people push- ing into Native AmericanStudies based on spurious claims to distant Native Americanancestry?⁶² To evade the trap of exceptionalism, the entanglement of guiltand redemp- tion in the German-Israeli and the Protestant-Jewish encounter needs to be stud- ied as part of abroader history of emotions of the post-colonial and increasingly post-Christian West.Such acomparative and theory-guided approach might be usefullyinformed by the dynamics of vicarious ethnicity as aform of atonement, or,inthe words of the psychoanalyst Irwin Rosen, “atonement as at-one-ment.” ForRosen, atonement is an “identification with the fantasized victim of one’s sadism,” and “this identification constitutes the atonement (or at-one-ment) ex- perience in which, magically, the aggressor seeks forgiveness, by becoming one- in-suffering with his victim.”⁶³ Rosen’spsychoanalytic model captures twodis- tinct processes of atonement as at-one-ment,depending on the type of identifi- cation with the victim: concordant and complementary.Inthe concordant model of identification with the victim, the “guilty and self-accusatory concordantaton- er” seeks to repair “that aspect of himself that has been identified with the vic- tim,”⁶⁴ frequentlythrough acts of reparation. Unlikethese “repairers,”⁶⁵ their counterparts (who follow the complementary type of atonement) struggle with

 Rachel Dolezal and Storms Reback, In Full Colour:Finding My Place in aBlack and White World (Dallas:BenBella Books,2017).  Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, “Taku Inichiapi? What’sinaName?,” in ASeparateCountry:Postco- loniality and American Indian Nations (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2012), 123–32.  Irwin C. Rosen, “The Atonement-Forgivenness Dyad: Identification with the Aggressed,” Psy- choanalytic Inquiry 29 (2009): 411– 25,hereat414.  Ibid., 412.  Ibid., 420. 254 Johannes Becke the “imaginativelyenhanced, projectivelyascribedretaliation of the vengeful vic- tim who is now endowedwith the samemalevolence as that which impelled the abuser’soriginal attack”⁶⁶ – as “embracersofsuffering.”⁶⁷ If we apply this typologytothe Germanpolitics of guilt,the Christian Phil- ozionismofAktion Sühnezeichenmight be considered aconcordant type of atonement,based on the idea of atonement as reparation. In contrast,the post-Christian Philozionism of the so-called “Anti-Germans” (Antideutsche) ap- pears to be acomplementary type, namely, atonement as sufferingand venge- ance. In other words, concordant atoners are drawntoacts of repentance,in- cludingthe optionofideological, religious,and even ethnicconversion, as its most radical form. Complementary atoners,for their part,seek aprojection screen for their fantasies of self-harm, or,asthe Anti-Germanshaveput it in ref- erencetothe bombing of Dresden: “Bomber Harris – do it again.”⁶⁸ Of course, the two typesofatonement are closelyintertwined. The entangle- ment of Christian and post-Christian Philozionism in particular stands out in the writingsofthe late Eike Geisel, another formerASF volunteer in Israel. After publishing Nathan Weinstock’s Le sionisme contre Israël in German,⁶⁹ Geisel later became an important inspiration for Philozionists in the German Left – and an acerbic critic of the self-serving Germancultureoffauxatonement,in- cludingconversions to Judaism.⁷⁰ As the case of Eike Geisel shows, the ideolog- ical production of the Anti-Germans and theirintellectual forebears can hardly be reduced to provocative statements,puzzling acts of self-flagellation, and the characteristic personality disordersof“compulsive confessors”⁷¹ and “atone- ment addicts.” ⁷² Forscholars of Jewish-Protestant relations however,the shift from Sühnezeichen (signofatonement) to Antideutsche (Anti-Germans) might in- dicate an intriguingtheological movement:like other varieties of whiteguilt,the

 Ibid., 412.  Rosen, “The Atonement-Forgivenness Dyad,” 420.  Foraninsightful case studyofleft-wingIsraeli bewilderment at the phenomenonofthe Anti- Germans,see Amira Hass, “ Mi-She-Korban Acharon(He Who Is the Last Victim Is the True Victim),” Ha’aeretz, 2004,http://www.haaretz.co.il/1.957024.  Nathan Weinstock, Das Ende Israels?Nahostkonflikt und Geschichte des Zionismus, eds. EikeGeisel and Mario Offenberg (Berlin: VerlagKlaus Wagenbach, 1975).  EikeGeisel, “Deutsche Seelenwanderungen: Rückblick aufeine zehnjährigedeutsch-jüdi- sche Verwechslungskomödie,” in idem, Die Banalität des Guten: Deutsche Seelenwanderungen (Berlin: Edition Tiamat,1992),9–34.  Rosen, “The Atonement-Forgivenness Dyad,” 421.  Ibid., 420. German Guilt and Hebrew Redemption 255

Anti-German ideologyofa“revengeagainst the self”⁷³ resonates with the basic templateofpost-Christianity – all of the guilt,with none of the forgiveness.

Conclusion

As the case of the Temple Society (Tempelgesellschaft)demonstrates,the German Protestant presenceinthe Land of Israel predates both the State of Israel and the institution-building of the New . ⁷⁴ In the long history of German Protestant engagement with Jewishnationalism, the activities of AktionSühnezeichen Frie- densdienst in Israel reflect acompellingcombination of paradoxes: atheology of Israel thatisdecidedlyleft-wing, an ethics of atonement which coexists with an entrenched cultureofsarcasm, and acomplex legacyofPhilozionism that stretches all the wayfrom Christian Zionismtothe ‘critical solidarity’ of a strict equidistance, while sometimes foreshadowing the naïveAnti-German en- thusiasm for all thingsIsraeli. Forthe studyofcontemporaryJewish-Protestantrelations, the history of ASF is avivid reminder that the Zionistproject not onlyrepresents arupture for Jew- ish history,but also for interfaith relations.Hence, both the most intense forms of contemporary Protestant sympathyand antipathyfor the Jewish experience are no longer shaped by Diasporic statelessness,but by Zionist state formation in the Land of Israel. Especiallyinthe Germancase, such astudyofProtestant Philozionism and Antizionism should not be limited to the fieldsoftheologyand church history,but instead contributetoabroader history of emotions of the post-colonial and post-Christian West,with aspecial focus on the emotional pol- itics of white guilt.

 Ibid., 423.  Foranintriguingcase studyofcounterfactual history which explores what aGerman Prot- estant stateproject in the Land of Israel might have looked like, see Derek Jonathan Penslar, “What If aChristian StateHad Been Established in Modern Palestine?,” in What Ifs of Jewish History:From Abraham to Zionism, ed. D. Rosenfeld (Cambridge and New York: Cam- bridge University Press, 2016): 142– 65.

List of Contributors

Yaakov Ariel is Professor of JewishHistory in the Department of Religious Studies at the Uni- versityofNorth Carolina,Chapel Hill. He is also Directorofthe Minor of Christianity and Cul- ture and Co-director of the Centerfor Jewish Studies. Hisareas of scholarly interest include Judaism and EvangelicalChristianity in America, and the relationship between these two reli- gious communities. Among hispublications are: On Behalf of Israel: AmericanFundamentalist Attitudes Towards the Jewish People and Zionism (1991); Evangelizing the ChosenPeople: Missions to the Jews in America 1880–2000 (2000); and An Unusual Relationship: Evangeli- cal Christiansand Jews (2013).

Irene Aue-Ben David is Directorofthe Leo Baeck InstituteJerusalem. Her research interests include modern German-Jewishhistoriography,Gender History,and the History of German- Israeli relations. Among her publications are: Deutsch-jüdischeGeschichtsschreibung im 20. Jahrhundert. Zu Werk und Rezeption von Selma Stern. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ru- precht, 2017 (Schriftenreihe des Simon Dubnow Instituts, Leipzig. Band 28); Constantin Brun- ner im Kontext. Ed.with Gerhard Lauer undJürgen Stenzel. Berlin: De Gruyter/Magnes 2014; Constantin Brunner (1862–1937). Ausgewählte Briefe. Annotated and edited with Jürgen Sten- zel. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2012; Special Section: Deutsch-israelische Annäherungen in Geisteswissenschaften und Kulturpolitik,Edited by:IreneAue-Ben-David, und Kärin Nickelsen, in: Naharaim. Journal of German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History 11 (2017); with YonatanShiloh-Dayan, “ObservantVentures: Early German-Israeli Conferences on German History”,inJahrbuch des Simon Dubnow Instituts 15 (2016), 315–339.

Johannes Becke is Assistant Professor forIsrael and Middle East Studies at the Heidelberg Centerfor Jewish Studies (Hochschule fürJüdische Studien Heidelberg),wherehespecializes in the ComparativePolitics of Israel and the Middle East. His recent publications have ap- pearedinthe Journal of Israeli History, Israel Studies, Interventions, JewishStudiesQuarterly, and Political Geography. He is currently working on amonograph on territorial expansionism in the Middle East, and he co-edited Studien: Geschichte, Methoden, Paradigmen (Wallstein, 2019).

Dean Phillip Bell is President/CEO and Professor of Jewish HistoryatSpertus Institutefor Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. Aformer member of the BoardofDirectors of the Association forJewishStudies, he is the author of SacredCommunities: Jewishand Christian Identities in Fifteenth-Century Germany (2001), Jewish Identity in EarlyModern Germany: Memory,Power and Community (2007), and Jews in the Early Modern World (2008). He edited The Bloomsbury Companion to JewishStudies (2013), The Routledge Handbook of Jewish His- tory and Historiography (2018), and Plague in the Early ModernWorld:ADocumentary Histo- ry (2019); and (with Stephen G. Burnett) co-edited Jews, Judaismand the Reformation in Six- teenth-Century Germany (2006). His current research focuses on cultural responses to natural disaster in early modern Germany.

Aya Elyada is Senior Lectureratthe Department of History,the Hebrew UniversityofJerusa- lem. Her researchinterests include German and German-Jewishhistory,Christian-Jewish rela- 258 List of Contributors

tions, and the socialand culturalhistory of language and translation. Among her publica- tions are: “Yiddish – LanguageofConversion?Linguistic Adaptation and Its Limits in Early Modern Judenmission,” LeoBaeck Institute Year Book 53 (2008), 3–29, “Protestant Scholars and Yiddish Studies in Early Modern Europe,” Pastand Present 203 (2009), 69–98, “Early Modern Yiddish and the Jewish Volkskunde,1880–1938,” JewishQuarterly Review 107 (2017), 182–208, “Bridges to aBygoneJewish Past? AbrahamTendlauand the Rewriting of Yiddish Folktales in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 16 (2017), 1–18. Her book, AGoy Who Speaks Yiddish: Christians and the JewishLanguage in Early Modern Germany,appeared in 2012 withStanfordUniversityPress.

Lars Fischer is an HonoraryResearchAssociate in the DepartmentofHebrew &Jewish Stud- ies at UCL (UniversityCollege London), teaches at the FernUniversität in Hagen, and runsThe History Practice in Berlin. Hisscholarship centersonthe historyand theoryofantisemitism and Jewish/non-Jewishrelations, , and the use of music as an historical source. His publications include amonograph titled The Socialist Response to AntisemitisminImperi- al Germany (2007), “Adifference in the texture of prejudice”.Historisch-konzeptionelle Über- legungen zum Verhältnis von Antisemitismus, Rassismus und Gemeinschaft (2016),and some thirty papers on arange of relevant topics. He edits the review section of JewishHistorical Studies,the website of the Critical Theories of AntisemitismNetwork,and H-Music: H-Com- mons NetworkMusic in History.

Johannes Gleixner is aresearch assistant at Collegium Carolinum – ResearchInstitutefor the History of the CzechLands and Slovakia.Since2018, he hasrepresented thisinstitu- tion’snewly established branch officeinPrague, .His areas of interest include the historyofsecularism and anti-religion in Easternand EastCentral Europe,aswellasthe history of ideas. Hislatest book is titled ‘Menschheitsreligionen’ zwischen sakraler Nation und ziviler Religion: Die religiöse Bedingtheit neuer Gesellschaften bei T.G. Masaryk und A.V. Lunačarskij (2017). He also edited the volume Konkurrierende Ordnungen: Verschränkungen von Religion, Staat und Nation in Ostmitteleuropa vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (with D. Tricoire et. al., 2015). His most recent articles address socialist in EastCentral Europe and Economicreform during the PragueSpring.

Ofri Ilany is apost-doctoralfellow at the PolonskyAcademy for AdvancedStudy at the Van Leer Jerusalem Instituteand alecturer at TelAvivUniversity. His book, In Search of the He- brewPeople: Bible and Nation in the German Enlightenment,was published in 2018 by Indi- anaUniversityPress. Ilany’sresearch interests include the history of Orientalism, the history of Bible research, and the history of sexuality.His column, “Under the Sun,” is publishedin the HaaretzWeekly Supplement.

Kyle Jantzen is Professor of History and Chairofthe Department of Humanities at UniversityinCalgary,Canada. His areasofscholarly interestinclude the Protestant churches in National Socialist Germany,North American Christian responses to Nazism and Jewishper- secution, and postwar German immigrants in Western Canada. Among his publications are various chapters and articles on these topicsand hisbook, Faith and Fatherland: Parish Poli- tics in Hitler’sGermany (2008). List of Contributors 259

Markéta Kabůrková is curatorinthe Archiveofthe National MuseuminPrague. She studied Jewish Studies and Theology at the Charles UniversityinPrague, Ben-Gurion University of Negev in Beersheva, wasaFIIRD post-doc fellow at the University of Genevaand at the Kurt and Ursula Schubert Centrefor Jewish Studies at Palacký University in Olomouc. Her research focuses on Jewish-Christian religious polemic in the medieval and early modern periods and its function within Jewish-Christian relations, identities, and (self)perceptions. Among her re- centpublications are: “Tela IgneaSatanae: Christian Scholarsand the Editing of Hebrew Po- lemical Literature” in Revealing the Secretsofthe Jews: Johannes Pfefferkornand Christian Writings about JewishLife and Literature in EarlyModern Europe (eds. Jonathan Adams and Cordelia Heβ,Berlin/Boston:DeGruyter 2017), and “Reflection of Other Sources in the Works of Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan and Jacobben Reuben in Quest forGod’sUnity” in Po- lemics, Biology, and Gender: New Perspectives on Medieval JewishPhilosophy (eds. Tamás Visi et al., Olomouc: PalackyUniversity Olomouc2018). Currently,she is working on aproject concerning religious encountersbetween Jews and Christian anti-Trinitarians in the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth forKäteHamburger Kolleg in Bochum.

Ursula Rudnick is an ordained Lutheran minister who worksonthe topic of Jewish-Christian relations and teaches at Leibniz UniversityHanover.Her scholarly interests center on contem- poraryJewish-Christian relations in Germany.Her publications include Kon-Texte – Kirche und Judentum. Impulse zurVerfassungsänderung der Ev.-luth. Hannovers,(2015); “Auf dem langen Wegzum Haus des Nachbarn.” Positionen der evangelischen Kirchen im christlich-jüdischen Gespräch und ihreVerortung in der Theologie. (2006) and “Aber wie kommt es in jedes Haus undjedes Dorf?” Analyse ausgewählter religionspädagogischer Mate- rialien zumThema “Judentum” und “christlich-jüdisches Gespräch” (2005).

Dirk Schuster,PhD,isresearch assistant in the Study of Religion/Christianity at the Insti- tute forJewishStudies and Religious Studies at the UniversityinPotsdam. Hisfields of re- searchinclude the interdependences between religion and politics, religion in Nazi Germany, the historyofthe EvangelicalRegionalChurch A.B. in Romania, and atheism. Hislatest book is Die Lehrevom “arischen” Christentum. Das wissenschaftliche Selbstverständnis im Eise- nacher “Entjudungsinstitut” (2017), and he edited (with Ulrich A. Wien) Siebenbürgen im Na- tionalsozialismus (2016).

Moshe Sluhovsky is Pauletteand Claude Kelman Professor in the Study of French Jewryat the Hebrew UniversityofJerusalem and the head of the Lafer Center forthe Study of Women and Gender and of the InstituteofHistory.His latest booksare: “Believe not EverySpirit”: Demonic Possession, Mysticism,and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (2007) and Be- coming aNew Self: PracticesofBelief in Early Modern Catholicism (2017). He is the editor of Into the DarkNightand Back: ACollection of Writings by Jean-Joseph Surin (2019), and (with Miri Eliav-Feldon) of aspecialissue of Zmanim commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

Alexander van der Haven is aResearch Fellow at the I-CORE (Israeli Centres forResearchEx- cellence) Centre forthe Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, Ben-Gurion Uni- From ) רש הה שא נכ יז מה כל הת בש את םי :versityofthe Negev.Among his recent publications are Lowly Metaphor to Divine Flesh: Sarah the Askhenazi, Sabbatai’ Messianic Queen and the Sabbatian Movement, 2018),articles about early modern Jewish-Christian relations in the 260 List of Contributors

Dutch Republic,articles about various themes related to religion and modernity,and the edit- ed volume (with Sebastian Schüler and Lutz Greisiger) Religion und Wahnsinn um 1900: Zwi- schen Pathologisierung und Selbstermächtigung. Religion and MadnessAround 1900: Be- tween Pathologyand Self- (2017).

Christian Wiese holds the Martin Buber ChairinJewish Thought and Philosophy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. His publications include Challenging Colonial Discourse: Jew- ish Studies and Protestant TheologyinWilhelmine Germany (2005), and The Life and Thought of Hans Jonas: JewishDimensions (2007). He hasedited numerous volumes, including Janus- figuren: “Jüdische Heimstätte”,Exil und Nation im deutschen Zionismus (with AndreaSchatz, 2006); Redefining JudaisminanAge of Emancipation: Comparative PerspectivesonSamuel Holdheim(1806–1860) (2007); Modern Judaismand Historical Consciousness: Identities – Encounters – Perspectives (with Andreas Gotzmann, 2007); Judaismand the Phenomenon of Life: The Legacy of Hans Jonas: Historical and PhilosophicalStudies (with HavaTirosh-Sa- muelson, 2008); Years of Persecution,Years of Extermination: Saul Friedländer and the Future of HolocaustStudies (with Paul Betts, 2010); German-Jewish ThoughtBetween Religion and Politics: Festschrift in Honor of Paul Mendes-Flohr on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (with Martina Urban, 2012); Jüdische Existenz in der Moderne: Abraham Geiger und die Wis- senschaft des Judentums (with WalterHomolka and Thomas Brechenmacher,2013); Reap- praisals and New Studies of the Modern JewishExperience: Essays in Honor of Robert M. Selt- zer (with Brian Smollett, 2014). Index abjection 85 anti-Judaism 73f.,78, 97,103, 112, 164, Abraham (Biblical ) 125, 128 179, 183, 186, 227,229f.,233f. Abraham Ibn Migash 5, 12 – 16 – anti-Jewishagitation 214 absolutism128 – anti-Jewishstereotypes 220 Abu Mashar 66 – anti-Jewishviolence 176 acculturation 2, 17,146 – anti-Jewishwritings 7 – of the peasants 129 – Christian anti-Judaism 3, 15, 108, 172, Advance (Congregationalistpublication) 179, 216, 234, 251 208 f.,211 f.,215, 221 – definition of 73 Africa 214, 216 – in Bach 10,71–75, 81 Aga,Mustafa15 – in the sixteenth century5 agnosticism144, 153 –Lutheran anti-Judaism 3–5, 7, 9f., 161, agriculture128 – 130,135 163, 167–171, 175f.,178–181, 185, 237 AktionSühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ASF) – Nazi anti-Judaism 206 241, 243, 246–251, 253 – theological anti-Judaism 8, 76 – activities in Israel 243f.,255 antisemitism 1, 7, 10–12, 162, 168, 172– – and Christian Zionism244, 254 174, 177–180,182, 185, 212, 215, 217– – critique of 245 220, 236 – culture of sarcasm245, 253 – American antisemitism 203, 206–208, – graduatesof241f. 215f.,217,219, 227 – historyof12, 241–243, 252, 255 – antisemitic propaganda 162, 175 – Israel desk 12, 251 – antisemitic research 199f. – leadership of 245 – antisemitic stereotypes 151 – publications 250f. – as linkedtoanti-Christianity 214 – theology of Israel 251 – as religious problem 146 – volunteer program 241f.,246, 254 – Catholic antisemitism8,151,156 Al Kindi 66 – Christian antisemitism 184f. Albrecht,Count6 – culturalantisemitism 162 Allosemitism 252 – cure for 218 – Allozionism 252 – Czechantisemitism 139, 141, 143–147, Altdorf113 156–158 American Committee for Christian GermanRe- – eliminationist1f.,187 fugees 205, 213f. – in music 82, 86f. American Jewish Congress (AJC) 212f. – Lutheran antisemitism 4, 6–8, 163, 167– American Sections of the World Conference 170,172, 174, 176f.,179, 185, 229f., on Faithand Order 207,216 233, 237 Amsterdam 9, 50, 52–55, 58–63, 68f., – medieval antisemitism 8 105, 111, 116 – modern antisemitism 1, 162, 170f.,173, Anabaptists 5 186 Anhalt-Dessau 94 – Nazi antisemitism 8, 203, 208, 213 anti-Christianity 5, 184, 214 – political antisemitism 8, 162, 166, 172f., Anti-Germans 242f.,254f. 186 262 Index

– Protestant antisemitism 2, 163, 174, 177, – ethics of atonement 255 181, 183f.,186f. – theology of 245 – Protestant opposition to 171f.,186, 204, Augsburg 3, 5, 49 212, 217–221, 227,229f.,234, 236f. Augustine (Church Father) 85 – 8, 144, 162, 173, 176, – Augustinianism 165 184 Australia 214, 234 – radical antisemitism 194 Austria 3, 143, 151, 236 apartheid 192 – annexation of 213 apocalypse 2, 5, 13–15, 222, 226f. – Austrian church 195, 236 Apocalypse of John 58 – 1907 Austrian election 138 Apocrypha, Biblical95 – Germanannexation of 211 apostasy21, 24, 206 – Jews of 211 Arab-Israeli conflict 12, 242f.,248 – refugeesfrom 211, 213 Arabs 127,133, 249 166 – IsraeliArabs247,249f. – authoritarian state11, 167 Aramaic 14, 92, 107,244 Away from Rome See Los vonRom Ariel, Yaakov S. 206 Aristotle 121, 125, 130 Babylon 65 – Aristotelianism11 Bach, Johann Sebastian 10,71–82, 84–87 Arnold, Jochen 84–87 – cantatas of 10,71f., 75–78, 81–87 Aryanism11, 173, 175, 193, 198–201, 203, – GermanBach Festival 86 224 Baden 3 – Aryan myth 173 Badeni, Count Kasimir Felix145 – Aryan paragraph 181, 184, 193 Bader,Augustine 51 f.,63 – Aryan roots 175, 199 Baeck, Leo 165–167 – Aryanization 173 baptism 8, 28, 192, 198, 200 – GermanAryans 196 Baptists 189, 204 – Jesus as Aryan176, 195, 199f. – Baptist women’schoir 189f. – non-Aryans 205f.,213, 220 Baroque period 55, 84, 119, 121, 125 Ashkenazi, Eliezer 13 Barth, Karl 184 Ashkenazi Jews 10f.,13, 23, 55, 58–60, Basel 3 104f., 115, 243 Bauman, Zygmunt252 – Ashkenazi Bible118 Baumann, Arnulf H. 231 – leshon Ashkenaz 116 BDS250 – secular 244 Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel1,16, 19 assimilation 11, 131, 138, 191 Berlin 166, 247f. – of minorities 143 Berlin-Weissensee 8 – of Protestants 138 Beza,Theodore90 – of the Jews 87,138, 141, 144, 146f.,158 Bezalel, Hayyimben 23 Assmann, Jan 126 Bible astrology 56, 66 – Biblestudy 105 atheism 149, 152–154, 156 – Jewish vernacular 107,112, 115f. atonement 12, 243f.,246, 253f. – vernacular 103, 114f.,118 – as reparation 254 Biblicism 26 – as suffering 254 Bismarck, Otto von 197 – complementaryatonement 253f. Black Death 27 – concordantatonement 253f. black-face 85 Index 263

Blackstone, William 97 Carpzov,Johann Gottlob 112 Blanken, Christina 80 Castellio, Sebastian 68 Blankenburg, Walter 75, 83 Caswell, Wilbur Larremore222 blasphemy 4, 6, 111, 181 Catholic Peoples’ Party 156 Blitz, Jekuthiel ben Isaac 111, 116, 118 Catholicism4f.,7f.,66, 73, 96, 148, 221 blood and soil 210,214 – and Hussitism 150 blood libel 94, 97,146 – anti-Catholicism 6, 142, 150 Bochum81 – Catholic Church 1–3, 9, 12, 14, 63, 115, Bodian, Miriam 68 143 Bohemia 2, 4, 26, 137,139–143, 145f., – Catholic political parties 142, 151, 156f. 148, 150–152, 154, 158 – Catholic society11, 138 – Bohemian lands 140–142, 151f.,154 – in Germany 196 Böhme, Jakob 58 – papacy 2, 5, 65–67,196 Bolshevism See Communism – political Catholicism142, 144, 156, 158 Bonhoeffer,Dietrich 172 Českožidovské listy 146 Börne, Ludwig164, 167 Chafe,Eric 72, 77–79 Bornkamm, Heinrich 163, 180f. Chaldeans 126 Bouman, Johan 81 Chalupný,Emanuel 149, 154 Bowie, W. Russell 213f. Chamberlain, Houston Stewart 173 Bowman, Matthew 207 Charles V, Emperor 8f., 19, 49 Boyarin, Daniel 244 Chicago97, 208 Brandenburg3,7 – Chicago Hebrew Mission97 Braunschweig 8 chiliasm 58 Breckling, Friedrich 58 China126, 211 Breuer,Mordecai 26 Chmielnicki massacres57, 69 Britan, Dr.Joseph Taylor 218–220 chosen people 120 Brosseder,Johannes 183 – Germans as 194, 196f. Brussels 81 – Jews as 21, 175, 182, 201, 204,234 Buber,Martin 1 Christ See Jesus Bucer,Martin 8, 20f.,90 Christendom (journal) 216f. Bund für deutsche Kirche 176 Christian Social Party156 Buxtorf,Johannes 108 Christianity 1, 5 Byzantium 120 – anti-Christianity 210 – as distinct from Judaism 90 Callenberg, Johann Heinrich 93, 96, 104 – Christian charity 199 Calvary217,227 – Christian community 15f.,192, 197f. Calvin, John 65, 67f.,90 – contemporary 175, 200f. –as 65 – Jewish disrespect toward93 Calvinism 7, 50, 52, 59, 63–65, 90,123, –Orthodox96, 151 147 – post-Christianity 253–255 Calvör,Caspar 113 – purification of 2 132 – Uniate96 cantatas See Bach, JohannSebastian Christiansfeld 230 capitalism 172, 204,226 Chrysander,Wilhelm Christian Just 106 Capito, Wolfgang 8 Church Fathers 108, 112 Carenen, Caitlin 206f. Church League for Industrial Democracy Carlebach,Elisheva49 222 264 Index

Church-state relations 9, 123 – to Judaism 9, 50, 52–54, 56, 59f.,64, Churchman, The (periodical) 210,215 67f.,199, 241, 244, 253f. Churchman, The (periodical) 209, 212–214, – to Protestantism 2f. 217,222 –to Reformed Christianity 7 Cisleithania 142 – to the Palestinian cause 241 clericalism151, 156 – to Zionism 241, 244 – anticlericalism 139, 141, 145, 152, 154 convivencia 17 – Mosaic clericalism145 Corinthians 212 Cohen, Hermann 164f.,167 covenant collectiveidentity 142, 159, 219 – breaking of 19 – Christian 120 – Christian covenant as replacement 73, 90 – of the Jews 219 – of God with Israel 8f., 20, 73, 234, 237, colonialism 248 251 – in Israel 248 – shared covenant 133 – post-colonialism 253, 255 Cromwell, Oliver 63 Comenius, Johann Amos 155 crypto-Jews 16 Communion 192, 197f. Cunaeus,Petrus 121, 130 Communism 209, 219, 227 – De Republica Hebraeorum 121, 130 – anti-Communism 204 Czech, language10, 139, 141, 158 – Bolshevism208 Czech-German conflict 145, 158 – Jews as Communists204,219 Czech nation 138, 141, 143, 149–151, 156 – rise of 208 – Czechnational movement 138, 141, 145, Confessing Church 7, 184, 210,247 147 Confessio Augustana 232 Czech People’sParty See Realists (Czech Confessionalization 9, 14, 20, 22 political party) Congregationalism204,208 Czech Progressive Party 157 19, 221, 223 Czech question 143, 148, 154 – conservativeconstitution 134 Czechness137,144, 150,158 – conservativepublications 214 Czechoslovak republic 11, 137f.,159 – political conservatism 166, 204,208 Czechoslovakia, occupation of 211 – religious conservatism 225 conspiracy 7, 19, 219 Daniel, Book of 61 – of the Jews 206 Daniel ben Abraham50f., 60,68 Constantinople 5 David, Abraham 1 constitution, Mosaic 130 Davis, Joseph 23 conversion 9f., 49, 191 Declaration of Driebergen 12, 234, 236f. – Age of Conversion 49, 51 124, 132 – between Christian religions 21 Delitzsch, Franz 97,174 – converso 61 democracy 7, 121, 137,221f.,224, 227,247 – ethnic conversion 254 – absence of 208 – modern 52 – in ancient Greece 119 – of the Jews 2–6, 11, 14, 74,90, 95, 99, – liberal 170,172 104, 116, 220 – tendency to 130 – to Christianity 3f., 51,54, 57f.,90f., 100, – Weimar-era 186 103, 185, 196, 232 Denmark 100,230 – to Islam 57 Der gantz Jüdisch glaub 5, 89 Deutsch, Gotthard168 Index 265

Deutsch-Israelischer Arbeitskreis für Frieden Elias BarAbraham 59 im Nahen Osten 249 Eliyahu (sage) 14–16 Deutschtum 2 emancipation 164, 167 devil 4, 50, 174, 233 – anti-emancipation 179 dictatorship 210,225 – legal 182 – as Jewishconspiracy 219 – of the Jews 11, 15, 140,162, 164f.,172f., Diet, Imperial8,19 178, 186 Diet of Worms 3 – of the Protestants 140,153 Dinter, Arthur176 – political 182 disciples, of Christ 77f.,81, 83 Emans, Reinmar 80 – disciples’ fear of the Jews 77–83 Enlightenment 11, 125, 128, 135, 146, 162, discrimination 164, 167,170f.,179, 181, 186 – against the Jews 14, 97,163, 167 – criticism of organized religion 123 – racial 223, 247 – Enlightenment era 125, 128 – religious 223 – GermanEnlightenment 7, 10,119, 131 dissent 25 – GermanProtestant 119 – religious dissent 151f.,154 – radical Enlightenment 124, 134 Dodd, William 222 – religious enlightenment 149 Doederlein, Johann Christoph 113 – Republic of Letters124 Dolezal, Rachel 253 – spirit of 166 Dor Babel 13 Enlightenment, Jewish: see Haskalah Dörrfuß, Ernst Michael 132 Episcopalianism 82, 204,209, 212, 214 Dresden, bombing of 254 Erasmus 120 Drtina, František 157 eschatology 49, 58, 64, 66, 69, 207 Dubnow,Simon 169 – Christian 50 Dürr, Alfred 79, 81, 86 – early modern 9 Dušek, Čeněk147,150,152f.,155 – eschatological alliance59, 63, 66 Dutch Republic 50, 68 – eschatological beliefs 55–58 – eschatological expectation 9, 49, 51 f. Easter 77,225 – eschatological hopes 97 ecclesia semper reformanda 177 – eschatological ingathering 245 Ecclesiastes 62 – eschatological thinking 9 Edom 12, 14 – exclusivist 50 Edzardische Proselyten Anstalt 57 – Jewish 49 Egyptians 126f.,131 Essen 86 – Egyptian bondage123 Ethiopia 120 – Egyptian influenceonMoses 131 ethnicity 185, 253 – Egyptian juridical principles 126 – of Jesus 8 – Egyptian kingdom 126 Eucharist 5, 87,96 – Egyptian law 127 EuropeanLutheran Commission on the Chur- – Egyptian priests 132 ch and the JewishPeople (LEKKJ) 230, Eibeschütz, Jonathan 100 233–237 Eilburg, Eliezer 2, 8, 14 Evangelical Austrian Church 236 Eisenmenger,Johann 7, 97 Evangelical Church 1, 3 – Entdecktes Judentum 7 – synodof236, 238 Eisleben 6 Evangelical Church of the CzechBrethren Elbogen,Ismar 170 141 266 Index

Evangelical movement 96, 100–102, 248 fascism 208f.,222, 227 – conservativeevangelicals 206 FederalCouncil of Churches 205, 208, 215 – English-speaking 89, 98 Feiler,Eliezer 249f. – Evangelical-Jewish relations 206 Felgenhauer,Paul56 – evangelicalregionalchurches 193 Feuchtwanger,Ludwig 180 – in Vienna 195 finance 5 – institutions of 99 – financialbenefit 20 – missions to the Jews 10,89f., 94f.,97– – financialresponsibilities of Christian cler- 102 gy 28 – of Lutheranism10 – financialsupport 19, 54, 60, 219, 221 –view of Jews 97,99, 206 – Jews as financiers 216f.,219 EvangelischeKirche in Germany (EKD) 8f., – Protestant financialinvestment 252 84, 87,233, 236 France4,91, 211 Évian Conference 211, 213 Frankfurt 1, 3, 25, 111 exceptionalism 22, 252f. Frankfurt synod 25 – Holocaust as exceptional 252 Frederick the Great 197 – Israel as exceptional state252 Frederickson, George 191 – of the Jews 252 Free Thinkers 149, 154–156 exclusivism 51 – CzechFreeThought 149 – and conversion 9, 49, 51 freedom of thought11, 170,186 – and eschatology 50, 52 Friedberg 27 – Hussiteexclusivism 139 Friedlander,AlbertH.187 – Lutheran exclusivism 58 Friedman, Jerome 1, 8 – non-exclusivism 53 Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry218 – racial exclusivism 194, 201, 212 Fritsch, Theodor 173f. – religious exclusivism 49, 51 f. Frommann, Immanuel 100, 102 exegesis65f. –Biblical134 Gaebelein,Arno 102, 207 – Christian 236 Galileans 175, 199 – Jewish 161, 236 Gans, David 3f., 6, 20, 26 exile214 Geiger,Ludwig 167 – Babylonian 85, 125 Geisel, Eike242, 254 – Catholic exilefromGermany 216 Geistesministerium 52 – Jewish exilefromGermany 216 Genizi, Haim 205, 214 – of Israel 84 genocide187 expulsion Gentiles 4, 12f.,15f., 69, 245 – of Antonius Margaritha 9 Ger,Israel Benedeti See Sperling, Benedic- – of Jewish Christians 198 tusSebastian – of the Jews 8, 18, 20–22, 174 German, language53, 98, 103, 108, 112– – of the Jews from Germany 5f., 8 114, 116f.,141 – of the Jews from Spain 13 – GermanBible10, 103, 109, 112–115, – of the Jews in Europe 14 117f.,177 – of the Palestinians 248 – German-speaking lands 2, 10,59, 103, – of the priests 5 134, 148 – Germanization 114, 116 Fagius, Paulus 110 – Hochdeutsch 101, 116f. Falb,Alfred 174f., 177 German-ArabSociety242 Index 267

German Christian Church Movement 192– Grotius, Hugo 121 199, 201 – De republica emendada 121 German-Israeli relations 241–243, 253 Grundmann, Walter 194, 200 German-Israeli Society 249 Guer,Abigail 60 German Nobility Society 193 Guer,Abraham55, 60 German spirit 165 Guer,Dinah 60 Germanization, of the Czechs 137,144, 151 guilt 12, 253, 255 Germanness 7, 86 – first-class guilt 253 – and Christianity 174, 182 – Germanguilt 241, 243, 245, 247,252f., – and German music 87 254 – Jews as avant-garde of 151 – Lutheran guilt 236 – Luther as creatorof11, 164f. – white guilt 253–255 – synthesis with Jewishness 165 Gulf War249 – völkisch 180 Germanus, Moses 55, 60 Ha-Levi, Abraham ben Eliezer 2, 4, 16 Germany 13 Habsburg Empire11, 137,140f. – Catholicism in Germany 6 Haifa246 – Germanpeople 10, 173f.,177,180,193, Halle10, 89f.,92–94, 100, 114 195–197 – University of 93, 99, 104 – historyof1,181, 193, 197f. Haman17 Germany Jews see Jews, of Germany Hamburg1,24, 52–59, 62, 69 Geschichte der Israeliten See Jost, Isaak Harbison, John 82f. Markus Haskalah 116 Gichtel, Johann Georg58 – maskilim 117f. Gilroy,William E. 207,209, 215 Hastings, Adrian 120 Glaubensbewegung Deutsche Christen 2, Hauger,Dr. Martin 3 176 heaven 79, 86 God – ascension to 15 – as Creator195 – heavenlybodies 66f. – Christian God 196 – Kingdom of 120 – judgment of 64f.,219, 227 Hebraism59, 68, 108f. – rejection by 185 – Christian Hebraism108 – wrathof4f.,85, 181 – Dutch Hebraism130 Goldhagen,Daniel Jonah 1, 187 – early modern Hebraisttexts 119 Gollwitzer,Helmut245, 248, 251 – GermanHebraism 120 78 – Lutheran Hebraism9,111 grace, divine 83, 85, 87 – political Hebraism119f.,134 – as contrasted withlaw 73 – Protestant Hebraism 5, 106, 109f.,115, Graetz, Heinrich 15, 167 120 Graham,T.W.221f. Hebrew,language2,14f., 81, 92, 103, 105, Graizbord,David 51 115 Grant, Frederick C. 216–218 – elements in Yiddish 103 211 – Hebrew dictionaries 107 – England 2, 90,122 – Hebrew letters 113f.,116, 247 Greece, ancient 119, 121, 221 – Hebrew manuscripts 105 Greek, language 76, 107,114 – Hebrew skills of the Jews 26, 105, 109f. Gross,Alfred Artyn 217f. – Hebrew texts 6, 9, 106 268 Index

– modern Hebrew 244 historiography 16, 57 – spoken Hebrew 59 – Germannational 164 – translation of 105, 108, 110 – Jewish 3, 9, 11, 14, 16, 94, 164, 167 Hebrew Bible15, 84, 87,90, 121, 124, 165, – of ancient peoples 126 168, 170,175–179, 194, 230f.,237,244 – of Martin Luther 161 – as prefiguring New Testament 73, 84, 99, – of the Reformation 22 120,125, 161 Hitler,Adolf 1f., 11, 177,194–198, 203– – Catholic reading of 95 213, 215, 217,225–227 – God of 87,174 – as Führer 8, 194f.,197f.,209 – political readings of 119f.,122, 131, 134 Hobbes, Thomas 121 – prophecies in 91 Hoffmann-Axthelm, Dagmar 81, 84 – Protestant reading of 95 Holland 91, 93, 100, 133 – study of 81 – Jewish life in 111 – translation of 104, 106f.,111, 115 Holocaust 1, 12, 186, 198, 207,214, 234, Hebrew Christians 102, 220 245, 248, 252f. Hebrew Republic 10,119–121, 125, 128f., Holsten, Walter 183 133 Holt, Arthur E. 208, 221 – as political model119–122 Holy Roman Empire1,9,15, 17,107 – as theocracy 121–126, 131, 133 Hrejsa,Ferdinand 147,153, 155 – Hebrew constitution 119, 121f.,127 Hull,Cordell 211 – Hebrew regime 119, 121–123, 125f.,131– humanism24, 120f.,124, 167,222 134 – and Czech history 148 – literature of 121 Hus, Jan 3f., 139, 146, 148, 150,155 – political history of 121 – Hus affair 150,152 Hebrews (ancientpeople) 7, 10,110,121, – Hus celebrations 152 123, 126–128, 130,132–134, 252 Hussitemovement 4, 137,139f.,144, 150, – historyof128 154 – religion of 132 – societyof129 iconoclasm4,16 Heidelberg 242 idolatry 2, 67,124, 127,132, 175, 219 Heine, Heinrich 164, 167 immigration Helic, Paul 104 – immigration quotas 211, 214, 216 Helmerstadt133 – of the Jews 96, 214 Herben, Jan 147,150–153, 157 – to the New World 101 Herder,Johann Gottfried129f.,252 4 hermeneutics 230,237,248 Institutefor the Study and Eradication of Je- Herreweghe, Philippe 79 wish InfluenceonGerman Church Life Herring, Hubert C. 211 194, 198, 201 Hess,Jonathan 131 Institutum Judaicum 10, 89, 93f.,97f., Hesse19f. 100–102, 104 Hessen 3 integration 169 Heuß, Alfred 86 – culturalintegration 165 Hiemke,Sven 80 – economic reintegration of the Jews 15 Hilfsmittel 107 – of Protestants 138 Hilsner,Leopold 146f. – of the Jews 11, 138, 166, 168, 182, 186 Hilsner affair 145–147 interfaith historical criticism 119, 125, 134 – fusing interreligious elements 57 Index 269

– interfaith dialogue 81, 95 Israelites15, 123f.,126–128, 130,132 – interreligious alliance 62 – god of 132 – interreligious consultations 229, 233 – Israelite citizens 130 – interreligious projects189 – Israelite governance125 – interreligious relations 51, 255 – Israelite state 127,129f. – interreligious strife52 – origin of 125 International Jewish Committee on Inter- – socialorganization of 129 religious Consultations 229, 233 Israelitisch-Theologische Lehranstalt 169 Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für theo- Isserles, Moses 23 logische Bachforschung 75f.,83 Italy 13, 208f. internationalism 194, 224 – Jews of 2, 11, 55 interreligious 52 intertextuality 72 Jacob(Biblical patriarch) 128 Isaac, Jules 234 Japan 208, 211 Isaac (Biblical patriarch) 128 Jehovah 132f. Isaiah, Book of 111 – communal worship of 133 Islam 1, 52, 57,59, 81, 250 Jena 113, 194 – Sufism57 Jerusalem 1, 3, 66, 75, 77,81, 87,91, 250 –Sunni66 Jesus 8, 14f.,65, 67,77, 80f.,83, 86, 99, Israel 224 – BiblicalIsrael 20, 91 – and his disciples 78 – corporeal Israel 20 – arrival of 125 – critique of 250f. – Aryan Jesus 176, 195, 200 – culture of 255 – as democrat222 – Green Line 251 – as superseding the Jews 120,178, 197, – historical 91 216 – Israel Studies 242 – as the true messiah 57 – Israel Sunday 75, 86, 242, 250 – crucifixionof5,8,204,217,225, 227 – IsraeliCommunist Party 249f. – Jesus’sascension to heaven15 – Israelipeaceorganizations 247 –Jewish blasphemy against 111 – Israeliness244 – Jewishness of 3, 7f., 82, 102, 175, 178, – Jews in 250 198, 200,212, 232, 234 – Land of 246, 251, 255 – living Jesus 225 – new Israel 184 – religion of Jesus 214, 218 – New Yishuv 255 – resurrection of 77,83, 225 – people 8f., 13–16, 19, 52, 67,84, 171, – return of 92 175, 182, 217f.,245,248f.,251 – sacrifice of 96 – rejuvenation of 91 – salvation in Jesus 206 – restorationof100 – Sermon on the Mount 210 – settlementpolicy 246, 251 – words of 220 – stateof12, 241–247,250–253, 255 Jewish-Christian relations 1, 17f.,24, 61, – of 219 71f.,74, 84f.,89, 111, 186, 230f.,234, – theology of 247f.,251, 255 248 – twelve tribes of 133 – boundaries between 100,102 – volunteersin241f.,244–249, 251, 253f. Jewish Christians 196–198, 220 Israel My Glory 218 Jewish problem 204, 213, 220 Jewish Question 3, 5, 20, 170,182f. 270 Index

Jewish Studies, academic discipline 253 – Lutheran attitudes toward2,12, 185, Jews 1, 26 230f.,236 – American Jews 219 – Martin Luther’sattitudes towards 6f., 14, – annihilationof8,15 17,161, 167,169, 172, 175f.,186, 231– –as Christ-killers217 234 – Bohemian Jews 141 – modern knowledgeof174 – court Jews 94 – moral character of 167 – CzechJews 11, 137f.,140,144–147,150, – neo-Kantian interpretationof165 153–155, 158 – Orthodox244 – degeneration of 8 – Pietismon102 – historyof1 – postbiblical Judaism 20,171, 178f. –Jewish ancestry 68f. – progressive 149, 155 – Jewish race 69 – Protestant attitudes toward11 – Jewish spirit 87,165f.,175, 177–179, 193 –Rabbinic 14 – Lutheranismon2,11, 17 – rational nature of 11 – Moravian Jews 141 – 2, 17 – of Germany 1f., 8f., 13f.,16f., 22–29, – refutation of 184 98, 103f.,111–113, 116f.,165–168, 172, – representation of 16, 231 182, 187,203, 211, 215, 221, 252 – world Jewry7 – Protestant attitudes towards 2f. Judaizing 68, 183 –real Jews 4 – de-Judaization of Christianity 173, 177, – secular 2 192, 199 Job,Book of 110 – in Catholicism 174 John, Gospel of 79–83, 86, 210 – in Protestantism 5, 7, 16, 175 Josel of Rosheim2,8f.,17, 19–22, 24, 116 – Judaization of the Germanpeople 177 Joseph ben Joshua Ha-Kohen 4–6 – of Christianity 175 Joseph of Arimathea77 Judenschriften See Luther,Martin Josephus 119, 121f.,132, 134 Judges, Book of 125 Joshua (Biblical figure) 125 Judith, Book of 95 Jost, Isaak Markus 167 Junkers 129 Judaea(Romanprovince) 82 Judaeans (residents of Judaea) 82 Kabbalah 2 judaeophobia 229, 233, 237f. – Christian Kabbalah 62 Judaism 1, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16f.,22, 58, 68, Kairos Palestine Document 250 71–73, 81, 85, 87,92, 96, 98, 123, 148, Kaiserreich 166, 173 153, 169, 172f.,179, 187,193, 204–206, Kant, Immanuel 165 217,231f. – neo-Kantianism 165 – as part of Germanculture 165 Kaplan, Benjamin 51 – contemporary 6, 178, 232 Kaplan, Debra10 – dialogue with187 Kaplan, Yosef 61 – diversity of 93 Karaites 15 – early modern 23 Karo, Joseph 23 – education 25f. Kaufmann, Thomas 2 – essence of 165f. Kempe, Andress Pederson 56 – fight against 178, 196, 199 Kerrl, Hanns 212 – Jewish world domination 174, 182 Kevorkian, Tanya 75 – late medieval perceptions of 162 kheyder 105 Index 271

khumesh-taytshSee taytsh-khumesh – Czechliberalism142, 146 kibbutz 248 – Germanliberalism 142 Kieval, Hillel 153 – liberal 140 Kingdom of God 90,92, 120 – liberal journals203 Klek, Konrad80 – liberal political parties 140,142 Klineberger,Bohdan 146, 156 – liberal tradition 186, 222 Knott, Kim 189f.,192, 198 Living Church, The (periodical) 209f.,214, Kohn, Hans 120 223 Kolín 140 Locke, John 121, 123 Königsberg181, 200 London Society forPromoting Christianity Kortholt, Christian 112 among the Jews 92 Krane, Bernhard251 Los von Rom148, 150f. Krauss,Samuel 169 Lubliner,Rabbi Haim 55 Kreyssig,Lothar 244f. Ludendorff, Mathilde 176 Kristallnacht 7f., 203f.,206f.,216–218 Lüders, Michael 242 Kuh, David 143 Luke, Gospel of 67 Kuhlmann, Quirinus 51 f.,59, 63 Luther,Martin 2–9, 13, 66f.,76, 90,115, 120,163, 166f.,169f.,172, 174–176, lachrymoseview of Jewishhistory 17 178, 181f.,184, 187,229, 239 Lamparter,Eduard 170–172, 182, 186 – and antisemitism 1f., 6–8, 162f.,166, Landnahme 245f. 168–170,172, 174–178, 180–187, Latin, language103, 107,114f. 229f.,232–234, 236–238 Laymon, Charles M. 226f. – and Jewishemancipation 11 League of Nations 209, 222 – apologia for233, 237 Leaver,Robin 75 – as archangel 58, 65 Lebensart 127,129 – as German national hero 7, 14, 163f.,169, Lederer,Eduard 146, 149, 153, 157 172, 174, 177,180, 182, 194, 197 Leffler,Siegfried 195 – as proponent of tolerance 7, 163–165, left-wing politics249, 255 167,169f.,186 – 251 – Biblicaltranslation 65, 76, 103, 109, – Germanleft 242, 249, 254 114f.,165, 177 – in Israel 250 – birthday of 8, 13, 162, 176, 180, 229, 237 – left-wing Protestantism 241, 245, 247f., – Catholic viewsof7,16 252 –creed of 11 – left-wing Zionism 242 – deathof6 – New Left 245–247 –early attitude towardthe Jews 3–6, 8, 11, Leiper,HenrySmith 208, 210,221 89f.,103, 161, 168–172, 175, 185, 231f. Leipoldt, Johannes 11, 199, 201 – followers of 5, 175 Leipzig 71, 75f.,78, 97,199 – Jewish responses to 1–4, 8f., 14, 16f., – University of 76 19, 163–168, 170,179, 185–187 Leo Baeck Institute1 – Judenschriften 7, 11, 161–163, 166f., Levites 123 173f.,177,179 Lewin, Reinhold 168 – laterattitudes toward the Jews 4–9, liberalism145,156f.,182, 204,208, 221, 161f.,167–170,172, 178f.,186, 232, 223 237 – anti-liberalism156 – Nazi appropriation of 177,181, 194, 197, – crisisof143 199 272 Index

– notion of ministry 28 – Norwegian Lutheranism 231 – On the Jews and Their Lies 4f., 7, 9, 232 – OrthodoxLutheranism6,10, 71f.,75 – reception of 161, 171, 178f. –pan-Lutheranism12 – renaissance of 180 –Pietistmovement within 104 – scholarship on 7, 181 – pre-Lutheranism 115 – statue of 238 – relations with Judaism after the Holocaust – teachings of 10,115 12, 230, 234, 237 – theology of 2f., 5, 7f., 90,163, 167,171, – Rostock Lutheranism177 174f., 180, 185, 187 – two kingdoms theory184, 235 – 95 Theses 1, 4, 13 Luther’sHeirs 230f.,237 – time of 194 – writings of 7–10,12, 109, 162, 168, 175, Maccabees, Book of 95 177,180, 182, 186 Maciejko, Pawel 57 Lutheran Commission on Church and Juda- Maharal (Judah Loew ben Bezalel) 23, 26 ism 12 Mahla, Daniel 242 Lutheran World Federation (LWF) 229, 233, Mahn, Käte231 237 Mahomet (Islamic prophet) 67 Lutheranism 2–4, 7, 11f.,14, 16, 28, 52, 55, Maimonides 16, 130,165 59, 63–65, 67,73, 75, 87,139, 147,229, – 16 231 Manitius, Johann Andreas95 – American Lutheranism11 Manuel, Frank121 –anti-Lutheranism 6, 11 Marburg 81 – apologia for237 Margaritha,Antonius 5f., 8f. – CzechLutherans 139 Marissen, Michael 72f.,75, 78, 84 – Evangelical movements within 10 Marquardt, Friedrich Wilhelm 238, 251 – FinnishLutheranism 231 Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue 137,146–148, – GermanLutheranism 8, 12, 58, 231 150–155, 157f. – Lutheran art 49 maskilim See Haskalah – Lutheran attitudes towardthe Jews 9, 58, Matthew,Gospel of 67,76, 220 166, 232 Matthews,Dr. Mark A. 224 – Lutheran Church 10,12, 52, 65, 75, 139, Maximilian I, Emperor 8 169, 184, 229–231, 235–237 Mayer, Johann Friedrich56 – Lutheran clergy 56 Mayse-bukh 106 – Lutheran community66f. McCormick, Arthur Burd224f. –Lutheran education 235, 238 Mecklenburg 3 – Lutheran Hebraism9 Memrachit (volunteerjournal) 246 –Lutheran iconoclasm16 Menasseh ben Israel 51 f.,59, 63 –Lutheran liturgy 76 Mendelssohn, Moses 116f. – Lutheran Orthodoxy 162 mercantilism 128 – Lutheran schism13 Messiah 63 –Lutheran theology 2, 7f., 10, 12f.,76, 111, – Christian 3, 56f.,63–65, 90f.,95, 99f., 113, 170,182, 184, 230,235–237 102, 111, 219 – Lutheran tradition 171 – esoteric messianism 8 – Lutherans as Jews 14 – Hitler as 195 – Luthern lands 90 – in Sabbatianism 56 f. – non-German Lutheran theology 8 – Jewish 50, 57,63, 99, 182 – non-Lutheran 57,233 – messianic era 15 Index 273

– messianic events 59 Munich Agreement 209, 224, 227 – messianic hope 99 murder,allegations of ritual 4, 15, 146, 167, – messianic redemption 12, 49 174 – messianic roleofthe Jews 92 Murphy,Frederick Ira 204 – messianic times 92 music 2, 10,75, 84, 86 – non-messianism 248 – aria 78f.,81, 83, 86 Messianic Jews 102 – choir 84, 189f. 214, 225 – church music 71, 80 Methodists 204 – Emmanuel Music ensemble 82 Michaelis,Johann David 10,119, 125–135 – Germanmusic 86f. Middle Ages 3f., 8, 10,14f., 18f.,21, 25, – Klezmer 243 27f.,103, 105, 112, 120,130,162, 165– – libretto 71, 75, 78, 80,84, 87 167,170,222 – sinfonia 77–79 Middle East241 Mussolini, Benito209, 224, 226 ministry19, 95 – Luther’snotion of 28 Nablus 246 – of Jesus 99 Nakba 248 minority 215 Nassau-Dillenburg28 – assimilation of 143 national identity 135 – Jewish minorities 3f., 102, 140, 162, 166, – Czech138, 140 169, 172f.,180, 183, 186 National SocialParty 144 – minority of voters157 nationalism 139, 147,150,157,163f.,166, – Palestinian Arab minority246, 249, 252 170,179, 182, 206, 212 – religious minority 11, 138, 141, 145, 154, – Catholic nationalism 151, 158 158 – Czechnationalism142–146, 150 Miriam (Biblical matriarch) 3 – Germannationalism 141f.,150,157,169, miscegenation 194f. 180 modernity118, 158, 172 – intellectualnationalism143 – critique of 172 – Jewish nationalism 243, 252, 255 monism 153 – liberal nationalism 140–142, 144, 158 monotheism 13, 135 – modern nationalistmovements 122 ,Baron de 126, 135 – nationalist readings of Luther 11, 172 143 – Nazi nationalism 210 – EastMoravia 157 – Palestinian nationalism250 Morehouse, Clifford Phelps209 – secular nationalism 138, 158 Möser,Justus 131 Nawyn, William 204, 206 Moses 61, 109, 119–122, 126–133 Nazism 8, 11, 172, 196, 205, 208, 210–212, – as Lawgiver 10,125 219, 227 – as political reformer 125f.,134 – National Socialism11, 194f.,200,203, – Law of 50, 67,120,125f.,129, 132, 134f. 208, 210,250 – Mosaic constitution 123, 127 – Nazi Germany 192f.,209, 227 – time of 125 – Nazi ideology 177,206 – writings of 109 – Nazi period 15, 162, 172, 176, 179, 206 Mülhausen, YomTov Lipmann 11 – Nazi racism 1, 197,218 Müller,Bishop Ludwig181 – Nazi regime 183f.,203, 208 Müller,Johannes 78 – Nazification 210 Munich 7, 227,242 274 Index

– Protestant anti-Nazism 185, 203, 207– Paul (Apostle) 222 209 – Jewishness of 212, 234 – rise of 203 – letters to the Romans 234 Nelson, Eric 121f. – Pauline theology 2, 165 neo-traditionalism76, 83 Paulli,Oliger51f., 63 Netherlands122, 230,245 PeaceofWestphalia 50 New Testament 73, 84, 99, 103f.,194, 198, peasants 5, 24, 127,129–131 200,232, 237 Pentateuch 13, 110,116f. – Yiddish New Testament 104 – Yiddish Pentateuch104 Nicodemus 77 persecution 80, 219, 223 Niemöller,Martin 210 – Lutheran persecution 8 Ninety-fiveTheses See Luther,Martin – Nazi persecution of Christians 11, 206, Nipperdey,Thomas 159 208, 212f.,225, 227 Noah (Biblical figure) 50 – Nazi persecution of the Jews 203–208, Noahites 68 212–214, 216f.,219, 227 Norway 100 – of the Jews 7f., 11, 16, 167,169, 184, Norwegian Israel Mission231 217–220 Numbers, Book of 245 Petzoldt,Martin 80 Nuremberg 3 83 205 Philip, Landgrave19f. Philipp, Wolfgang 53–58 Old Testament See Hebrew Bible philology 134 Olearius, Johannes Andreas80 philosemitism 2, 12, 55f.,58, 151, 219, On the Jews and Their Lies See Luther,Mar- 243f. tin Philosophes 132 Oral Law,Jewish 99 philosophy 2, 104 Orientalism 106 – Jewish 11 OttomanEmpire2,4,59, 66 – legal 131 – of fascism 209 Padgett, Timothy 207 – 119, 122, 126 paganism 2f., 68, 125, 210,220,224f.,227 – Protestant 221 Palacký,František 141 Pietism6f.,10, 24, 89–102, 104, 162, 171, Palestine 14, 93, 211, 248–250 248 – Jewish emigration to 207 – attitudes towards the Jews 89f.,95–98 – occupied territories of 246–249 – GermanPietism 89f. Palestinians 246, 248–250 – HallePietism10, 89f.,92, 94, 97,114 – Germanresponsibility toward249 – non-Pietism 97 – oppression of 249 – Pietistliterature 92, 98, 101 – Palestinian cause 241, 246f. – Pietiststudiosi95f. – 252 –Wuerttemberg Pietism 97 – Palestinian intifadas246f.,249 Plato165 – Palestinian terrorism 246 pluralism68, 164, 171–173 Pardubice140,146 – religious 13, 67 patriarchy – salvific 68 – ancient patriarchs 128 pogrom 57,176, 187,203f.,206f.,216–218 – patriarchal economy 128 Poland 2, 13 – patriarchal thought 166 Polenaktion 203 Index 275

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 2 – polemics114 politeia 119, 121 – relations 1–3, 9f., 12, 162, 186, 220, Pomerania 3 254f. Portugal 14 – theological encounter 2 poverty 129 Protestant Middle East Commission 242 – among the Jews 94, 218 Protestant Reformation See Reformation Prague4,13, 26, 141, 145, 148, 150 Protestantism 1, 7f., 52, 66, 95, 221 PragueChronicle 5f. – American Protestantism 11, 205, 209, 211, prayer 224 215 – 220,223f.,251 – and the authoritarian state11 – forthe Oppressed 223 –anti-Protestantism 149, 151 – Jewish prayers 6, 24, 93 – as ancient Israelites 15 – of intercession 224, 251 – conservativeProtestantism 207,220, 224 – prayer meetings 224 – contemporary Protestantism 168, 185 – prayer rallies 205 – culturalProtestantism 164 – prayers to Miriam 3 – CzechProtestantism 137–141, 144, 150, predestination 12 153–155, 158 Přehled (Czech journal) 154 – early modern 73 Presbyterian, The (publication) 214, 218, – essence of 2 224 – ethic of 15 204,219, 224 – fundamentalistProtestantism 204,207, Preuss, Hans 78 218 progressivism 140, 145–147,150,154–156 – GermanProtestantism 1, 11, 92, 94, 119, – anti-religious stance145,150 121, 150f.,165, 177,184, 186f.,189, 192, – in Bohemia 142 195, 242, 252, 255 – progressive activists 138 – latitudinarianism 204 – progressive movement 144, 148 – liberal Protestantism 7, 165, 172, 204, – progressive papers152 207,217f. – progressive political parties 147,154, 157 – mainline Protestantism 204–206, 208f., – progressive Realists 153 211, 214f.,218, 221, 224, 227 – religious progressivism 138, 147–149, – millenarianism 49, 56, 204 151, 153–159 – North American Protestantism 203 prophets, Biblical 11, 15, 110,120,232 – post-Holocaust Protestantism 2, 12 – Germantranslation of 109 – Protestant Church 3, 6, 8, 11, 184, 252 – prophetic beliefs 61 – Protestant churches 1, 57,141, 148, 151, – prophetic promise 120 154f.,205, 221, 242 – prophetic text62 – Protestant hierarchy 2 –prophetic themes 99 – Protestant lands 96 – prophetic tradition 165 – Protestant media 1 – prophetic vision 49 – Protestant press150 – prophetic writings 3, 109, 246 – Protestant theological faculties 81 proselytizing 235 – Protestant theology 2, 11, 103, 106f.,112, Protestant Church Congress 242 116, 164, 170,172, 175, 177,179–181, Protestant-Jewish 186f. – alignment 11 – Protestantization 149, 155 – culturaltransfer 118 – Reformed 4, 7, 64–68, 90f.,96, 139, – encounter 243, 253 145, 148f.,155 276 Index

– synodofthe Protestant Church 8 – racial exclusion 191f. Protocols of the Elders of Zion 206 – racial purity 11 Proverbs,Book of 62 – racist antisemitism 2 Prussia 10,166 – racist categorization of humans 189, 191 – Prussian Academy of the Arts86 – racist doctrine 193, 195, 201 Psalms 84f.,110,120 – racist ideology 7, 200f. psychoanalysis 253 – racist readings of Luther 181 Puritanism91, 96 – racist theories 1, 172 – racist understanding of Germanness7 rabbis5,14–16, 27f.,58, 60,100 –Zionism as racism 248 – professionalization of the rabbinate27, Rausch, David 207 29, 100 Realists (Czech political party) 147–155, – rabbinicauthorities 26, 29 157 – rabbiniccontracts 27f. – Čas (party paper) 151f. – rabbinicinterpretations 109, 115 –Jewish Realists 149 – rabbinicjurisdiction 25 – progressive Realists 153 – rabbinicresponsa28 – Protestant Realists 147,149f.,152 –rabbinictitles 25f. – YoungRealists154 – rabbinicalidioms 99 reconciliation,post-war243 – rabbinicalliterature 73, 174, 178 Reformation 4, 13f.,20, 22, 28, 89, 121f., – rabbinicalmorality 182 164f.,167,171f.,177 – rabbinicalstudies 253 – and Calvinism 90 – rabbinicalwisdom 100 – and church-state relations 9 race 183, 189, 191f.,195f.,198–201, 210, – and conversion of the Jews 103 223f. – and expulsion of the Jews 19 – and Christianity 194–196, 198f. – and forms of experienceofGod 84 – divine hierarchicalorderof193 – and vernacular Bible115 – Germanic race 196 – beginning of 1, 13 – Jews as race 14, 20,173, 175, 180,184f., – Bohemian 4, 139 192, 197,199f.,218f. – commemoration of 169 – natureofthe races 174 – crises in 5, 161 – Nordicrace196, 198 – CzechReformation 137,139, 148, 150, – race relations 215 155, 159 – racial boundary192, 198, 200f. – GermanReformation 13 – racial difference180, 200 – idea of 165 – racial distinctions 87 – impact of 1f., 9, 13, 15–19, 29, 185 – racial politics185 – impact of Judaism on 17 – racial restrictions 192 – Jewish view of 1f., 6, 9, 13, 16f.,22, 24 – racial subdivision 191, 193, 197,201 – legacy of 187 – racial theories 173, 198 – Lutheran Reformation 1f., 8, 26 – trans-racialism 253 – messageof9 racism 1, 177,179f.,191 –myths about 13 – definition of 191 – Nazism as completion of Reformation 199 – Germanracism227 – period of 1, 12, 14, 17f.,27, 29, 49, 52, – in America208, 215 167,172 – Nazi racism 11, 203 – pre-Reformation 114 – Protestant anti-racism 215, 227 – Reformation Biblicism 26 Index 277

– Reformation churches 8 Rosenberg, Alfred 177,210 – second Reformation 194 Ross, Robert 205 – spread of 10,12 Rossi, Azariah de 11, 26 –500th anniversaryof1,8,13, 237f. Rothe, Johannes 58 – use of the term 1, 13f. Rozvoj 146f.,154 Reformed Church See Protestantism, Refor- Rückert,Hanns 180 med Rudolf II 4 refugees 204f.,211, 213f. Russia 178, 209 – and immigration quotas216 – Christian 204f.,213f.,227 Sabbatai Tsevi57, 69 – from Austria 213 Sabbatarians 7, 9 – from Germany 213, 216 Sabbath 5, 7, 9, 24, 68, 77,81, 85 – Jewish 57,203f.,211–214, 221, 227 Sabbatianism 56–58, 62, 100 – Wagner-Rogers Bill 216 Saebø, Magne 231 regeneration 15, 96 salvation 11, 49f.,52, 64, 67f.,85, 92, 96, Reich 210 165, 192, 195f.,198, 201, 206, 223 – GermanReich 133 – multiple paths to 68 – Protestant Reich 181 – of the Jews 184 – Second Reich7 – universal52, 67 –ThirdReich 189, 193, 198–200,213 Samuel, Yehiel Nissim ben See Yehiel of religion, academic study of 189 Pisa religious freedom 148, 170,172, 204,210, Sasse, Martin 7, 176 224 Saul (king of Israel)125 Remer,Julius August 133 Saxony 3, 7 Renaissance 119, 121, 125, 167 Sayre, Francis B. 223 republicanism 122, 125 Schadeus, Elias 104 – agrarian republic 130f. Schaeder,Hans Heinrich 199 revelation 197 Schmalz, Alfred 208 – Biblical152 Schneider,Carl 199f. – Christ as 120 Schoenberg,Arnold 86f. – Christian 152 Scholem, Gershom 16, 74 Revelation, Book of 59–62, 64–66 Schroth, Hans Georg184f. Revolution Schudt, Johann Jacob111 – Nazi revolution 210 scientific religion 156 – of 1848 139 Scribner,Robert13f. – of 1918 166 Scripture 4, 7, 9, 12, 61, 68, 96, 103, 110, – RussianRevolution 178 113, 115, 181 Riddle, SturgisLee 222 – Christian 4, 52, 67,100 Rieger,František Ladislav 147 – in Lutheranism11 Roman Law 15 –in Yiddish 101 Roman Republic 119 – interpretations of 61 Romans, Paul’sEpistle to 234 – lettervs. spirit of 73, 86 romanticism 246 – Pietistreading of 102 – romantic Philozionism246 Second World War See World WarII – romantic religion 165 secularism Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 205, 211, 214 – anti-secularism153 Rosen, Irwin 253 – Old Testament as secular story121 278 Index

– secular courts 25 – religious space189, 198, 200f. – secular educational institutions 99 – socialspace189, 200 – secular literature 101 Spain 6, 13 – secular nationalism 138 Spener,Philip Jacob90, 92 – secular visionofsociety138 Sperling, Benedictus Sebastian 49, 52–69 – secularization 121 Spinoza, Baruch 61, 121, 123f. Seeberg, Erich 180 – Germanreactions to 124 Selden, John 68 – Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 123 Sephardic Jews 9, 14, 54–56, 59 spiritual renewal223–226 Servetus, Michael 68 St. John Passion 75, 77f. Shabbat See Sabbath Steiger,Renate83f., 86 Shipler,Guy Emery209, 212–214 Steinschneider,Moritz 97 Shoah See Holocaust Stendel, Mose 113 Shulhan Arukh 23 Stern, Selma 24 Silesia 3, 7 Stoecker,Adolf 183 Six Day War246 Strasbourg 3 Skriver,Ansgar 246 Strauss, Gerald 53–56, 63 Smith, Anthony 122 Ströter,Ernest 102 Smith, Craig 82 Stuttgart 170 socialDarwinism 172 Sudetenland 209, 211, 213 Social Democracy 149 Suleiman, Sultan 5 socialjustice203 supersessionism2,8,11, 73, 77,84, 169, socialism172 179, 183, 186, 219f.,234, 242 – Czechsocialism 142, 147 superstition 108 – kibbutz as socialist ideal248 – Jewish 108f. Sola fide 11, 165 Suzuki, Masaaki79 Sola scriptura 11, 61f.,107,115 Svaz Čechů-židů vCeskoslovenskérepublice solidarity 185f.,247 137 – criticalsolidarity 245, 247f.,255 Sweden 100 – withthe Jews 177,181 Switzerland 3, 91, 100,133 Sonderweg 1, 15 – Swiss confederacy 133 Sophia (Wisdom) 62 synagogue24, 60, 93, 105, 140, 155, 189, Sophism 11 217,224, 238 South Africa 192 – burning of 5, 7, 174, 176 South America211, 216, 234 – maamad (synagogue board)60 sovereignty127f. Synodofthe Rhineland 234 – of God 123, 132, 226 space126, 189f.,192, 196, 200 Talmud 25, 28, 99, 174, 177,244 – as analyticalcategory 189 Talmud Torah 25 – boundaries of 190, 192 taxation 25, 27 – construction of 189f.,201 – church taxes 197 – culturalspace201 Taylor,Myron C. 213 – exclusive space189f.,192, 201 taytsh-khumesh 105f.,113 – geographic 189 Telemann, GeorgPhilipp 74 – German-speaking space134 Temple Society 255 – Jewish spaces 94 Teuton 128 – physical189 theocracy 121–125, 132f. Index 279

theology Vogelsang, Erich 181–183 – Christian 93, 206, 214 Vohryzek, Viktor146f.,149, 153–155 – liberal 83, 172, 181 Volckertsz Coornhert, Dirck 68 Thirty Years’ War9,50 Volk 10 –White Mountain, Battle of 139 – völkisch antisemitism170 Thuringia 193f.,198 – völkisch antisemitism173, 182 Toledot Yeshu 6, 14f. – völkisch circles in the Protestant Church tolerance 163, 186, 220 177 – in Pietism95 – völkisch movement 185, 193 –in the Czech nation 141 – völkisch-national Christianity 185 – in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 2 – völkisch readings of Luther 11, 172, 174, – intolerance 166, 168f. 176f.,180,182 – religious tolerance 20, 139, 164 – völkisch theologies184, 194 – towardthe Jews 3, 7, 169 – völkisch thinking 172 totalitarianism203, 209, 221, 223–225, – völkisch understanding of Germanness 7 227 – völkisch writings 176 – totalitarian states 213, 225 – Volksbuch 177 Toulouse 14 Vrba, Rudolf 151 Treitschke,Heinrich von164 Vulgate 114f. Trinity 75, 77f. Troeltsch, Ernst 166 Wagenseil, JohannChristoph 107,109, 113 Troglodytes 133 Walther,Wilhelm 177–179 Tsene-rene 106f. Warburton, William 124, 134 Turks5,67 Weber,Timothy 207 Weimar Republic 162, 169f.,173, 186 Ulm 3 Weinstock, Nathan 254 UnitedStates 2, 11, 102, 192, 207f.,211, Weissberg, Liliane 243 213–217,219, 224, 226 Weltanschauung 172, 233 – Congressof102, 205 Wentz, Frederick K. 203 – government of 205 Western civilization 223 – Oriental Exclusion Act 215 WhiteMountain, Battleof See Thirty Years’ – US judicial system 192 War – US State Department205 Whittaker,William Gillies 79 UniversalChristian Council forLifeand Widmann, Georg95 Work 207f.,216 Winrod, Gerald 207 Usque, Solomon 14 Wise, Stephen 97 usury 175f. Wisner,David 125 153 Wittenberg 13, 238 Utraquists 4 Wolfson, Elliot 100 Word of God 219 Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 170 – Bibleas107 Vergangenheitsbewältigung 244 – Christ as 227 Vienna 66, 142, 169, 195 World WarI 171, 180,219 – chamber of deputies140,157 – Versailles, Treaty of 208 Vierhaus, Rudolf 129 World WarII55, 186, 208 virgin 111 Worms 109 – Virgin Mary5 Wulff, Moses Benjamin 94 280 Index

Yahya, Gedaliah ibn 3 – Yiddishists 108f. Yehiel of Pisa 11f. Young CzechParty 140–142, 144–146, yeshivah 27 150–153, 157 Yiddish, language101, 103, 105f.,112–114, – Národní listy 141, 150 116, 244 – YoungCzechClub 142 – and Christian missionaries 10,92, 101, Yovel, Yirmiyahu 61 103f.,114, 116 – corruption of 113 Zechariah, Book of 61 – EasternYiddish 101 Žilka, František 137,148 – modern Yiddish 103 Zionism 97,242f.,245,249–252, 255 – spoken Yiddish 108 – anti-Zionism244, 252, 255 – study of 98f.,101 – Christian Zionism 244f.,248, 250, 255 – Western Yiddish 98f.,101, 103 – Philozionism12, 241, 243–246, 249– – Yiddish Biblicaltranslations 10,101, 252, 254f. 103–118 Zion’sHerald (publication) 214, 225, 227 – Yiddish literature106, 113