Heinrich Graetz
Doctor Heinrich Graetz | |
---|---|
Breslau University, later University of Jena | |
Occupation(s) | Historian, principal, teacher, exegete |
Notable work | History of the Jews |
Spouse |
Marie Monasch (m. 1850) |
Children | 5, including Leo |
Heinrich Graetz (German:
Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (now
His magnum opus History of the Jews was the first Jewish history which threaded together a unified national history across the global Jewish communities. It was quickly translated into other languages and ignited worldwide interest in Jewish history, and later was used as a textbook in Israeli schools. As a result, Graetz was widely considered a Zionist or proto-Zionist, but historians have also noted his support for European assimilation.[2]
In 1869 the University of Breslau (Wrocław) granted him the title of Honorary Professor. In 1888 he was appointed an Honorary Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences.
Biography
Graetz received his first instruction at
At that time the controversy between Orthodoxy and Reform Judaism was at its height, and Graetz, true to the principles which he had imbibed from Hirsch, began his literary career by writing contributions to the "Orient", edited by Julius Fürst, in which he severely criticized the Reform party, as well as Geiger's text-book of the Mishnah ("Orient", 1844). These contributions and his championship of the Conservative cause during the time of the Reform Rabbinical Conferences made him popular with the Orthodox party. This was especially the case when he agitated for a vote of confidence to be given to Zecharias Frankel after he had left in protest the Second Rabbinical Conference in Frankfurt in 1845 after the majority had decided against prayers in Hebrew, and for prayers in the vernacular.[1] After Graetz had obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Jena (his dissertation being "De Auctoritate et Vi Quam Gnosis in Judaismum Habuerit," 1845; published a year later under the title "Gnosticismus und Judenthum"), he was made principal of a religious school founded by the Conservatives in Breslau, again under the leadership of Frankel.[1] In the same year he was invited to preach a trial sermon before the congregation of Gleiwitz, Silesia, but failed completely.
He remained in Breslau until 1848, when, upon the advice of a friend, he went to Vienna, purposing to follow a journalistic career. On the way he stopped at
In 1872 Graetz went to
This arraignment of Graetz had a decided effect upon the public. Even friends of the Jews, like
As usual he spent the summer of 1891 in Carlsbad; but alarming symptoms of heart disease forced him to discontinue his use of the waters. He went to Munich to visit his son Leo, a professor at the university of that city, and died there after a brief illness. He was buried in Breslau. Besides Leo, Graetz left three sons and one daughter.
Works
History of the Jews
Graetz is chiefly known as the Jewish historian, although he did considerable work in the field of
In spite of this reserve he gravely offended the Liberal party, which inferred, from articles that Graetz contributed to the
The fourth volume of the History of the Jews received a detailed review by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in a series of essays in Vols. II-IV (1855-8) of his monthly journal Jeschurun. In these essays, Hirsch argues that Graetz is guilty of sloppiness of scholarship: e.g., Graetz omits the second halves of quotations which, if quoted in their entirety, contradict his thesis. Graetz claims, on the basis of quotations from certain Talmudic sages, that they "were wont to do" something – despite sources explicitly to the contrary – and goes on to develop these suppositions into theories affecting the entire Torah tradition. Hirsch accuses Graetz of fabricating dates, rearranging generations, overstating results, misinterpreting and distorting the Talmudic tradition to serve his narrative needs. David N. Myers argues that Hirsch's criticisms of his one-time student's work were motivated by a complete difference of opinion on the value of historicism.[4] "Hirsch came to regard his erstwhile disciple as the embodiment of history's destructive tendencies."[5]
A translation into English was begun by
A five-volume English edition was published in London in 1891-92 as History of the Jews from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (5 vols.; edited and in part translated by Bella Löwy). According to a review in the January–April 1893 edition of Quarterly Review, it "was passing through the press in its English version, and had received the author's final touches, when Graetz died in September 1891".[6] In 1919, the Jordan Publishing Co. of New York published a two-volume "improved" edition, with a supplement of recent events by Dr. Max Raisin. Rabbi A. B. Rhine provided the English translation.
Exegesis
Graetz's historical studies, extending back to
The most characteristic features of Graetz's exegesis are his bold textual emendations, which often substitute something conjectural for the
Other literary work
Graetz had contributed scholarly articles on Judaism and history to the scholarly periodicals started by Frankel since his graduation from the university in 1846. He continued steadily in this task once the
Graetz's activity was not limited to his special field. He enriched other branches of Jewish science and wrote here and there on general literature or on questions of the day. To the field of general literature also belongs his essay on "
The Kompert Affair
Graetz's essay "Die Verjüngung des jüdischen Stammes", in Wertheimer-Kompert's Jahrbuch für Israeliten, Vol. X, Vienna, 1863 (reprinted with comments by Th. Zlocisti, in Jüdischer Volks-Kalender, p. 99, Brünn, 1903), caused a suit to be brought against him by Sebastian Brunner for libeling him as an anti-Semite. As Graetz was not an Austrian subject, the suit was nominally brought against Leopold Kompert as editor, and the latter was fined (30 December 1863).
Graetz had interpreted
This case, known as the "Kompert Affair," was important in defining the wedge between Orthodox Judaism and the nascent Conservative Judaism championed by the likes of Graetz and Zecharias Frankel. Thus, within the Jewish fold the lawsuit also had its consequences, as the Orthodox raised against Graetz the accusation of heresy because he had denied the personal character of the prophetic Messiah.[citation needed]
Legacy
Graetz's history became very popular and influential in its time. The material for Jewish history being so varied, the sources so scattered in the literatures of all nations, and the chronological sequence so often interrupted, made the presentation of this history as a whole a very difficult undertaking. Graetz performed his task skillfully, mastering most of the details while not losing sight of the whole. Another reason for the popularity of the work is its sympathetic treatment. Also, Graetz has been credited with finding a copying error in I Corinthians 1:12 which should have referred to a very early Christian teacher.[7] This history of the Jews is not written by a cool observer, but by a warm-hearted Jew. On the other hand, some of these commendable features are at the same time shortcomings. [according to whom?]
In his introduction to a 1975 volume of Graetz's essays translated into English, rabbi and historian Ismar Schorsch wrote of History of the Jews: "[It] still remains, a century later, the best single introduction to the totality of Jewish history.... The extraordinary combination of narrative skill and basic research which was the hallmark of Graetz's work has never been matched."[8]
Some characterize Graetz's main elements of Jewish experience through the ages to be 'suffering and spiritual scholarship', while later Jewish scholarly works like
Bibliography
- Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart: 11 vols. (History of the Jews; 11853–75), impr. and ext. ed., Leipzig: Leiner, 21900, reprint of the edition of last hand (1900): Berlin: arani, 1998, ISBN 3-7605-8673-2.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Encyclopaedia Judaica (2007, 2nd ed.) entry on "Graetz, Heinrich," by Shmuel Ettinger and Marcus Pyka
- ISBN 978-1-4008-3661-1. Retrieved 2023-09-17.
At the same time, during the second half of the nineteenth century a new variant of Jewish historiography developed that put passionate emphasis on the existence of a unified Jewish national history. Its beginnings are found in the work of the most important Jewish historian of the nineteenth century, Heinrich Graetz... It was this Graetz, in some places so altered as to be unrecognizable, that was to go through numerous editions in Hebrew and later be used as a textbook in Israeli schools. This explains why readers of the Hebrew editions often regarded Graetz as a Zionist. The truth is more complicated, however. His support for the construction of Palestine is as un- questionable as is his positive attitude toward the continuation of the Jewish nation. In addition, he reported enthusiastically on his journey to Palestine. But at the same time he felt himself to be a German who did not want to reverse the achievements of emancipation, rejected plans for the establishment of a Jewish state, and had no intention of leaving his homeland. "The fence around the Talmud makes every Jewish house in the world into a distinctly circumscribed Palestine," he had written in his Die Konstruktion der juedischen Geschichte (A Construction of Jewish History). Until recently, however, Israeli historians tried to present Graetz as a proto-Zionist. Yet it may be typical of Graetz's indecision regarding the question of a "return" to Palestine that in his fictional Correspondence with an English Lady regarding Judaism and Semitism, first published anonymously in 1883, he answered all his correspondent's questions, but left open the last one, in which she asked him about his attitude toward the construction of Palestine. Her comment, "So you haven't said anything indicating what you think about the Palestine question," is applicable to his general attitude with regard to this issue. The last sentence of the final letter, "You must later explain what you think about this," remained an unfulfilled demand.
- ^ "The Memoirs of B. L. Monasch of Krotoschin", edited and translated by Peter Fraenkel. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook (1979) 24 (1): 195-223; here: p. 213. doi: 10.1093/leobaeck/24.1.195.
- ^ David N. Myers, Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 30–34.
- ^ Myers, Resisting History, p. 31.
- ^ "Quarterly Review" (January & April 1893).
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(help) - ^ Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, III ii5 423 n.3; cf. p. 371 n.4, and IV3 77 n. I in Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, The Macmillan Company 1925, pp. 60-1. Cf Suetonius, Claudius 25.
- ^ Schorsch, "Ideology and History in the Age of Emancipation," introduction to The Structure of Jewish History, and Other Essays, by Heinrich Graetz, ed. and trans. Ismar Schorsch. New York: The Jewish Publication Society, 1975, p. 1.
- ^ Salo W. Baron, 94, Scholar of Jewish History, Dies, By Peter Steinfels, November 26, 1989, The New York Times
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Deutsch, Gotthard; Singer, Isidor (1901–1906). "Graetz, Heinrich (Hirsch)". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
- Encyclopaedia Judaica (2007, 2nd ed.) entry on "Graetz, Heinrich," by Shmuel Ettinger and Marcus Pyka
- Bibliography: Rippner, in the third edition of the first volume of Graetz's Geschichte;
- I. Abrahams, "H. Graetz, the Jewish Historian," The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 4 (Jan. 1892), pp. 165–203.
- Ph. Bloch, in the Index volume of the English translation of Graetz's work, History of the Jews Philadelphia, 1898;
- M. Wiener, Zur Würdigung des verfahrens G. . ., in Ben Chananja, 1863, Nos. 22, 23.
- S. W. Baron, History and Jewish Historians, 1964.
- Jeffrey C. Blutinger, Writing for the Masses: Heinrich Graetz, the Popularization of Jewish History, and the Reception of National Judaism. Ph.D. diss. (UCLA, 2003).
- Marcus Pyka, Jüdische Identität bei Heinrich Graetz (Göttingen 2008) (Jüdische Religion, Geschichte und Kultur (JRGK), 5).
- George Y. Kohler: Heinrich Graetz and the Kabbalah, in: Kabbalah - Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts, vol. 40, 2018, p. 107-130.