Leopold Zunz. Ismar Schorsch
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and it is our goal to keep the journal at that level.”99 Sylvester de Sacy in Paris, France’s renowned Orientalist and the mentor of Germany’s rising generation of Orientalists, courteously thanked Zunz on October 7, 1822, for his free copy. But he cautioned that given the paucity of Jewish and gentile sources for many periods of Jewish history, the term “Judaism” might often end up replacing facts with speculation. And he added prophetically “that Germany is hardly the place where anyone will appreciate the usefulness and difficulty of the work to which you are dedicating yourself.”100 Most lamentable, the journal reached few hands. The first number in the spring of 1822 had been printed in a run of five hundred copies at a total cost of 124 talers. As late as 1839, Zacharias Frankel admitted to Zunz that neither he nor his close friend Bernhard Beer, who had a fine personal library of Judaica, nor anyone else in Dresden had ever seen a copy of the journal.101
Two other projects that Zunz thought through for the Verein give still further evidence of its unrestrained élan, uncanny insight, and totally inadequate means. In January 1822, Gans had asked him to draft statutes for a Verein library. By November 3, he submitted to the plenum a document of twenty-nine articles that suggested the future collection be divided between original and auxiliary works. Original works were to be authored by Jews or deal with Jews and Judaism and fall in one of twelve discrete categories of literature. In contrast, auxiliary works had to be crafted by non-Jews or ex-Jews and likewise deal with Jews and Judaism. Some eight categories defined their substance and scope.102 At the conclusion of Zunz’s presentation, the assembled members adopted his proposal unanimously. Eleven months later on October 5, 1823, Zunz would make his final quarterly report on his creation.103 Though it was destined for the dustbin, the sweep and refinement of Zunz’s vision fully anticipated some of the modern conundrums in the collecting of Hebraica and Judaica.
The society also entertained the grandiose idea of a new German translation of the Hebrew Bible. The initiative came from its affiliate in Hamburg headed by Gotthold Salomon, one of the two preachers in the employ of the city’s Temple Association, though it was left to Zunz to make the case for the project in Berlin at a plenary session on August 31, 1823.104 In his usual learned and methodical way, Zunz argued that historically, unlike the medieval church, Judaism never disparaged the translation of its Scripture. As examples, he cited the highly regarded Arabic translation of Saadia, the Spanish translation published in Ferrara in 1553, the two Judeo-German translations of Jekutiel Blitz and Josel Witzenhausen in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and of course that of Mendelssohn. But the need for a new translation was always commensurate with changes in language, taste, and opinion: “Thus what is lacking at this moment when German sermons and German religious education ought to be reintroduced into our synagogues is a completely new Bible translation, in accord with an agreed upon plan, that is inexpensive, compact and readily accessible.” According to the agreement between the two chapters, the translation would be carried out in Hamburg, but revised in Berlin, which would also raise the large sums needed to fund the project. Though the printing of the translation would be done in Hamburg, Berlin would be listed as the official publisher.105 Even the guidelines for the actual execution of the translation had been agreed upon.106 Despite some moments of contention, Berlin adopted the proposal.107 Unfortunately, the lifespan of the Verein was nearing its end and the fruition of the forethought would not become manifest until the late 1830s, when two independent translations of the Hebrew Bible, one done single-handedly by Salomon and the other merely edited by Zunz, came out within a year of each other.108
The final meeting of the Verein took place on February 1, 1824, with but five members in attendance. Gans reported that thus far the Berlin community leadership had shown no interest in the Verein’s offer to assist in the reform of its worship service. Samuel Schönberg, born in Hungary in 1794 and a member since July 1821,109 lamented the declining interest of the entire membership in the work of the society. Gans promised to convene an extraordinary meeting to discuss the matter on the following Saturday, though there is no evidence that it ever took place.110 Before Gans left Berlin in April 1825 to convert in Paris in December, he turned over the papers of the Verein to Zunz as requested with a note: “As I regard the Society as de facto finished, so is my presidency. If you are of a different mind, you are free to assume the reins as acting president.”111 By March 1826, Gans had secured an appointment in Berlin as an associate professor.112 Not only did Zunz preserve the papers, but he vowed to soldier on alone. In the summer of 1824, he delivered a heartrending eulogy on the Verein in a letter to Wohlwill, who had changed his name from Wolf in 1822 and moved to Hamburg in 1823:
I have come to the point of no longer believing in a Jewish Reformation. We must hurl a stone at this ghost in order to be rid of it…. The Jews and Judaism that we wanted to remake are wholly fragmented, the booty of barbarians, fools, money changers, idiots and communal leaders. Many solstices from now will find this lot still unchanged—fragmented, streaming into the Christian religion of necessity [Nothreligion], without backbone or principle, some still clad in old rags shoved aside by Europe, vegetating and with dry eyes looking for the donkey of the Messiah or some other long-eared animal, some thumbing through paper money, others through popular dictionaries, sometimes rich, sometimes bankrupt, sometimes oppressed, sometimes tolerated. Among German Jews their own scholarship [i.e., traditional learning] has died out, and for European scholarship they have no appreciation because they are untrue to themselves, estranged from the very idea and slaves solely to that which is of benefit to them…. In truth the Verein never existed. Five to ten inspired men found each other and like Moses dared to hope in spreading their spirit. But that was a delusion. What alone survives this flood is the science of Judaism. It lives, even if for hundreds of years it lies fallow. I confess that next to my submission to God’s judgment, this science is my comfort and support. These storms and experiences will not bring me into conflict with myself. Because I realized that I was preaching in the wilderness, I stopped preaching so that I would not be disloyal to my own words. Sapiente sat [a word to the wise is sufficient].113
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The intensity of Zunz’s engagement with die deutsche Synagoge matched his devotion to the Verein. On May 20, 1820, he began to preach in the modernized worship service in the spacious home of Jacob Herz Beer and continued thereafter every two weeks. Upon receipt of his Prussian citizenship in June 1821, Zunz succeeded two months later in gaining from the synagogue’s directors an official appointment as its Prediger (preacher). Thus in a letter dated August 31, 1821, from Altona, he could proudly inform Adelheid that after their marriage, she would be addressed as “Frau Predigerin” (madam preacher).114
The importance of that post was that it enjoyed official status. The Prussian government had long loathed private religious services for fear of diminished control, and when the community’s existing Heidereutergasse building required renovation to accommodate a growing membership, the Beer Temple became one of three temporarily sanctioned sites for services.115 The German nomenclature for the innovation expressed the underlying discontent with the incumbent traditional establishment. Indeed in terms of education, function, and authority, the Prediger posed a radical alternative to the religious leadership of the traditional yeshiva-trained rabbi. Until then the usual setting for such breakaway services had been in schools founded by maskilim (enlightened Jews who wrote in Hebrew) since Mendelssohn, which often floundered on the periphery of the organized community.116 At the meeting of the society on July 7, 1822, Gans had proposed that it take the initiative to organize the proliferating preachers throughout Germany into an independent organization in which the Verein would have a nominal presence through two deputies. While Zunz supported the idea, Rubo argued against it on the grounds that the action would violate the warning of the government to stay out of matters religious (Cultus) and that the office of Prediger was still too unstable and ephemeral. An eight-to-three vote approved the proposal, but like many of the Verein’s bright ideas, it died aborning.117 At its next meeting, Gans, on a roll, proposed having Zunz’s scholarly institute vet the candidates applying to preach at the High Holy Day and Passover services of the biannual Leipzig fairs with their aggregate of Jews from all over Europe. That proposal too was approved, along with the amendment that only preachers or men conversant with Hebrew