Chapter 13. Historiography In A Cultural Ghetto: Jewish Historians In Nazi Germany

Abstract

For several years now Jewish studies scholars have been displaying growing interest in the various influences modern historiography and other processes of scholarly thinking had on Jewish identity after the period of emancipation. The fact seems to be quite unknown that the process of scholarly thinking, especially in traditional Jewish historiography, corresponded to similar processes in other cultural fields; this had already been demanded in the early 1820s by the Verein fur Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden , whose members, for the first time in Jewish history, brought together two completely different terms: Judaism and science. This chapter focuses on what Wohlwill called “Literatur uberhaupt” (literature in general), i.e., on the beginnings and the development of the various processes of scholarly thinking in German-Jewish literature (specifically literature written by Jewish authors about Jewish subjects in the German language), and especially on literary texts published in the early nineteenth century. Keywords: early nineteenth century; German-Jewish literature; Jewish historiography; Jewish studies scholars; Judaism; literary texts; scholarly thinking; science