Yosef H. Yerushalmi's Zakhor— Some Observations

Abstract

I: FAITH OF THE FALLEN JEWSTHE FOLLOWING REMARKS represent some amateurish reflections concerning some of observations and assumptions found m Yosef H. Yerushalmi's Zakbor. They concern only quite a small part of this rich and thoughtful book, especially initial pages and its final part. In this framework only two topics m book will be addressed: assumption that history is of fallen Jews, and then stark distinction that Yerushalmi claims exists between premodern traditional Judaism and modern Jews' inclination toward history. Consequently, these forms of Judaism may hardly communicate. An attempt will be made to exemplify complexity of relationship between two forms of Judaism.The in history by fallen, an expression that reflects Yerushalmi's ironic understanding of modern interest in history,1 itself has a small history. According to a certain testimony, Gershom Scholem once remarked that in his classes at Hebrew University he taught reason but history.2 His shift from earlier reliance on paramount Knlightenment value-reason-to historical modernism is, to follow Reinhold Niebuhr's diagnosis, not so much confidence m reason as in history. The conception of a redemptive history informs most diverse forms of modern culture.3 In lieu of image of divine redeemer, it is now history, in its Hegelian form, that offers redemptive experience. Faith m history, or in historical research, dislocated, at least to a certain extent, traditional m a personal deity and worked with assumption that meaning or, according to another formulations, identities are hidden m or dramatically shaped by events that constitute history of a nation or a person. For a skeptical observer, however, two forms of are based on strong though rarely explicated hypotheses, which can hardly be proven. From this point of view, they are equal.How and why did this new faith emerge in Judaism? The new status attained by Jewish history in general economy of modern Judaism represents a major jump; it succeeded in establishing itself as a main, if dominant, dimension of identity for many modern Jews. This is part of a profound process of self-definition emerging m rapidly changing circumstances, in which recent history of Jews has been dramatically accelerated.4 The more dramatic changes are well known: Holocaust, shift from largest concentration of Jews in Europe to Asia and North America, establishment of state of Israel and massive emigration that liquidated whole communities (some of which existed for millennia), and emergence of American center of Judaism-in a word, new forms of struggle for personal, national, and cultural survival. These struggles were coupled with complex attempts at redefinition, Zionist, and more recent trends, mainly American, to search for an identity that does depend on earlier views of Diaspora or on a territorial solution of exilic condition. Such dramatic turns are unknown even in long and tortuous Jewish history prior and represent unparalleled accelerations of events. They were major ruptures that occasioned a search for antecedents, and thus protagonists of these events turned to history for examples. This turn is, psychologically speaking, a natural one. People try, especially in cases of dramatic changes and crises, to situate themselves in a wider framework m order to understand their personal or communal vicissitudes, some of which are quite unexpected. According to such a view, history as an academic profession is essential, and resort to examples from past reflects crises or turning points, related to occasional moments of self-understanding, though imposed mainly by external forces.Less dramatic, though still very important from point of view of ascent of history, and of what I call the historical Jew, is another development, characteristic of only a small part of Jewish communities, mainly in Central and Western Kurope: a gradual opening of some Jews and Christians toward more religiously neutral forms of society, as part of a more comprehensive process of secularization. …