Wissenschaft des Judentums, the movement for the scientific understanding of Judaism as an academic discipline, was arguably the single most important contribution of German Jewry to Jewish culture in modern times. Less known, but equally significant, however, was the intellectual engine that drove this academic pursuit: the Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums . Throughout its 36 years (1902-38) the Society for the Advancement of the Science of Judaism not only supported numerous ground-breaking projects and publications but also had a lasting impact on the study of Jewish thought and culture in academic institutions around the world - up to the present day. Henry C. Soussan places the organization in its historical context and retraces the social and ideological impulses leading to its creation, thereby making an invaluable contribution to the field.

In recent years more and more scholars have become aware of the fact that the 19th century movement of the Wissenschaft des Judentums engaged in essential research of kabbalistic texts and thinkers. The legend of Wissenschaft’s neglect for the mystic traditions of Judaism is no longer sustainable. However, the true extent of this enterprise of German Jewish scholars is not yet known. This book will give an overview of what the leading figures have actually achieved: Landauer, Jellinek, Jost, Graetz, Steinschneider and others. It is true that their theological evaluation of the "worth" of kabbalah for what they believed was the ‘essence of Judaism’ yielded overall negative results, but this rejection was rationally founded and rather suggests a true concern for Judaism that transcended their own emancipation and assimilation as German Jews.

The German language holds an ambivalent and controversial place in the modern history of European Jews, representing different—often conflicting—historical currents. It was the language of the German classics, of German Jewish writers and scientists, of Central European Jewish culture, and of Herzl and the Zionist movement. But it was also the language of Hitler, Goebbels, and the German guards in Nazi concentration camps. The crucial role of German in the formation of Jewish national culture and politics in the late nineteenth century has been largely overshadowed by the catastrophic events that befell Jews under Nazi rule. German as a Jewish Problem tells the Jewish history of the German language, focusing on Jewish national movements in Central and Eastern Europe and Palestine/Israel. Marc Volovici considers key writers and activists whose work reflected the multilingual nature of the Jewish national sphere and the centrality of the German language within it, and argues that it is impossible to understand the histories of modern Hebrew and Yiddish without situating them in relation to German. This book offers a new understanding of the language problem in modern Jewish history, turning to German to illuminate the questions and dilemmas that largely defined the experience of European Jews in the age of nationalism.

The Historical Jesus in Context is a landmark collection that places the gospel narratives in their full literary, social, and archaeological context. More than twenty-five internationally recognized experts offer new translations and descriptions of a broad range of texts that shed new light on the Jesus of history, including pagan prayers and private inscriptions, miracle tales and martyrdoms, parables and fables, divorce decrees and imperial propaganda. The translated materials--from Christian, Coptic, and Jewish as well as Greek, Roman, and Egyptian texts--extend beyond single phrases to encompass the full context, thus allowing readers to locate Jesus in a broader cultural setting than is usually made available. This book demonstrates that only by knowing the world in which Jesus lived and taught can we fully understand him, his message, and the spread of the Gospel. Gathering in one place material that was previously available only in disparate sources, this formidable book provides innovative insight into matters no less grand than first-century Jewish and Gentile life, the composition of the Gospels, and Jesus himself.

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.