Joseph Sommer Modern Jewish History The Origins of the Modern Jew

Professor Karlip

For much of history, the Jew was content to remain secluded from society at large, living among his brethren in isolated communities. However, as the modern age dawned, many Jews found the ability and the desire to venture out into the secular world. These Jews were driven by a variety of motivations and faced many different challenges as they attempted to integrate into society. One of the greatest challenges these first modern Jews were faced with was a direct conflict between their religious identity and the new world they now found themselves in. Exposure to new ideas, prejudices, and pressures would prove to be difficult tests of the Jews identity and faith. For most Jews who ventured into the modern world, serious thought was required to reconcile their Jewishness with the secular and Christian ideas they so valued. Michael Meyer recognizes that the struggle to reconcile the secular and Jewish identities is a crucial challenge of the modern Jew. In The Origins of the Modern Jew, Meyer examines the inner conflict of a number of notable modern German Jews in an attempt to achieve a greater understanding of what Judaism meant to these great figures. In providing in-depth case studies of such personalities as Moses Mendelssohn and David Friedlander, Meyer manages not only to showcase the struggles of a few great men and women, but also to shed light on their unique identities and environments that were instrumental in shaping their accomplishments. Meyer sets the stage for his first character, Moses Mendelssohn, by describing the atmosphere in Germany before the advent of this modern, intellectual Jew. The spirit of the enlightenment had produced sentiments that eased anti-Jewish prejudice among many German

thinkers. These men came to believe that the Jews were no less capable of excellence than Christians or, indeed, humans. This belief is exemplified in the publication of Christian Gellerts Leben der Schwedishen Grafeinn von G** and Gotthold Lessings Die Juden, both of which portrayed imagined virtuous Jews. It was into this environment that Mendelssohn entered, ready, willing, and able to provide these Christian intellectuals with living proof of their convictions. However, despite the deep respect and eager friendship the German elite felt for Mendelssohn, many were unable to countenance his Jewish status. Meyer chronicles the public challenges Mendelssohn endured as well as his defense of his ancestral religion. Mendelssohn was well aware that harsh criticism of Christianity would harm both him and his fellow Jews. On the other hand, he could not remain silent either. Meyer traces the history of Mendelssohns responses to his various challengers which culminated with the publication of his Jerusalem, which laid out his philosophy of Judaism as well as his wish for a society founded on religious tolerance. Meyer also highlights the conflict between Mendelssohns secular values and the Jewish community. When the government ordered that corpses be left unburied for a short time to determine if, in fact, the body was a corpse, Mendelssohn was asked to intervene on behalf of the Jewish community who cannot delay burying their dead. However, here he refused because he believed that the order was important to uphold in order to ensure that no one was buried alive. Additionally, in Jerusalem, Mendelssohn decried the extent of rabbinical authority and the practices of excommunication and prohibiting heretical works. After Mendelssohn passed, it was not immediately clear who his successor should be. Meyer focuses on the struggles of David Friedlander as Friedlander attempted to achieve emancipation for the Jews and modernize the Jewish religion. Friedlander was much more

radical than Mendelssohn was. While Mendelssohn tried desperately to avoid antagonizing anyone and only wanted to prove with his intellect and his virtue the capabilities of the Jew, Friedlander was an active agitator for change. As time passed, Friedlander became less religious, and eventually stopped practicing Judaism altogether. Meyer discusses in detail Friedlanders motivations and beliefs about Judaism and the revealed law and how he came to disagree with his mentor Mendelssohn, and deny the divinity of the commandments. Friedlanders attempts to reform Jewish practices and the education of Jewish youth are viewed through the lens of bringing Jews closer to Christians in order to gain political rights. Friedlander fought with both secular society on behalf of the Jews as well as with the Jews on behalf of integration into society. Friedlander, as Meyer sees him, was a natural outgrowth of Mendelssohns achievements. Mendelssohn had shown the German intelligentsia the virtuous Jewish philosopher they had been looking for. This accorded the Jews a new level of respect, but not the political freedoms that the Christians shared. Friedlander assimilated the secularism from his mentor, but could not see the value in maintaining the status quo within Judaism. His goals required pushing past Mendelssohns, to gain emancipation for the Jews, and if doing so required reforming the Jewish religion to more closely resemble Christianity, Friedlander could not see a problem with that. Meyer is aware that Friedlanders beliefs did not arise in a vacuum and is sensitive to the effects that Friedlanders wealth, status, and goals influenced his beliefs and actions. By the end of Friedlanders life, the Rationalism of the Enlightenment had been replaced with Romanticism and Nationalism was on the rise. Meyer turns to a discussion of Mendelssohns children and especially his daughters and their extended network of friends who embraced the Romantic ideals of their time and ended up rejecting their Judaism in favor of

Christianity. Of Mendelssohns three sons, only one, Joseph, remained Jewish, and of his sons, only one did not convert. None of Mendelssohns sons made a lasting contribution to Judaism. Their conversions were made for largely practical reasons rather than because of any religious convictions. While they did not hold any particular attachment to Jewish belief, they considered themselves Jews even after their conversion. This, however, was not the case for two of Mendelssohns three daughters, Dorothea and Henriette, who fully embraced Romanticism and converted to Christianity out of devotion. Mendolssohns middle daughter, Recha, rejected the Romantic ideals and remained Jewish. Dorothea is examined by Meyers largely in light of her dissatisfaction with the experience of religious Judaism. Henriette remained Jewish for a time, but eventually gave herself fully over to Christianity. The children of Mendelssohn, as well as the other characters examined by Meyers at this juncture, Henriette Herz and Rahel Varnhagen, are seen as modern and intelligent consumers and generators of Romantic literature. The changes German culture experienced are not merely told, they are experienced through the writings of Meyers subjects. Rather than being told which of Mendelssohns children converted or even why they converted, the reader is given a full explanation for how they came to believe as they did. Meyer humanizes his history, fleshing out the environments and upbringings of his subjects so that their decisions can be fully understood. After shedding light on the motivations and drives that led many of Mendelssohns famous successors to fail to remain true to Judaism in the face of modernity, Meyer turns to the lesser known men who succeeded in carrying on Mendelssohns original mission. These men are portrayed as reacting to those who left Judaism after becoming secularized. The Maskilim sought to attain a middle ground between abandoning the faith and remaining isolated from secular

ideals. Meyer stresses the struggles of the Maskilim to achieve a standard of Jewish enlightenment that could be accepted by society as well as by the Rabbis. Meyers final case study traces the development of Leopold Zunzs character and accomplishments. Zunz and a number of fellow intellectuals formed a group called the Verein. They wanted to find a new justification for Judaism, just as Mendelssohn had done. The Verein members had similar goals to the old Maskilim. The Verein attempted to reform Jewish education and modernize the Jewish community. In the end, however, the Verein failed even as anti-Jewish sentiment rose among the secular community. Michael Meyers The Origins of the Modern Jew is almost not a history book at all. It explains where other books merely inform. Eschewing a plain historical account of the various early modern Jews in Germany, Meyer provides a full picture of the motivations, drives, and beliefs of these influential figures. The book reads more like a novel than a scholarly text. The characters are detailed with a depth that is obviously characteristic of every human being but just as obviously missing from many historical accounts. By depicting the inner struggle to define an identity that is both modern and Jewish, Meyer makes clear the very different difficulties that his subjects faced as well as how and why they made their fateful choices. In this endeavor, Meyer chose to use sources that were written by contemporaries of his subjects. Whenever possible, it seems, Meyer drew from primary sources to most accurately convey the thoughts of his subjects. The end result leaves the reader with more than just the knowledge of what Moses Mendelssohn or David Friedlander did, but rather who they were and why they chose the paths they chose and how they could not have chosen anything else.

Meyers method of historiography makes for more than just compelling reading. His book presents insights into human character. Each individual in the book is traced in such a way as to highlight how they defined themselves. It is this identity that Meyer seeks to understand. Meyer realizes that to provide an accurate account of the struggle to create an identity that synthesizes Judaism and modernity, each of his subjects own identities have to be taken into account. The men and women described in the book were not scientists in a lab, dissecting Judaism and secular philosophies and grafting them together. Each of them had their own unique understanding of what it meant to be a Jew and what a secular human being should strive for. It was this unique identity that they needed to reconcile with their environments which were also unique to these different figures. As the times changed, additional perspective was gained. Moses Mendelssohn was a shining example of how a Jew could go out into the world and associate with the greatest Christian minds of his time and retain his Jewishness. On this basis alone, it might seem that secularization could only be good for the Jews, gaining them respect in the outside world. However, Friedlanders deism and the conversion of Mendelssohns children and the salon Jewesses soon demonstrated the folly of unchecked assimilation. It was into this environment of anti-secularization that the Maskilim entered with the goal of convincing the now wary Jews that Aufklarung could be achieved without assimilation. Meyer recognizes that not only is the environment of his subjects important, but that each individual has his own personalities and defines themselves by different values. Mendelssohns determination to be an exemplar of virtue, Friedlanders issues with the status and class of the common Jew, the ecstatic love of the Romantics, Meyer takes care to flesh out as many factors as he can to provide a full picture of why his subjects believed and acted as they did.

The result is a work that is not only informative, but entertaining. More than that, Meyer makes the history feel real and tangible. These people were human beings with human motivations and human failings that arose from their upbringings and surroundings just like anyone living today. The failures of these individuals could be our own just as well as their successes could be ours. By focusing on the identity of these figures, above all, Meyer makes his account feel complete. Thus, Meyers attempt to view history through the lens of identity is a success. His study is a synthesis of history and humanity that is eminently readable. The work can perhaps best be summed up as a history of early German-Jewish modernization seen through a chain of connected biographies. The biographies are not too long as to be tedious, but rather succeed in showcasing the mental states that drove these important figures. History is created by people, and reading this book properly introduces the reader to the people who created the history of Jewish Enlightenment from the mid-1700s to the early 1800s. Though the book was extremely interesting, describing a persons life in any detail is a lengthy affair. In a book such as this one, which studies numerous individuals in some depth, the broader picture becomes a necessary sacrifice. There are glimpses throughout the book of how the greater Jewish community was reacting to the various influences of these great figures and to the cultural shifts that occurred from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. But these are mere glimpses. The reaction of the Christian population is also largely left untold, save for a few who interacted personally with Meyers subjects. The book is a fantastic method of understanding the lives of its characters, but not as helpful in understanding the bigger picture. What did the German laymen think of Mendelssohn? Did they know of him at all? For that matter, Meyer does

not mention what the average Jew thought of Mendelssohn or of the Enlightenment, sticking to the opinions of important Rabbis instead. To be sure, the outside world is mentioned more than a few times, but here, it seems, the emphasis on individual identity backfires. In almost all such cases, it seems as if the reader is seeing the general population through the eyes of the character he is reading about. Their identities are so strong that they color the perception of the actions of their communities. It is also possible that this is, again, merely the result of focusing on a single tree amidst the forest. By highlighting the humanity and depth of his subjects, Meyer makes the reader crave similar treatment for everyone else. This is, of course, not a condemnation of Meyers method. The inequality of attention between some figures and others should not be rectified by backing away from those in focus. There is only so much that can be seen in a single book, and Meyer succeeds in making the most of his pages. The perceived problem mentioned above is only a call for more writing in Meyers style. Michael Meyers The Origin of the Modern Jew is a fascinating history that understands that nothing happens in a vacuum. Meyer does not list facts, he builds narrative. By focusing on individuals in detail, he shows how their individual struggles and identities shaped their visions for the ideal identity of a secularized Jew. Meyer set out with a simple objective: to figure out what Jewishness meant to a number of important figures whose actions had already been recorded by many other historical accounts. In accomplishing this goal, Meyer achieved much more than an understanding of his subjects beliefs about the nature of Judaism. The Origin of the Modern Jew is a book about identity. The identity of the Jew, the identity of a Rationalist, of a Romantic, of a German, of a Maskil. In trying to find what Jewishness meant to these

individuals, Meyer takes the reader on a tour of what everything else meant to them, as well, and that makes all the difference.