Zunz in Prag: Ein vergessenes Kapitel in der jüdischen Kultreform

The paper addresses an under-researched chapter in the history of the Jewish Reform movement which is at the same time a commonly overlooked period in the biography of Leopold Zunz (1794–1886), one of the founding members of Wissenschaft des Judentums. By placing his eight-month appointment as a preacher to the Reform synagogue in Prague in its socio-political and biographical contexts, the article sheds new light at Zunz’s commitment for the religious renewal of Judaism. A schematic comparison between the development of the Reform movement in the German lands and the Habsburg Monarchy, at the beginning of the nineteenth century highlights the role of state involvement into internal Jewish affairs. Finally, the analysis of Zunz’s Synagogenordnung from 1836, according to the original manuscript from the National Library of Israel, allows a re-evaluation of the (Reform) synagogue as an institution for social disciplining of its members.

A Man of No Party

This chapter covers the role of Bible translation in Hirsch’s youthful Nineteen Letters on Judaism. Hirsch was educated in the tradition of Mendelssohn’s moderate Haskalah, and he came to see his mission as defending Judaism on a new basis. Hirsch developed a new vision of Judaism by engaging with four central German Jewish ideologies of his day: Haskalah, Wissenschaft des Judentums, Reform, and Jewish traditionalism. Hirsch criticized elements of these ideologies while weaving other elements into a new account of Judaism that would unite German Jews. In the Nineteen Letters he used Bible translation to elaborate this new vision. This chapter also explores Hirsch’s concept of Jewish education and gender.

Struggling for Religion in Jewish Scientific Research—Max Wiener’s Critique on Hermann Cohen’s Notion of Religion

The article examines Max Wiener’s thoughts on the relation of Judaism and religion via his critique of his former teacher, Hermann Cohen. This focusses on the notion of religion developed by Cohen in the context of Jewish Scientific Research [Wissenschaft des Judentums]. It discusses Wiener’s thoughts on religion in order to exemplify the specific kind of struggle a non-Christian religious tradition might get into concerning the application of the notion of religion upon itself.

Building a New Zion

The fourth chapter describes the rise of Jewish seminaries in America and their reconstruction of the tradition in the light of modern scholarship. Two traditions of schooling—one Reformed the other Conservative—are explored. The founder of Hebrew Union College (HUC), Isaac Wise, developed a curriculum for a “progressive and enlightened” Judaism that could engage with American education and culture. Moses Mielziner prepared a widely used introduction to the Talmud that argued for the reasoned development of halakah (law) from a more historical reading of the Torah. HUC included reforms of the Siddur or prayer book, egalitarian synagogue life for men and women, and a view of an “American Zion” as the best hope for Jewry. Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) was founded by the Orthodox rabbi Sabato Morais to advance a unified, developmental understanding of Judaism according to the Breslau school in Germany. Under Solomon Schechter, JTS became one of the world centers of Wissenschaft des Judentums (or modern study of) as it mobilized rigorous text-critical scholarship, historical studies, and the Hebrew language to advance the Jewish tradition.

“For the Letter Kills, but the Spirit Gives Life”: Halakha Versus Kabbalah in the Study of Jewish Mysticim1

In the 19th century, some Jewish scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement presented Kabbalah as the vital, spiritual and mystical aspect of Judaism, and juxtaposed it to legalistic, conservative, and petrified Halakha. Jewish neo-romantic and Zionist thinkers adopted this perception, which Christian Kabbalists and Hebraists first formulated in the Renaissance period. The assumption concerning the distinction and tension between Jewish mysticism and Halakha had a significant impact on the modern academic study of Judaism and it still governs the academic discipline of Jewish mysticism that Gershom Scholem and his disciples founded. This article argues that the modern identification of Kabbala as Jewish mysticism, and the assumed dichotomy between spiritual, vital Kabbalah, and dogmatic, petrified Halakha are a modern Jewish adaptation of the Pauline antithesis between the letter that kills and the Spirit that gives life.

The Barcelona Disputation: Texts and Contexts

Scholars of Jewish history have paid consistent and devoted attention to the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. Records of this event preserve contemporary Jewish and Christian responses to the proceedings, which pitted Nahmanides, the most important exegete and teacher of the region, against a convert from Judaism to Christianity, took place in the royal court before an illustrious audience. This essay traces trends in scholarly treatments of the Barcelona Disputation from the early days of the Wissenschaft des Judentums to the present. By examining challenges of veracity posed by the documentary sources as well as foundational assumptions about what the medieval authors intended to achieve with their accounts, this article provides broad overview of the historiography that has developed around the Barcelona Disputation.