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JEWISH HISTORY
JEWISH HISTORY S. M. DUBNOW PREFACE TO THE GERMAN
TRANSLATION
The author of the present essay S. M. Dubnow occupies a well-nigh
dominating position in Russian-Jewish literature as an historian and
an acute critic. His investigations into the history of the
Polish-Russian Jews especially his achievements in the history of
Chassidism have been of fundamental importance in these departments.
What raises Mr. Dubnow far above the status of the professional
historian and awakens the reader's lively interest in him is not so
much the matter of his books as the manner of presentation. It is
rare to meet with an historian in whom scientific objectivity and
thoroughness are so harmoniously combined with an ardent temperament
and plastic ability. Mr. Dubnow's scientific activity first and last
is a striking refutation of the widespread opinion that identifies
attractiveness of form in the work of a scholar with superficiality of
content. Even his strictly scientific investigations besides offering
the scholar a wealth of new suggestions form instructive and
entertaining reading matter for the educated layman. In his critical
essays Mr. Dubnow shows himself to be possessed of keen psychologic
insight. By virtue of this quality of delicate perception he aims to
assign to every historical fact its proper place in the line of
development and so establish the bond between it and the general
history of mankind. This psychologic ability contributes vastly to the
interest aroused by Mr. Dubnow's historical works outside of the
limited circle of scholars. There is a passage in one of his books[1]
in which in his incisive manner he expresses his views on the limits
and tasks of historical writing. As the passage bears upon the methods
employed in the present essay and at the same time is a
characteristic specimen of our author's style I take the liberty of
quoting:
"The popularization of history is by no means to be pursued to the
detriment of its severely scientific treatment. What is to be guarded
against is the notion that tedium is inseparable from the scientific
method. I have always been of the opinion that the dulness commonly
looked upon as the prerogative of scholarly inquiries is not an
inherent attribute. In most cases it is conditioned not by the nature
of the subject under investigation but by the temper of the
investigator. Often indeed the tediousness of a learned disquisition
is intentional: it is considered one of the polite conventions of the
academic guild and by many is identified with scientific thoroughness
and profound learning.... If in general deadening hide-bound caste
methods not seldom the cover for poverty of thought and lack of
cleverness are reprehensible they are doubly reprehensible in
history. The history of a people is not a mere mental discipline like
botany or mathematics but a living science a _magistra vitae_
leading straight to national self-knowledge and acting to a certain
degree upon the national character. History is a science _by_ the
people _for_ the people and therefore its place is the open
forum not the scholar's musty closet. We relate the events of the
past to the people not merely to a handful of archaeologists and
numismaticians. We work for national self-knowledge not for our own
intellectual diversion."
[1] In the introduction to his _Historische Mitteilungen
Vorarbeiten zu einer Geschichte der pol-nischrussischen
Juden_.
These are the principles that have guided Mr. Dubnow in all his works
and he has been true to them in the present essay which exhibits in a
remarkably striking way the author's art of making "all things seem
fresh and new important and attractive." New and important his essay
undoubtedly is. The author attempts for the first time a psychologic
characterization of Jewish history. He endeavors to demonstrate the
inner connection between events and develop the ideas that underlie
them or to use his own expression lay bare the soul of Jewish
history which clothes itself with external events as with a bodily
envelope. Jewish history has never before been considered from this
philosophic point of view certainly not in German literature. The
present work therefore cannot fail to prove stimulating. As for the
poet's other requirement attractiveness it is fully met by the work
here translated. The qualities of Mr. Dubnow's style as described
above are present to a marked degree. The enthusiasm flaming up in
every line coupled with his plastic figurative style and his
scintillating conceits which lend vivacity to his presentation is
bound to charm the reader. Yet in spite of the racy style even the
layman will have no difficulty in discovering that it is not a clever
journalist an artificer of well-turned phrases who is speaking to
him but a scholar by profession whose foremost concern is with
historical truth and whose every statement rests upon accurate
scientific knowledge; not a bookworm with pale academic blood
trickling through his veins but a man who with unsoured mien with
fresh buoyant delight offers the world the results laboriously
reached in his study after all evidences of toil and moil have been
carefully removed; who derives inspiration from the noble and the
sublime in whatever guise it may appear and who knows how to
communicate his inspiration to others.
The translator lays this book of an accomplished and spirited
historian before the German public. He does so in the hope that it
will shed new light upon Jewish history even for professional
scholars. He is confident that in many to whom our unexampled past of
four thousand years' duration is now _terra incognita_ it will
arouse enthusiastic interest and even to those who like the
translator himself differ from the author in religious views it will
furnish edifying and suggestive reading. J. F.
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The English translation of Mr. Dubnow's Essay is based upon the
authorized German translation which was made from the original
Russian. It is published under the joint auspices of the Jewish
Publication Society of America and the Jewish Historical Society of
England. H. S.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE GERMAN TRANSLATION
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
I
THE RANGE OF JEWISH HISTORY
Historical and Unhistorical Peoples
Three Groups of Nations
The "Most Historical" People
Extent of Jewish History
II
THE CONTENT OF JEWISH HISTORY
Two Periods of Jewish History
The Period of Independence
The Election of the Jewish People
Priests and Prophets
The Babylonian Exile and the Scribes
The Dispersion
Jewish History and Universal History
Jewish History Characterized
III
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JEWISH HISTORY
The National Aspect of Jewish History
The Historical Consciousness
The National Idea and National Feeling
The Universal Aspect of Jewish History
An Historical Experiment
A Moral Discipline
Humanitarian Significance of Jewish History
Schleiden and George Eliot
IV
THE HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS
Three Primary Periods
Four Composite Periods
V
THE PRIMARY OR BIBLICAL PERIOD
Cosmic Origin of the Jewish Religion
Tribal Organization
Egyptian Influence and Experiences
Moses
Mosaism a Religious and Moral as well as a Social and Political
System
National Deities
The Prophets and the two Kingdoms
Judaism a Universal Religion
VI
THE SECONDARY OR SPIRITUAL-POLITICAL PERIOD
Growth of National Feeling
Ezra and Nehemiah
The Scribes
Hellenism
The Maccabees
Sadducees Pharisees and Essenes
Alexandrian Jews
Christianity
VII
THE TERTIARY TALMUDIC OR NATIONAL-RELIGIOUS
PERIOD
The Isolation of Jewry and Judaism
The Mishna
The Talmud
Intellectual Activity in Palestine and Babylonia
The Agada and the Midrash
Unification of Judaism
VIII
THE GAONIC PERIOD OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE ORIENTAL JEWS (500-980)
The Academies
Islam
Karaism
Beginning of Persecutions in Europe
Arabic Civilization in Europe
IX
THE RABBINIC-PHILOSOPHICAL PERIOD OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE SPANISH
JEWS (980-1492)
The Spanish Jews
The Arabic-Jewish Renaissance
The Crusades and the Jews
Degradation of the Jews in Christian Europe
The Provence
The Lateran Council
The Kabbala
Expulsion from Spain
X
THE RABBINIC-MYSTICAL PERIOD OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE GERMAN-POLISH
JEWS (1492-1789)
The Humanists and the Reformation
Palestine an Asylum for Jews
Messianic Belief and Hopes
Holland a Jewish Centre
Poland and the Jews
The Rabbinical Authorities of Poland
Isolation of the Polish Jews
Mysticism and the Practical Kabbala
Chassidism
Persecutions and Morbid Piety
XI
THE MODERN PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY)
The French Revolution
The Jewish Middle Ages
Spiritual and Civil Emancipation
The Successors of Mendelssohn
Zunz and the Science of Judaism
The Modern Movements outside of Germany
The Jew in Russia
His Regeneration
Anti-Semitism and Judophobia
XII
THE TEACHINGS OF JEWISH HISTORY
Jewry a Spiritual Community
Jewry Indestructible
The Creative Principle of Jewry
The Task of the Future
The Jew and the Nations
The Ultimate Ideal
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
What is Jewish History? In the first place what does it offer as to
quantity and as to quality? What are its range and content and what
distinguishes it in these two respects from the history of other
nations? Furthermore what is the essential meaning what the spirit
of Jewish History? Or to put the question in another way to what
general results are we led by the aggregate of its facts considered
not as a whole but genetically as a succession of evolutionary
stages in the consciousness and education of the Jewish people?
If we could find precise answers to these several questions they
would constitute a characterization of Jewish History as accurate as
is attainable. To present such a characterization succinctly is the
purpose of the following essay.
JEWISH HISTORY
AN ESSAY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
I
THE RANGE OF JEWISH HISTORY
Le peuple juif n'est pas seulement considerable par son
antiquite mais il est encore singulier en sa duree qui a
toujours continue depuis son origine jusqu'a maintenant ...
S'etendant depuis les premiers temps jusqu'aux derniers
l'histoire des juifs enferme dans sa duree celle de toutes nos
histoires.--PASCAL _Pensees_ II 7.
To make clear the range of Jewish history it is necessary to set down
a few general elementary definitions by way of introduction.
It has long been recognized that a fundamental difference exists
between historical and unhistorical peoples a difference growing out
of the fact of the natural inequality between the various elements
composing the human race. Unhistorical is the attribute applied to
peoples that have not yet broken away or have not departed very far
from the state of primitive savagery as for instance the barbarous
races of Asia and Africa who were the prehistoric ancestors of the
Europeans or the obscure untutored tribes of the present like the
Tartars and the Kirghiz. Unhistorical peoples then are ethnic groups
of all sorts that are bereft of a distinctive spiritual
individuality and have failed to display normal independent capacity
for culture. The term historical on the other hand is applied to the
nations that have had a conscious purposeful history of appreciable
duration; that have progressed stage by stage in their growth and in
the improvement of their mode and their views of life; that have
demonstrated mental productivity of some sort and have elaborated
principles of civilization and social life more or less rational;
nations in short representing not only zoologic but also spiritual
types.[2]
[2] "The primitive peoples that change with their environment
constantly adapting themselves to their habitat and to
external nature have no history.... Only those nations and
states belong to history which display self-conscious action;
which evince an inner spiritual life by diversified
manifestations; and combine into an organic whole what they
receive from without and what they themselves originate."
(Introduction to Weber's _Allgemeine Weltgeschichte_ i
pp. 16-18.)
Chronologically considered these latter nations of a higher type
are usually divided into three groups: 1 the most ancient civilized
peoples of the Orient such as the Chinese the Hindoos the
Egyptians the Chaldeans; 2 the ancient or classic peoples of the
Occident the Greeks and the Romans; and 3 the modern peoples the
civilized nations of Europe and America of the present day. The most
ancient peoples of the Orient standing "at the threshold of history"
were the first heralds of a religious consciousness and of moral
principles. In hoary antiquity when most of the representatives of
the human kind were nothing more than a peculiar variety of the class
mammalia the peoples called the most ancient brought forth recognized
forms of social life and a variety of theories of living of fairly
far-reaching effect. All these culture-bearers of the Orient soon
disappeared from the surface of history. Some (the Chaldeans
Phoenicians and Egyptians) were washed away by the flood of time and
their remnants were absorbed by younger and more vigorous peoples.
Others (the Hindoos and Persians) relapsed into a semi-barbarous
state; and a third class (the Chinese) were arrested in their growth
and remained fixed in immobility. The best that the antique Orient had
to bequeath in the way of spiritual possessions fell to the share of
the classic nations of the West the Greeks and the Romans. They
greatly increased the heritage by their own spiritual achievements
and so produced a much more complex and diversified civilization
which has served as the substratum for the further development of the
better part of mankind. Even the classic nations had to step aside as
soon as their historical mission was fulfilled. They left the field
free for the younger nations with greater capability of living which
at that time had barely worked their way up to the beginnings of a
civilization. One after the other during the first two centuries of
the Christian era the members of this European family of nations
appeared in the arena of history. They form the kernel of the
civilized part of mankind at the present day.
Now if we examine this accepted classification with a view to finding
the place belonging to the Jewish people in the chronological series
we meet with embarrassing difficulties and finally arrive at the
conclusion that its history cannot be accommodated within the compass
of the classification. Into which of the three historical groups
mentioned could the Jewish people be put? Are we to call it one of the
most ancient one of the ancient or one of the modern nations? It is
evident that it may lay claim to the first description as well as to
the second and the last. In company with the most ancient nations of
the Orient the Jewish people stood at the "threshold of history." It
was the contemporary of the earliest civilized nations the Egyptians
and the Chaldeans. In those remote days it created and spread a
religious world-idea underlying an exalted social and moral system
surpassing everything produced in this sphere by its Oriental
contemporaries. Again with the classical Greeks and Romans it forms
the celebrated historical triad universally recognized as the source
of all great systems of civilization. Finally in fellowship with the
nations of to-day it leads an historical life striding onward in the
path of progress without stay or interruption. Deprived of political
independence it nevertheless continues to fill a place in the world
of thought as a distinctly marked spiritual individuality as one of
the most active and intelligent forces. How then are we to
denominate this omnipresent people which from the first moment of
its historical existence up to our days a period of thirty-five
hundred years has been developing continuously. In view of this
Methuselah among the nations whose life is co-extensive with the
whole of history how are we to dispose of the inevitable barriers
between "the most ancient" and "the ancient" between "the ancient"
and "the modern" nations--the fateful barriers which form the
milestones on the path of the historical peoples and which the Jewish
people has more than once overstepped?
A definition of the Jewish people must needs correspond to the
aggregate of the concepts expressed by the three group-names most
ancient ancient and modern. The only description applicable to it is
"the historical nation of all times" a description bringing into
relief the contrast between it and all other nations of modern and
ancient times whose historical existence either came to an end in
days long past or began at a date comparatively recent. And granted
that there are "historical" and "unhistorical" peoples then it is
beyond dispute that the Jewish people deserves to be called "the most
historical" (_historicissimus_). If the history of the world be
conceived as a circle then Jewish history occupies the position of
the diameter the line passing through its centre and the history of
every other nation is represented by a chord marking off a smaller
segment of the circle. The history of the Jewish people is like an
axis crossing the history of mankind from one of its poles to the
other. As an unbroken thread it runs through the ancient civilization
of Egypt and Mesopotamia down to the present-day culture of France
and Germany. Its divisions are measured by thousands of years.
Jewish history then in its range or better in its duration
presents an unique phenomenon. It consists of the longest series of
events ever recorded in the annals of a single people. To sum up its
peculiarity briefly it embraces a period of thirty-five hundred
years and in all this vast extent it suffers no interruption. At
every point it is alive full of sterling content. Presently we shall
see that in respect to content too it is distinguished by
exceptional characteristics.
II
THE CONTENT OF JEWISH HISTORY
From the point of view of content or qualitative structure Jewish
history it is well known falls into two parts. The dividing point
between the two parts is the moment in which the Jewish state
collapsed irretrievably under the blows of the Roman Empire (70 C.
E.). The first half deals with the vicissitudes of a nation which
though frequently at the mercy of stronger nations still maintained
possession of its territory and government and was ruled by its own
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