Leo Baeck and Christianity

Abstract

The July workshop in 2006 aimed at analysing one specific Jewish approach to define its essence and identity as it has been presented by Leo Baeck (1873-1956), generally considered to have been the last great exponent of German Liberal Judaism. Here we focus on the attempt to evaluate the connection of Liberal Jewish Theology and Liberal Christian Theology at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This will serve as background in order to explain Baeck's contribution to the Jewish-Christian dialogue. In order to understand the specific situation of German Jewish life and thinking before the Second World War, we have to keep in mind that German Jewry underwent a twofold revolution: the encounter with both culture and society of its Christian environment during the emancipation period (1780-1871). Speaking in political terms, the emancipation of Jews in Germany resulted in the abolishment of civil autonomy for Jewish communities on the one hand and the end of the feudal status of German Jewry on the other. With the creation of the modern German state, Jews became integrated into the legal, economic and social system of a Christian society. Although one must assert that the fruits of Jewish emancipation remained quite incomplete and the social integration of Jews was somewhat partial, the nineteenth century can nevertheless be seen as a period of intense cultural productivity of German Jewry. Many of the religious movements of modern times Reform, Conservative and Neo-orthodoxy were brought into being by German Jewish thought. One of the outstanding results of Jewish intellectual endeavour in the nineteenth century was the establishment of the Science of Judaism ( Wissenschaft des Judentums ), a school of thought which developed the idea of an evolutionary process of religious thought within Judaism against the static idea of a Jewish faith that is totally based on an unquestionable act of revelation. Thus, the religious crisis in nineteenth-century German Judaism was a result of both the political as well as social changes and the lack of accessibility of an ancient Jewish faith. It was the great achievement of the Science of Judaism to offer an approach for redefining Jewish identity in a way