Jüdisches Recht im kulturellen Prozess: Die Wahrnehmung der Halacha im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts (review)

Abstract

146 SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 to emigration, suggesting that it is a kind of guilt that has motivated him to pay such tribute to Zionism. Lawrence Birken Department of History Ball State University Jiidisches Recht im kulturellen Prozess: Die Wahrnehmung der Halacha im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts, by Andreas Gotzmann (Ttibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997). Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts, 55. 434 pp. DM 129. Once the primary language in which were written the major works ofthe Wissenschaft des Judentums, the German language is once more emerging as a medium for writings on Jewish history of the modem era. In the introduction to his account ofthe world of the financier Benjamin Veitel Ephraim, Dreipreussische K6nige und ein Jude (Berlin, 1994), Gerhard Steiner notes that his own biography may well differ from an earlier study by Heinrich Schnee because "archival sources, as the waters of all wells" have a different flavor and evoke different responses depending on the frame ofreference and state of mind of the one who drinks. That comment is applicable to any historical analysis and assessment of primary sources, not only of archival documents. Andreas Gotzmann's Jiidisches Recht im kulturellen Prozess: Die Wahrnehmung der Halacha im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts is significant not only for the sheer wealth of bibliographic data examined, but also for the fresh and original approach to the material. Gotzmann's work joins the body of writings by contemporary scholars such as Mordecai Breuer, David Ellenson, Michael Silber, and the late Jacob Katz that focuses upon the nature ofnineteenth-century European Orthodoxy in general and in particular upon Orthodox responses to the Reform movement. These works illuminate halakhic questions and concerns that are merely tangential in more standard histories ofthe time as well as in Michael Meyer's landmark Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (New York, 1988). Gotzmann explores the background of Jewish communal structure and its legal status in eighteenth century Germany and the contours of the earliest reforms in Westphalia and Hamburg. Spotlighting specific innovations that abrogated halakhic norms, he presents an extensive discussion ofthe attitude toward Jewish law reflected in the writings ofMichael Creizenach and Samuel Holdheim. Especially noteworthy is his wide-ranging and challenging survey of the positions of both protagonists and respondents in the circumcision controversy. Book Reviews 147 To this reviewer, perhaps the most intriguing section of Gotzmann's book is his lengthy analysis of the halakhic aspect of the clash between Rabbis Samson Raphael Hirsch and Seligmann Baer Bamburger regarding secession from the Frankfurt Gemeinde. It is ofmore than passing interest to note the extent to which the personality ofHirsch remains a subject that arouses curiosity and perplexity. Hirsch's complex and seemingly contradictory combination ofcreative modernity and unyielding traditionalism coupled with an insistent practical agenda stirred controversy in his own lifetime and in the period following his demise and has continued to fascinate later generations and to elicit strong feelings and divergent interpretations of his goals and convictions. It is quite remarkable to observe a new generation ofEuropean writers responding to the apparently paradoxical nature of Hirsch's legacy, Thus, for example, in French scholarly publications one may contrast the remarks (based in large part on the views of Noah Rosenbloom) concerning Hirsch's educational approach in Maurice-Rubin Hayon's notes to his translation ofThe Nineteen Letters, Dix-neufEpitres (Paris, 1987), and his LeJudaisme Moderne (Paris, 1989), pp. 87-91, with the sharp critique ofHenri Infeld in the valuable but little-known Le Thora et les Sciences: Mille Annees de Controverses (Jerusalem, 1991), pp. 204-217. One finds even more heated disagreement with regard to Hirsch's political agenda. It is in this context that Gotzmann's nonpartisan analysis as well as copious citations and notes constitutes a signal contribution. Although throughout his book Gotzmann frequently refers to the work of Jacob Katz, Katz's latest writing on this very topic, The Unhealed Breach: The Secession of Orthodox Jews from the General Community in Hungary and Germany (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1995), was apparently not yet available to him. Nonetheless, Gotzmann independently presents a most detailed, nuanced, and carefully documented and critiqued account ofthe polemic and...