Johann Andreas Eisenmenger

Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654 in

In this work, Eisenmenger sought to expose the allegedly secret and nefarious practices of Jews, and he claimed that Judaism was a false religion that had been invented by the ancient Israelites in an attempt to deceive the world.

Financier Samuel Oppenheimer, one of the most influential Jewish members of the Court of the House of Habsburg, fearing that the book's publication would give additional strength to the prejudice against them, denounced it as a malicious libel, and tried to have the work banned. He failed, but subsequently his rival, the financier and rabbi Samson Wertheimer successfully petitioned Emperor Leopold I to have the book banned.

His work was widely read and had a significant influence on European attitudes toward Jews in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is considered an early example of modern anti-Semitism and played a role in shaping the negative stereotypes and prejudices that were held against Jews in Europe at the time. Despite being debunked by scholars, his work remains a controversial and influential text in the history of anti-Semitism.

Studies of rabbinical literature

The son of an official in the service of the

Later scholars cite two episodes during his sojourn in Amsterdam, which may or may not be apocryphal, to account for the formation of his anti-Judaic outlook. It is said that he was a witness, in 1681, to "otherwise unknown" attacks against Christianity by a senior rabbi there, identified as David Lida,^[2] and that he grew indignant on finding that three Christians he met had had themselves circumcised and converted to Judaism.^[2][5] Anti-Christian polemics were, uniquely to Europe, published in Amsterdam and Eisenmenger's anger was aroused when Lida quoted Rabbi Isaiah ben Abraham Horowitz to the effect that the archangel Samael, king of the devils, was a celestial representation of Christians.^[6]

Entdecktes Judenthum

The method Eisenmenger employed in this work has been called both 'coarsely literalist and non-contextual'

University of Heidelberg. Eisenmenger's purpose, he avowed, was to have Jews recognize the errors of their ways and what he conceived to be the truth of Christianity.^[11] To this end he urged that several measures be undertaken, including restricting their economic liberties and rights, banning them from writing criticisms of Christianity, and proscribing both their synagogues and law courts.^[1]

The book was designed not only to reveal to Christians the existence of elements in Jewish rabbinical thought which Eisenmenger thought injurious to the Christian faith, but also to appeal to a free-thinking secular public, and to enlightened Jews whom he wished to shock by his revelations. In particular he hoped to use his evidence in order to promote the conversion of 'honest Jews' to his own faith. Paul Lawrence Rose

'Eisenmenger proceeded to amass quotations from the Talmud and other Hebrew sources revealing to all how the Jewish religion was barbarous, superstitious, and even murderous. All this was done in an apparently scholarly and reasonable way that belied the author's evident preoccupation (like

ritual murder of Christian children and poisoning of wells. While piously insisting that the Jews must not be converted by cruel methods, Eisenmenger blithely recommended abolishing their present 'freedom in trade,' which was making them 'lords' over the Germans. He demanded too an immediate ban on their synagogues, public worship, and communal leaders and rabbis.'^[12]

Meanwhile, two Jewish converts to Christianity in Berlin had brought charges against their former co-religionists of having blasphemed Jesus. King Frederick William I took the matter very seriously, and ordered an investigation. Eisenmenger's heirs applied to the king; and the latter tried to induce the emperor to repeal the injunction against the book, but did not succeed. He therefore ordered in 1711 a new edition of 3,000 copies to be printed in Berlin at his expense, but as there was an imperial prohibition against printing the book in the German empire, the title page gave as the place of publication Königsberg, which was beyond the boundaries of the empire. Almost forty years later the original edition was released.

Of the many polemical works written by non-Jews against Judaism, Eisenmenger's has remained the one which is most thoroughly documented. Precisely because of its extensive citations of primary sources in their original languages, with facing translations, it has long furnished antisemites with their main arguments. Eisenmenger undoubtedly possessed a great deal of knowledge. Jacob Katz writes:

‘Eisenmenger was acquainted with all the literature a Jewish scholar of standing would have known ... [He] surpassed his [non-Jewish] predecessors in his mastery of the sources and his ability to interpret them tendentiously. Contrary to accusations that have been made against him, he does not falsify his sources."^[21]

There are no serious challenges to the authenticity of the sources Eisenmenger cited. Katz again writes:

Eisenmenger neither forged his sources nor pulled his accusations out of thin air. There was a nucleus of truth in all his claims: the Jews lived in a world of legendary or mythical concepts, of ethical duality-following different standards of morality in their internal and external relationships- and they dreamed with imaginative speculation of their future in the time of the Messiah. Similare claims, however, could have been made against the Christian as well. One critic, a Christian theologian himself , said rightly that using Eisenmenger’s method, an Entdecktes Christenthum could easily have been written.'^[22]

What are often challenged are the many inferences he made from these texts. It is claimed that he tore citations from their context, whole the correctness of specific interpretations and, more importantly, his use of a relatively small number of texts within the huge chain of rabbinical commentary to characterise Judaism as a whole is challenged. In regard to the first two points, Siegfried, for one, argued that:

'Taken as a whole, it is a collection of scandals. Some passages are misinterpreted; others are insinuations based on one-sided inferences; and even if this were not the case, a work which has for its object the presentation of the dark side of Jewish literature can not give us a proper understanding of Judaism.'^[23]

In regard to the third point, G. Dalman wrote that:

'it could no more be called a faithful representation of Judaism than an indiscriminate collection of everything superstitious and repulsive within Christian literature could be termed characteristic of Christianity'^[24]

Use by later anti-Semitic writers

The Catholic

An English abridgment of Eisenmenger's volumes was published by John Peter Stehelin in 1748 under the title The Traditions of the Jews, with the Expositions and Doctrines of the Rabbins.

A 19th century German edition of Entdecktes Judent[h]um, edited by F. X. Schieferl, was published by Otto Brandner, Dresden, 1893.

Further works

Eisenmenger edited with Johannes Leusden the unvocalized Hebrew Bible, Amsterdam, 1694, and wrote a Lexicon Orientale Harmonicum, which to this day has not been published.

References