LEOPOLD ZUNZ: A PROFILE OF HIS CONTRIBUTION
This research examines the contribution of Leopold Zunz to Jewish scholarship. Zunz was a founder of modern Jewish historiography in the early nineteenth century.
The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Historiography
The modern historiography of Jews was begun in Germany in the nineteenth century by German Jewish historians (Zimmermann, 1989, pp. 423-440). Notable among these historians were Simon Dubnow (1860 1941), Heinrich Graetz (1817 18910, Isaac Jost (1793 1860), Nachman Krochmal (1785 1840), and Leopold Zunz (1794 1886). Prior to this time, history was essentially an unknown mode of thinking in traditional Jewish studies. The initiation of modern Jewish historiography, however, challenged Jewish identity (Meyer, 1988, pp. 160-175). Modern Jewish historiography held the potential to undermine the prevailing Jewish religious norms, and to demolish variations in Jewish legacies from the past. German historicism became a major shaper of Jewish historical writing through the work of Graetz, Jost, and Zunz. This scholarship brought the historians into conflict with the more traditional rabbis whose position and authority was undermined by the modern work. In the early nineteenth century, scholarship became a central element in the cause of Judaic reform (Schorsch, 1990, pp. 73-101). This Jewish scholarship movement was led by Isaac Jost and Leopold Zunz, who were preeminent among the first generation university trained teachers of Jewish history. This new learning created a powerful challenge to the established rabbinate. The new Jewish scholarship derived its validity from the reliability of the methods used in its creation and development. The most influential early works of this Jewish scholarship were Jost's multivolume history of the Jews, and the writings of Zunz (pp. 73-101). The early writings of Zunz were critical to the Jewish reform movement.
The careers of th...