Heinrich Graetz
Heinrich Graetz was a German exegete and one of the first modern historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective.
Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions, Grand Duchy of Posen, in Prussia, he attended Breslau University, but since Jews at that time were barred from receiving Ph.D.s there, he obtained his doctorate from the University of Jena. After 1845 he was principal of the Jewish Orthodox school of the Breslau community, and later taught history at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau.
His magnum opus History of the Jews was the first Jewish history which threaded together a unified national history across the global Jewish communities. It was quickly translated into other languages and ignited worldwide interest in Jewish history, and later was used as a textbook in Israeli schools. As a result, Graetz was widely considered a Zionist or proto-Zionist, but historians have also noted his support for European assimilation.
In 1869 the University of Breslau granted him the title of Honorary Professor. In 1888 he was appointed an Honorary Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences.
Biography
Graetz received his first instruction at Zerkow, where his parents had relocated, and in 1831 was sent to Wollstein, where he attended the yeshivah up to 1836, acquiring secular knowledge by private study. The Neunzehn Briefe über Judenthum by Samson Raphael Hirsch, which were published under the pseudonym of "Ben Uziel" at Altona in 1836, made a powerful impression on him; and he resolved to prepare himself for academic studies in order to champion the cause of Orthodox Judaism. His first intention was to go to Prague, to which place he was attracted by the fame of its old yeshivah and the facilities afforded by the university. Being rejected by the immigration officers, he returned to Zerkov and wrote to Hirsch, then rabbi of Oldenburg, indicating his desire. Hirsch offered him a place in his house. Graetz arrived there on May 8, 1837, and spent three years with his patron as a pupil, companion, and amanuensis. In 1840 he accepted a tutorship with a family at Ostrowo, and in October 1842 he entered the University of Breslau.At that time the controversy between Orthodoxy and Reform Judaism was at its height, and Graetz, true to the principles which he had imbibed from Hirsch, began his literary career by writing contributions to the "Orient", edited by Julius Fürst, in which he severely criticized the Reform party, as well as Geiger's text-book of the Mishnah. These contributions and his championship of the Conservative cause during the time of the Reform Rabbinical Conferences made him popular with the Orthodox party. This was especially the case when he agitated for a vote of confidence to be given to Zecharias Frankel after he had left in protest the Second Rabbinical Conference in Frankfurt in 1845 after the majority had decided against prayers in Hebrew, and for prayers in the vernacular. After Graetz had obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Jena, he was made principal of a religious school founded by the Conservatives in Breslau, again under the leadership of Frankel. In the same year he was invited to preach a trial sermon before the congregation of Gleiwitz, Silesia, but failed completely.
He remained in Breslau until 1848, when, upon the advice of a friend, he went to Vienna, purposing to follow a journalistic career. On the way he stopped at Nikolsburg, where Hirsch was residing as Moravian chief rabbi. Hirsch, who then contemplated the start of a rabbinical seminary, employed Graetz temporarily as teacher at Nikolsburg, and made him principal of the Jewish school in the neighboring city of Lundenburg. In October 1850, Graetz married Marie Monasch, the daughter of the printer and publisher B. L. Monasch, of Krotoschin. It seems that Hirsch's departure from Nikolsburg had an influence on Graetz's position; for in 1852 the latter left Lundenburg and went to Berlin, where he delivered a course of less than successful lectures on Jewish history to rabbinical students. His advocacy of Frankel's approach had brought him into close contact with the latter, for whose magazine he frequently wrote articles; and accordingly in 1854 he was appointed a member of the teaching staff of the seminary at Breslau, over which Frankel presided. In this position he remained up to his death, teaching history and Bible exegesis, with a preparatory course on the Talmud. In 1869 the government conferred upon him the title of professor, and thenceforward he lectured at Breslau University.
In 1872 Graetz went to Palestine in the company of his friend Gottschalck Levy of Berlin, for the purpose of studying the scenes of the earliest period of Jewish history, which he treated in volumes one and two of his history, published in 1874–1876; these volumes brought that great work to a close. While in Palestine, he gave the first impetus to the foundation of an orphan asylum there. He also took a great interest in the progress of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and participated as a delegate in the convention assembled at Paris in 1878 in the interest of the Romanian Jews. Graetz's name was prominently mentioned in the anti-Semitic controversy, especially after Treitschke had published his "Ein Wort über Unser Judenthum", in which the latter, referring to the eleventh volume of the history, accused Graetz of hatred of Christianity and of bias against the German people, quoting him as a proof that the Jews could never assimilate themselves to their surroundings.
This arraignment of Graetz had a decided effect upon the public. Even friends of the Jews, like Mommsen, and advocates of Judaism within the Jewish fold expressed their condemnation of Graetz's passionate language. It was due to this comparative unpopularity that Graetz was not invited to join the commission created by the union of German Jewish congregations for the promotion of the study of the history of the Jews of Germany. On the other hand, his fame spread to foreign countries; and the promoters of the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition invited him in 1887 to open the Exhibition with a lecture. His seventieth birthday was the occasion for his friends and disciples to bear testimony to the universal esteem in which he was held among them; and a volume of scientific essays was published in his honor. A year later he was appointed an honorary member of the Spanish Academy, to which, as a token of his gratitude, he dedicated the third edition of the eighth volume of his history.
As usual he spent the summer of 1891 in Carlsbad; but alarming symptoms of heart disease forced him to discontinue his use of the waters. He went to Munich to visit his son Leo, a professor at the university of that city, and died there after a brief illness. He was buried in Breslau. Besides Leo, Graetz left three sons and one daughter.
Works
History of the Jews
Graetz is chiefly known as the Jewish historian, although he did considerable work in the field of exegesis also. His Geschichte der Juden superseded all former works of its kind, notably that of Jost, in its day a very remarkable production; and it has been translated into many languages. The fourth volume, beginning with the period following the destruction of Jerusalem, was published first. It appeared in 1853; but the publication was not a financial success, and the publisher refused to continue it. However, the publication society Institut zur Förderung der Israelitischen Litteratur, founded by Ludwig Philippson, had just come into existence, and it undertook the publication of the subsequent volumes, beginning with the third, which covered the period from the death of Judas Maccabeus to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. This was published in 1856 and was followed by the fifth, after which the volumes appeared in regular succession up to the eleventh, which was published in 1870 and brought the history down to 1848, with which year the author closed, not wishing to include living persons.In spite of this reserve he gravely offended the Liberal party, which inferred, from articles that Graetz contributed to the Monatsschrift, that he would show little sympathy for the Reform element, and therefore refused to publish the volume unless the manuscript was submitted for examination. This Graetz refused to do; and the volume therefore appeared without the support of the publication society. Volumes I and II were published, as stated above, after Graetz had returned from Palestine. These volumes, of which the second practically consisted of two, appeared in 1872–1875, and completed the stupendous undertaking. For more popular purposes Graetz published later an abstract of his work under the title Volksthümliche Geschichte der Juden, in which he brought the history down to his own time.
The fourth volume of the History of the Jews received a detailed review by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in a series of essays in Vols. II-IV of his monthly journal Jeschurun. In these essays, Hirsch argues that Graetz is guilty of sloppiness of scholarship: e.g., Graetz omits the second halves of quotations which, if quoted in their entirety, contradict his thesis. Graetz claims, on the basis of quotations from certain Talmudic sages, that they "were wont to do" something – despite sources explicitly to the contrary – and goes on to develop these suppositions into theories affecting the entire Torah tradition. Hirsch accuses Graetz of fabricating dates, rearranging generations, overstating results, misinterpreting and distorting the Talmudic tradition to serve his narrative needs. David N. Myers argues that, whilst Hirsch's explcit goal was to refute Graetz's ideas using purely scientific methods, Hirsch's criticisms of his one-time student's may have been motivated by a complete difference of opinion on the value of historicism. "Hirsch came to regard his erstwhile disciple as the embodiment of history's destructive tendencies."
A translation into English was begun by S. Tuska, who in 1867 published in Cincinnati a translation of part of Vol. IX under the title "Influence of Judaism on the Protestant Reformation". The fourth volume was translated by James K. Gutheim under the auspices of the American Jewish Publication Society, the title being "History of the Jews from the Down-fall of the Jewish State to the Conclusion of the Talmud".
A five-volume English edition was published in London in 1891-92 as History of the Jews from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. According to a review in the January–April 1893 edition of Quarterly Review, it "was passing through the press in its English version, and had received the author's final touches, when Graetz died in September 1891". In 1919, the Jordan Publishing Co. of New York published a two-volume "improved" edition, with a supplement of recent events by Dr. Max Raisin. Rabbi A. B. Rhine provided the English translation.
Graetz sought to improve on Jost's work, which he disdained for lacking warmth and passion.
Baruch Ben-Jacob criticized Graetz' "sad and bitter" narrative for omitting Ottoman Jews. Graetz was also meaningfully challenged by Hermann Cohen and Zecharias Frankel.