Abstract

With the publication of Etwas über die rabbinische Literatur , Leopold Zunz argued that Jewish history should be studied by historians and that Jews should adopt history as a way of life. He believed that the role of philology is to present every people with the entire mental development of its culture. Zunz adopted Boeckh's philological categories and proposed that Jewish texts be examined under the ideal of historical and grammatical criticisms. This method ran counter to the traditional evaluation of Jewish texts according to their normative and religious import. Zunz's work exhibits an almost apologetic overtone which implies that Jews were responsible for understanding their own history. This emphasis extended beyond the politics of culture to actual politics. In 1822, a Prussian edict barred Jews, including Zunz, from all civil and academic employment. His quest to establish an identity for Jews in the modern world ended in disillusionment with a culture he. loved but could not live by