HOW NINETEENTH‐CENTURY GERMAN CLASSICISTS WROTE THE JEWS OUT OF ANCIENT HISTORY

This essay considers why Jewish antiquity largely fell outside the purview of ancient historians in the Germanies for over half a century, between 1820 and 1880, and examines the nature of those portraits that did, in fact, arise. To do so, it interrogates discussions of Jewish antiquity in this half‐century against the background of those political and national values that were consolidating across the German states. Ultimately, the article claims that ancient Jewish history did not provide a compelling model for the dominant (Protestant) German scholars of the age, which then prompted the decline of antique Judaism as a field of interest. This investigation into the political and national dimensions of ancient history both supplements previous lines of inquiry and complicates accounts that assign too much explanatory power to a regnant anti‐Judaism or anti‐Semitism in the period and place. First, the analysis considers why so little attention was granted to Jewish history by ancient historians in the first place, as opposed to its relative prominence before ca. 1820. Second, the essay examines representations of ancient Judaism as fashioned by those historians who did consider the subject in this period. Surveying works composed not only for the upper echelons of scholarship but also for adolescents, women, and the laity, it scrutinizes a series of arguments advanced and assumptions embedded in universal histories, histories of the ancient world, textbooks of history, and histories dedicated to either Greece or Rome. Finally, the article asserts the Jewish past did not conform to the values of cultural ascendancy, political autonomy, national identity, and religious liberty increasingly hallowed across the Germanies of the nineteenth century, on the one hand, and inscribed into the very enterprise of historiography, on the other. The perceived national and political failures of ancient Jews—alongside the ethnic or religious ones discerned by others—thus made antique Judaism an unattractive object of study in this period.     

Die Emigration der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg und die Anfänge des Universitätsfaches Kunstgeschichte in Großbritannien

Aby M. Warburg (1866- 1929) the famous art historian, critic and great promoter of cultural history collected a unique research library which became a semiofficial part of the newly founded University of Hamburg called ?Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg”? in 1920. At the end of 1933 this library and its staff left Germany in order to prevent the Nazis from destroying this Jewish foundation. Great Britain gave home to it and at the end of 1944 London University incorporated the library now named The Warburg Institute. The Warburg Institute efficiently helped to promote art history as an academic discipline in Great Britain though its actual aims are of interdisciplinary nature and go far beyond art history as it has been the case since the days of Warburg.     

Between nation and land in Zionist teaching of Jewish history, 1920–1954

The article discusses the representation of Jewish history in the Zionist school system of the Yishuv and the early State of Israel (1920–1954). In the Yishuv period the history curriculum was centered on “shifting Jewish centers” in the spirit of historian Simon Dubnow, an approach that also integrated Jewish and non-Jewish history. From the 1930s, Ben Zion Dinur and the Teachers' Council of the Keren Kayemet le-Yisrael (Jewish National Fund) attempted to make the Land of Israel the central axis uniting Jewish history, a focus that downplayed non-Jewish history. Because of the opposition to this approach within the education system, this change, which Dinur regarded as essential for the integration of the new immigrants from the Muslim countries into Israeli society, was implemented only after he was appointed minister of education in the early 1950s.     

Zwischen Arbeitslosigkeit und Berufsverbot: Die deutschsprachige Ärzte-Emigration nach Palästina 1933–1945

When the National-Socialists started their restrictive measures against Jewish civil servants and professionals in 1933, they caused a wave of emigration only to be surpassed by the one following the Anschluß of Austria and the ‘November pogrom’ in 1938. Due to their great number, jewish doctors were to become the main object of Nazi persecution in the professional group. Up until 1935 Palestine was their main destination of immigration. In 1935 the British Mandatory Government passed a numerus clausus which mainly cut down the licensing of newly arrived doctors. The article deals with the social problems caused by the mass immigration of a highly qualified professional group in Palestine and with the fight against the restrictive measures of the mandatory Government. A short retrospective glance is cast at the situation in Palestine before 1933. Finally an outlook is given at the impact of this immigration on the health system in Israel.     

Being Crypto‐Jewish in Colonial Brazil (1500–1822): Brushing History against the Grain

This paper consists of two parts. In the first, I am going to review and synthesise the history of Jews — or rather various versions of Fuzzy Jews ¹ 1 The term “Fuzzy Jews,” introduced by Charles Meyers and myself in the Preface to our jointly edited Troubled Souls: Conversos, Crypto‐Jews and Other Confused Jewish Intellectuals from the Fourteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries (Hamilton: Outrigger, 2001); it refers to non‐regular sets and categorical anomalies. The term is further developed in my Masks in the Mirror: Marranism in Jewish Experience (New York: Peter Lang Verlag, 2005).
— who settled in Brazil during the time it was a Portuguese colony, including a brief period when part of the nation passed under Dutch control. This overview probably adds nothing new to the history of this topic, except insofar as it stresses the details necessary to develop the argument in the next section. The second part turns to a more difficult and in many ways speculative kind of history, that of the emotional and psychological experience of being a Jew — again in several versions of nominal Catholicism. Here is where I bring to bear insights from psychohistory and the history of mentalities in order to interrogate the sources in Inquisitional archives and archaeological studies in Brazil and elsewhere in South America.     

Orthodox violence: “Critique of Violence” and Walter Benjamin's Jewish political theology

This paper deals with the role of Judaism in Walter Benjamin's famous 1921 essay on violence and law, Zur Kritik der Gewalt. Despite the intense attention devoted to this essay, the role of Jewish myth in it has not yet been thoroughly explained. This study contends that the association between what Benjamin termed revolutionary violence and the Jewish messianic tradition, which plays a central role in the evaluation of Benjamin's text, is far more problematic than has hitherto been assumed, and poses a serious challenge, which has not been fully examined in its historical context. Second, this essay claims that the subversive elements that many have supposedly found in Benjamin's text and the attempts to link these elements to messianic traditions are also unconvincing. Third, the paper contextualizes Benjamin's thought within the framework of the Jewish political–theological debate of the period. It contends that Benjamin's theory of law and justice should be understood not as a revolutionary, anti-republican text, as has been generally accepted, but as a secularized conservative orthodox one. In doing so, it seeks to shed light not only on Benjamin's early thinking and its influences, but also on the neglected element of Jewish orthodoxy within the broader topic of political theology.     

Jews in Italy between Integration and Assimilation, 1861–1938

The history of Italian Jews from 1861 to 1938 is often viewed as the period in which they totally assimilated into the Italian nation. This article, however, argues that rather than their assimilation it was a period of their integration into Italian society. Various approaches to this question are presented, including a review of the literature, with a view to reconsidering the relationship between Jewish culture and Italian culture, or rather non-Jewish culture. Italian Jewish history is shown not to be separated from, but to be “internal” to Italian social, cultural, and political history—part of the dynamic process of change that occurred during this period not only in Italy but throughout Europe.     

Sensitive travelers: Jewish and non-Jewish visitors from Eastern Europe to Palestine between the two World Wars

Beginning with a reference to early modern, religiously motivated pilgrimages to Erets-Yisroel, this article explores the quest of four travelers of the interwar period for clues of personal, cultural, and political belonging by visiting Mandatory Palestine. It reveals to what significant degree the perceptions of the travelers – two East European Jews, a Polish-Catholic journalist, and one Central European Jewish author – were shaped by preexisting attitudes towards Jewish history, culture, and identity, and how the narrative of the journey itself serves as an instrument to confirm these attitudes. It shows that travelogues offer fascinating insights into the complex relationship of subjectivity, identity, cultural memory, and history.     

Black or White: The Turbanization of Shi‘i Islam

The Turban has been worn by Muslims since the early period of Islamic history. This paper examines the significance of the turban in Twelver Shi‘ism. It argues that the turban and its color have been used to enhance the social and religious status of the descendants (sayyids) of the Prophet Muhammad. The paper also discusses the importance attached to the method of tying the turban and demonstrates how social pressure forced scholars to abandon a practice established by the Prophet and Imams. It will also argue that the method of trying the turban was used as an ideological tool among Shi‘i scholars.     

Aspekte angewandter Wissenschaften in Moscheen und Klöstern (Teil I)

Only recently have the abundant sources relating to the application of astronomy to the needs of religious ritual in medieval Islam been studied, and it is now possible to write a new chapter in the history of Islamic astronomy. Simple techniques were advocated by the scholars of the religious law, highly sophisticated and complicated solutions were proposed by the Muslim scientists. It is not without interest to compare and contrast this activity, which lasted over a millennium, with that of the monks of the Christian Middle Ages. The history of the latter has not yet been written, and cannot be written from textual sources alone, as is clearly shown by some of the astronomical instruments presented here. The present essay, in which both the Islamic and Christian traditions are discussed side by side for the first time, is very much a preliminary venture, primarily intended to point to the inherent interest of the available materials for the history of science as well as for several other disciplines.     

History of Israelite religion or old testament theology? Jewish interest in biblical theology

Abstract

Both branches — the “history of the Israelite religion” and “Old Testament theology” — are significant and have equal merit. However, there are also distinct demarcations and deep differences between them. Thus, the research of each must be separate and follow unique clearly defined methods so as to avoid confusion. It is interesting to discover the theological guidelines of the Biblical authors, editors and canonists. There is also a necessity to be aware of the theological guidelines that control the Biblical corpora; to read the Bible for religious messages and moral values which may be derived from it. Nevertheless, it is impractical to look for or to impose one sole idea on the whole Bible. Christian theologians should not introduce any sort of anti‐Semitic or anti‐Jewish theology. Jews are interested in the theology of the Hebrew Bible and in Biblical theology. The main reasons for the limited interest of Jewish scholars in Biblical theology is inherent in the youthfulness of scholarly Jewish Biblical research; the focus of Jewish‐Israeli interest on Biblical research in the last generations; and in the formation of higher educational institutions first and foremost in Israel as well as in some Jewish institutions in America.     

Tannery and Duhem on the Concept of a System in the History of Philosophy and History of Science

ABSTRACT

This article examines John Toland’s Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews (1714) by placing it alongside other elements of his engagement with Jewish history, Mosaic principles and wider “Hebraica” – specifically, an appendix to his Nazarenus (1718) and his Origines Judaicae (1709). Although Toland’s case for Jewish naturalization shows the strong influence of Locke’s case for political and religious toleration, and also of a general “mercantilism”, it is argued that one of its main characteristics is a philosophical naturalism, shown in its treatment of the human species as a whole. Furthermore, it is also argued that this same naturalism is evident throughout Toland’s engagement with Jewish history and Mosaic thought. Accordingly, when we “fold” these works into each other, we find each enhancing our understanding of the others – not just as examples of Toland’s treatment of “Jewish affairs”, but also as illustrations of a consistent conceptual materialism. To emphasize this, the article concludes by suggesting that the figure of Rabbi Simone Luzzatto, author of a 1638 plea for tolerance, provides an important clue in understanding the links between Toland’s political injunctions and the philosophical foundation on which they are built.     

后大屠杀时代:纳粹屠犹的社会后果分析

20世纪80年代以来,越来越多的学者意识到了大屠杀已经成为一个世界性的问题,在美国、以色列、欧洲等地普遍兴起了对“后大屠杀时代”的研究,主要探讨源于大屠杀并影响到后大屠杀时代的种种社会现象。通过对幸存者的心理磨难、对纳粹屠犹的神学反思、犹太意识的强化以及西方社会的“遗弃”对犹太人的精神打击等问题的研究,可以看出,大屠杀事件对犹太人社会心理产生了重大的影响。     

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the initial phase of the Italian Racial Laws: reactions and strategies (1938–1940)

ABSTRACT

This article aims to reconstruct the activities of the Board of Jewish Deputies, the central representative body of British Jewry, in support of the Italian Jews affected by the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938. By analysing the institution’s documents and examining the most widely read Jewish newspaper in the U.K., the Jewish Chronicle, this research investigates how the initial phase of the Italian anti-Semitic campaign was received in Great Britain, and what measures were put in place by British Jewry in their attempts to help the Italian Jews. The Jewish historian, Cecil Roth, played an important role during this phase, in active collaboration with the leadership of the Board and the staff of the Jewish Chronicle, gathering as much information as possible on Italy and its history in order to shed light on the events that were taking place during the first years of the Racial Laws and until the entrance of Italy into WWII (1938–1940). The involvement of certain members of the Foreign Office with links to the Board, and the shared goal of helping Italian Jewry, was also fundamental in this period.     

J.G. Granö and Edgar Kant: Teacher and Pupil, Colleagues and Friends

This paper is adapted from an address given at the plenary session of the conference ’From Native and Landscape Research to Urban and Regional Studies‘ held in Tartu on 23 August, 2002, to mark the birthdays of J.G. Granö (120 years.) and Edgar Kant (100 years). The Finnish geographer J.G. Granö was Professor of Geography at the University of Tartu from 1919 to 1923, a period during which that university became the birthplace of many original geographical ideas. Edgar Kant was beginning his studies at that time, and a link was forged between the two scholars which lasted until Granö's death in 1956. The nature of this interaction and its significance for the history of geographical studies are discussed.     

The cloak,the cage and the fog of sanctity: the Zionist mission and the role of religion among Arab Jews*

Abstract. This paper examines the Zionist national mission to mobilise Jewish ethnic communities in Arab countries, in the period preceding the establishment of the state of Israel. It draws on archival texts to trace a phenomenon known in Jewish historiography as ‘Shadarut’; a voluntary religious practice of fundraising which was widespread in the Jewish world for hundreds of years. The paper shows how this pre‐national religious practice (to be labelled ‘the cloak’) was adopted and incorporated into the Zionist national project (‘the cage’), first generating tension between the Jewish religious establishment and the Zionist ‘secular’ movement, and then blurring the distinction between Judaism as a religion and Judaism as a national identity. The paper shows how secular emissaries of European origin arrived in Arab countries as religious emissaries (‘shadarim’) and aspired to discover a strong religious fervour among members of the Jewish communities there. This is because in the eyes of the Zionist (ostensibly secular) movement, being religious Jews in Islamic countries was a criterion that demarcated them from their Arab neighbours. This analysis entails two main conclusions: (a) that contrary to the experience of the European Zionist national movement in which secularism and the revolt against the Jewish religion played a central role, in Islamic countries it was particularly the Jewish religion, and not secular nationalism that was used to mobilise the Jewish community into the Jewish national movement; (b) that the ‘shadarut’ practice refuses to yield to the epistemological imperatives and the common divisions that arise from the binary distinction between ‘religiousness’ and ‘secularity’, particularly in the Middle East. Some implications for contemporary Israeli society are discussed.     

当代俄罗斯史学中动乱学研究的新趋向

苏联解体后,俄罗斯学界开始反思20世纪初的革命,在深化对17世纪初大动乱研究的基础上,形成一种以“动乱”取代“革命”的话语,采用多学科综合研究的方法,构建以“动乱—帝国”为模型的俄国国家系统性危机理论体系的动乱学研究范式。该范式强调,17世纪初、20世纪初和20世纪末发生的历史事件是俄国国家制度的三次系统性危机(即动乱),前两次危机都以建立帝国而结束,俄国历史在“动乱—帝国”的周期性节律中循环。动乱学的提出,是21世纪“俄罗斯学”和“帝国学”研究热潮下的产物,也是一部分俄国学者对当前俄罗斯向何处去的一种回答。但作为建构一门新学科的尝试,其学科体系尚待进一步深化。     

From Greece to Babylon: The political thought of Andrew Michael Ramsay (1686–1743)

This paper explores the political thought of Andrew Michael Ramsay with particular reference to his highly acclaimed book called A New Cyropaedia, or the Travels of Cyrus (1727). Dedicated to Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, to whom he was tutor, this work has been hitherto viewed as a Jacobite imitation of the Telemachus, Son of Ulysses (1699) of his eminent teacher archbishop Fénelon of Cambrai. By tracing the dual legacy of the first Persian Emperor Cyrus in Western thought, I demonstrate that Ramsay was as much indebted to Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History (1681) as he was to Fénelon's political romance. Ramsay took advantage of Xenophon's silence about the eponymous hero's adolescent education in his Cyropaedia, or the Education of Cyrus (c. 380 B.C.), but he was equally inspired by the Book of Daniel, where the same Persian prince was eulogised as the liberator of the Jewish people from their captivity in Babylon. The main thrust of Ramsay's adaptation was not only to revamp the Humanist-cum-Christian theory and practice of virtuous kingship for a restored Jacobite regime, but on a more fundamental level, to tie in secular history with biblical history. In this respect, Ramsay's New Cyropaedia, or the Travels of Cyrus, was not just another Fénelonian political novel but more essentially a work of universal history. In addition to his Jacobite model of aristocratic constitutional monarchy, it was this Bossuetian motive for universal history, which was first propounded by the German reformer Philipp Melanchthon in his Chronicon Carionis (1532), that most decisively separated Ramsay from Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, author of another famous advice book for princes of the period, The Idea of a Patriot King (written in late 1738 for the education of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, but officially published in 1749).     

Der kundige Laie und das naturkundliche illustrierte Flugblatt der frühen Neuzeit

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how German and Latin illustrated broadsheets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can serve as documents of the history of sciences and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. It shows how broadsheets were used as a means of conveying scientific observations and conclusions not only among scholars versed in Latin but, through the medium of the vernacular, between scholars and laymen, too. In the fields of medicine, astronomy, zoology and botany in particular, the illustrated broadsheet facilitated the rapid circulation of case histories and accounts of various scientific phenomena. Furthermore, it played an important role in breaking down the barriers that separated the scholar from the layman, who was otherwise far removed from the world of books.