The Future Of The German Jewish Past

Germany's acceptance of its direct responsibility for the Holocaust has strengthened its relationship with Israel and has led to a deep commitment to combat antisemitism and rebuild Jewish life in Germany. As we draw close to a time when there will be no more firsthand experience of the horrors of the Holocaust, there is great concern about what will happen when German responsibility turns into history. Will the present taboo against open antisemitism be lifted as collective memory fades? There are alarming signs of the rise of the far right, which includes blatantly antisemitic elements, already visible in public discourse. But it is mainly the radicalization of the otherwise moderate Muslim population of Germany and the entry of almost a million refugees since 2015 from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan that appears to make German society less tolerant and somewhat less inhibited about articulating xenophobic attitudes. The evidence is unmistakable--overt antisemitism is dramatically increasing once more. The Future of the German-Jewish Past deals with the formidable challenges created by these developments. It is conceptualized to offer a variety of perspectives and views on the question of the future of the German-Jewish past. The volume addresses topics such as antisemitism, Holocaust memory, historiography, and political issues relating to the future relationship between Jews, Israel, and Germany. While the central focus of this volume is Germany, the implications go beyond the German-Jewish experience and relate to some of the broader challenges facing modern societies today.

From its modest beginnings in 1818 Berlin, Wissenschaft des Judentums has burgeoned into a scholarly discipline pursued by a vast cadre of scholars. Now constituting a global community, these scholars continue to draw their inspiration from the determined pioneers of Wissenschaft des Judentums in nineteenth and twentieth Germany. Beyond setting the highest standards of philological and historiographical research, German Wissenschaft des Judentums had a seminal role in creating modern Jewish discourse in which cultural memory supplemented traditional Jewish learning. The secular character of modern Jewish Studies, initially pursued largely in German and subsequently in other vernacular languages (e.g. French, Dutch, Italian, modern Hebrew, Russian), greatly facilitated an exchange with non-Jewish scholars, and thereby encouraging mutual understanding and respect. The present volume is based on papers delivered at a conference, sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem, by scholars from North American, Europe, and Israel. The papers and attendant deliberations explored ramified historical and methodological issues. Taken as a whole, the volume represents a tribute to the two hundred year legacy of Wissenschaft des Judentums and its singular contribution to not only modern Jewish self-understand but also to the unfolding of humanistic cultural discourse.

Although Jews in early modern Germany produced little in the way of formal historiography, Jews nevertheless engaged the past for many reasons and in various and surprising ways. They narrated the past in order to enforce order, empower authority, and record the traditions of their communities. In this way, Jews created community structure and projected that structure into the future. But Jews also used the past as a means to contest the marginalization threatened by broader developments in the Christian society in which they lived. As the Reformation threw into relief serious questions about authority and tradition and as Jews continued to suffer from anti-Jewish mentality and politics, narration of the past allowed Jews to re-inscribe themselves in history and contemporary society. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including chronicles, liturgical works, books of customs, memorybooks, biblical commentaries, rabbinic responsa and community ledgers, this study offers a timely reassessment of Jewish community and identity during a frequently turbulent era. It engages, but then redirects, important discussions by historians regarding the nature of time and the construction and role of history and memory in pre-modern Europe and pre-modern Jewish civilization. This book will be of significant value, not only to scholars of Jewish history, but anyone with an interest in the social and cultural aspects of religious history.

Assesses the past, present, and future of German-Jewish relations in light of recent political charges and the opening up of historical resources

Departing from the recent critical literature on the emergence of a new German Jewry, this volume proposes a new perspective on the post-1980s phenomenon of re-emerging Jewish culture in Germany as a case study for wider developments in Europe and the international context.

An unexpected immigration wave of Jews from the former Soviet Union mostly in the 1990s has stabilized and enlarged Jewish life in Germany. Jewish kindergartens and schools were opened, and Jewish museums, theaters, and festivals are attracting a wide audience. No doubt: Jews will continue to live in Germany. At the same time, Jewish life has undergone an impressing transformation in the second half of the 20th century– from rejection to acceptance, but not without disillusionments and heated debates. And while the ‘new Jews of Germany,’ 90 percent of them of Eastern European background, are already considered an important factor of the contemporary Jewish diaspora, they still grapple with the shadow of the Holocaust, with internal cultural clashes and with difficulties in shaping a new collective identity. What does it mean to live a Jewish life in present-day Germany? How are Jewish thoughts, feelings, and practices reflected in contemporary arts, literature, and movies? What will remain of the former German Jewish cultural heritage? Who are the new Jewish elites, and how successful is the fight against anti-Semitism? This volume offers some answers.

A comprehensive account of Jewish life in a country that carries the legacy of being at the epicenter of the Holocaust. Originally published in German in 2012, this comprehensive history of Jewish life in postwar Germany provides a systematic account of Jews and Judaism from the Holocaust to the early 21st Century by leading experts of modern German-Jewish history. Beginning in the immediate postwar period with a large concentration of Eastern European Holocaust survivors stranded in Germany, the book follows Jews during the relative quiet period of the 50s and early 60s during which the foundations of new Jewish life were laid. Brenner’s volume goes on to address the rise of anti-Israel sentiments after the Six Day War as well as the beginnings of a critical confrontation with Germany’s Nazi past in the late 60s and early 70s, noting the relatively small numbers of Jews living in Germany up to the 90s. The contributors argue that these Jews were a powerful symbolic presence in German society and sent a meaningful signal to the rest of the world that Jewish life was possible again in Germany after the Holocaust. “This volume, which illuminates a multi-faceted panorama of Jewish life after 1945, will remain the authoritative reading on the subject for the time to come.” —Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung “An eminently readable work of history that addresses an important gap in the scholarship and will appeal to specialists and interested lay readers alike.” —Reading Religion “Comprehensive, meticulously researched, and beautifully translated.” —CHOICE

Nineteenth-century European thought, especially in Germany, was increasingly dominated by a new historicist impulse to situate every event, person, or text in its particular context. At odds with the transcendent claims of philosophy and--more significantly--theology, historicism came to be attacked by its critics for reducing human experience to a series of disconnected moments, each of which was the product of decidedly mundane, rather than sacred, origins. By the late nineteenth century and into the Weimar period, historicism was seen by many as a grinding force that corroded social values and was emblematic of modern society's gravest ills. Resisting History examines the backlash against historicism, focusing on four major Jewish thinkers. David Myers situates these thinkers in proximity to leading Protestant thinkers of the time, but argues that German Jews and Christians shared a complex cultural and discursive world best understood in terms of exchange and adaptation rather than influence. After examining the growing dominance of the new historicist thinking in the nineteenth century, the book analyzes the critical responses of Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, and Isaac Breuer. For this fascinating and diverse quartet of thinkers, historicism posed a stark challenge to the ongoing vitality of Judaism in the modern world. And yet, as they set out to dilute or eliminate its destructive tendencies, these thinkers often made recourse to the very tools and methods of historicism. In doing so, they demonstrated the utter inescapability of historicism in modern culture, whether approached from a Christian or Jewish perspective.