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Alienated Intellectuals in the Camp of Religious Reform: The Frankfurt Reformfreunde, 1842–1845
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
Extract
A minor historical movement which never assumes mass proportions, which arises and passes from public view in a brief period of time, and which leaves behind no residue of specific lasting effect would seem to possess only the most limited scholarly interest. Its intensive study can be justified only if such research points beyond its immediate subject to broader objective trends and subjective attitudes which it crystallizes or foreshadows. Yet even a small and transient grouping of similarly minded individuals may bring to focus external influences and motivational patterns which are considerably more widespread and which exist over a far longer period of time. This study will focus on a tiny, evanescent phenomenon: the first religiously radical grouping to arise within German Judaism. While not disregarding the specifics of its history, it will seek to indicate how its subject reflects currents and tendencies of considerably broader measure and of longer duration.
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References
1. The most extensive discussion of the Reformfreunde is in Philipson, David, The Reform Movement in Judaism (New York, 1907; 2d ed., 1931), pp. 107–139. The relation of the group to Jewish and secular politics in Frankfurt is elaborated in the first chapter of a Jewish Theological Seminary doctoral on Frankfurt Orthodoxy by Robert Liberles, who was kind enough to let me see an early version of this chapter. For the possible relationship with freemasonryGoogle Scholar see Katz, Jacob, Jews and Freemasons in Europe, 1723–1939 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), pp. 92–94.Google Scholar
2. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenlhums (AZJ), May 6, 1843.
3. I. M. Jost, Geschichte der Israelites 10 vols. (Berlin, 1820–47), vol. 10, pt. 3, p. 212.Google Scholar
4. Isler, Meyer, Gabriel Riesser's Leben (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1871), p. 355Google Scholar; Stern, M. A., “Briefe von und an Gabriel Riesser,” Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte der Juden in Peutschland (ZGJD), o.s. 2 (1888): 47.Google Scholar
5. AZJ, August 28, 1843; Der Orient, August 29, 1843. This was not yet the final version of the declaration. In its officially publicized form it substituted “Mosaic religion” for “Mosaism” and limited the second statement to the Talmud alone. The final version appeared in Der Orient, September 26, 1843; AZJ, October 9, 1843; Der Israelit des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (IdnJ), October 29, 1843, Beilage; and Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland(ZJiD) 1 (1843): 257–265.Google Scholar
6. Der Orient, September 5, 1843; AZJ, September 11, 1843.
7. References above, n. 5.
8. Der Orient, December 12, 1843.
9. See his article in idnJ, November 21, 1843.
10. Stein, Leopold in Der Orient, beginning November 14, 1843Google Scholar; M. Gutmann in Literaturblatl des Orients, beginning January 2, 1844; David Einhorn in AZJ, February 12, 1844; Sachs, Michael in Zeitschrift fur die religiosen Interessen des Judenthums (ZrlJ) 1 (1844): 53–60, with an afterword by Zacharias Frankel (pp. 60–73);Google ScholarHirsch, Samuel, Die Reform im Judenthum und dessen Berufin der gegenwdrtigen Welt (Leipzig, 1844). From Italy, Samuel David Luzzatto sent his critique, which was promptly translated and printed by Fiirst and Philippson. Abraham Geiger expressed his criticism in a correspondence with Moriz Abraham Stern, which was published anonymously in ZJiD 2 (1844): 109–16. For the likely possibility that, beyond matters of doctrine, rabbinic opposition proceeded from resentment at a perceived lay usurpation of rabbinic prerogatives, see Ismar Schorsch's introduction toGoogle ScholarGraetz, Heinrich, The Structure of Jewish History and Other Essays (New York, 1975), pp. 22–23Google Scholar. Following the rabbinic conferences of 1844–46, the laity reasserted itself with a call for synods composed of rabbis and laymen. This development has been discussed most recently by Toury, Jacob, Soziale und polilische Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, 1847–1871 (Dusseldorf, 1977), pp. 245–252.Google Scholar
11. AZJ, January 1, 1844; IdnJ, January 14, 1844; Der Orient, February 6, 1844; ZJiD 2 (1844): 117–22.
12. They are: Theodor Creizenach, poet, scholar, and educator; M. A. Stern, mathematic cian; Dr. Schwarzschild, a practicing physician and obstetrician; Dr. Goldschmidt, an attorney; Simon Maas, Dr. jur.; Joseph Rutten, a businessman; and Dr. Neukirch. In addition, the group allegedly had a letter of support from “Herrn Meyer und Comp. in Stettin.” But this was later denied. The references are in Der Orient, May 9, 1843, September 26, 1843, December 12, 1843; AZJ, September 11, 1843, October 2, 1843; ZJiD 1 (1843): 259, 2 (1844): 122. It seems likely that the attorney Dr. Goldschmidt was Salomon H. Goldschmidt and that Dr. Neukirch was the attorney Wolfgang Neukirch. The former completed his studies at Heidelberg in 1833, the latter in 1834. Each was the son of a wealthy and prominent Frankfurt family. Neukirch was later elected to the Frankfurt Legislative and Constituent Assembly in 1848/49. See Richarz, Monika, Der Eintritt der Juden in die akademischen Berufe (Tubingen, 1974), pp. 186–87. For the role of Dr. Schwarzschild in the circumcision controversy see the LiberlesGoogle Scholar
13. Jost, Geschichte der Israelilen, p. 218. A correspondent in Der Orient (December 24, 1844) related that the community synagogue, formerly empty, was currently full.
14. idnJ. July 6, 1845.
15. The only reference to such figures I was able to find relates to the writer Ludwig Wihl, who spoke at a gathering of the Reformfreunde in the spring of 1845. He urged them to unite with the reform circle which had meanwhile been formed in Berlin and noted that the Berlin group's “spiritual conception” of Mosaism was preferable to the Frankfurters' notion of “unlimited development” (Der Orient, May 14, 1845, p. 157).
16. AZJ, November 24, 1845, p. 709.Google Scholar
17. Zunz was nearly accurate when he predicted to his friend Bernhard Beer in a letter of October 8, 1843: “... however the Frankfurt Reform requires no violent Petichat ha–Arez in order for it to perish–in a year people will not be talking about it any more.” See Glatzer, Nahum N., ed., Leopold Zunz: Jude–Deutscher–Europaer (Tubingen, 1964), p. 224.Google Scholar
18. “Bedenken eines Laien,” pp. 161–71. It is not entirely clear whether the author was later a member of the Reformfreunde. Jost (Geschichte der Israeliten, p. 212, n. 3) calls him, perhaps generically, “ein denkender Reformfreund.”
19. E.g., Der Orient, September 26, 1843, p. 309.
20. Jost, Cf., Geschichte der Israeliten, p. 213.Google Scholar
21. E.g., in the Invitation to Membership, Der Orient, September 26, 1843, p. 310.
22. idnJ, February 18, 1844, p. 56.
23. Der Orient, February 27, 1844, p. 70.
24. The basic biographical facts are in Wininger, Salomon, Grosse Jiidische National– Biographie 1 (Cernauti, 1925), pp. 602–603.Google Scholar
25. On Michael Creizenach see especially Jost, Geschichte der Israeliten, pp. 134–36.
26. Creizenach, Michael, Chinuch libne Mizvah, oder: Stunden der Weihe fur israelitische Confirmanden... Nebst einem Anhange jiidischer Gedichte von Dr. Theodor Creizenach (Frankfurt, 1841).Google Scholar
27. On Stern see the excerpts from Stern, Alfred, Zur Familiengeschichte (Zurich, 1906)Google Scholar contained in Richarz, Monika, ed., Judisches Leben in Deutschland: Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte, 1780–1871 (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 406–16;Google ScholarRudio, Ferdinand, Erinnerung an Moriz Abraham Stern (Zurich, 1894).Google Scholar
28. On the relationship between Stern and Geiger, see Geiger, Ludwig, Abraham Geiger: Leben und Lebenswerk (Berlin, 1910), pp. 12, 15, 182, 226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29. On Wihl, see above, n. 15; on all three men, see Wininger, vol. 6, s.v.
30. Quoted from Richarz, M., Judisches Leben (see above, n. 27).Google Scholar
31. In IdnJ, February 11, 1844, an anonymous writer from Frankfurt, no doubt a member of the Reformfreunde, gave this explanation for their remaining Jewish: “It is the feeling of filial love, of affection for those with whom one has grown up. In a man of character and selfawareness, it is also the disinclination to adopt a religion whose adherents, in their civil and social relationships, display such hostile sentiments to Jews–to the cultured and respectable no less than to the common ones. Thus religious conversion is at once a separation from friends and acquaintances and a desertion to the side of enemies and opponents.”
32. AZJ, August 28, 1843, p. 518. Here Stern refers to the earlier language of the first principle. The later formulation made his interpretation of the principle much more natural. While there is no documentation to show that Stern initiated the change in language, it certainly was in line with his understanding of the text.
33. IdnJ, June 23, 1844, pp. 198–99.
34. IdnJ, June 30, 1844, pp. 205–6.
35. IdnJ, September 15, 1844, p. 296; September 22, 1844, pp. 303–4.
36. ZJiD 2 (1844): 113.
37. IdnJ, September 8, 1844. p. 287. Stern had little enthusiasm for aesthetic reform of the worship service (AZJ, August 28, 1843, p. 519).
38. Geiger, Ludwig, ed., Abraham Geiger's Nachgelassene Schriften, 5 vols. (Berlin, 1875–1878), 5: 147.Google Scholar
39. On Stern, Alfred see Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971), s.v. “Stern, Alfred.”Google Scholar
40. Isler, Gabriel Riesser's Leben, pp. 222, 287.
41. ZGJD, o.s. 2 (1888): 49–62.
42. See, for example, AZJ, August 14, 1843, pp. 481–86.
43. Ibid, pp. 486–88.
44. ZGJD, o.s. 2 (1888): 51, and see Stern's recognition of this difference, Ibid, p. 72.
45. The circumcision controversy in the Frankfurt community is discussed in Philipson, The Reform Movement, pp. 131–37, and by Liberles. The program of the Reformfreunde stressed that the custom of circumcision was of “pre-Mosaic origin.” In the midst of the controversy, Joseph Johlson, another teacher at the Philanthropin, published under the pseudonym of Bar Amithai a pamphlet entitled Veber die Beschneidung in historischer und dogmatscher Hinsicht (Frankfurt, 1843). The last two pages contain what must be the first example of a common rite of entry into the covenant for boys and girls. Johlson called it “Die Heiligung am achten Tage (Keduschah lejom hasch′mini).” Despite pressures and some personal distaste, the reform rabbis, during their rabbinical conferences of 1844–46, allowed the omission of circumcision only in cases of clear danger to life.
46. Wiener, Cf. Max, Judische Religion im Zeitalter der Emanzipation (Berlin, 1933), pp. 268–71Google Scholar; Rinott, Moshe, “Gabriel Riesser. Fighter for Jewish Emancipation,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 7 (1962): (23–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
47. Kissling, Johannes B., Der deutsche Protestantismus, 1817–1917, 2 vols. (Munster, 1917), 1: 181.Google Scholar
48. AZJ, September 4, 1843. The unnamed Hess article was that entitled “Socialismus und Communismus,” which appeared in Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz, ed. Georg Herwegh [Zurich and Winterthur, 1843), pp. 74–91. Like Stern, Hess was a great admirer of Spinoza.Google Scholar
49. Strauss, David Friedrich, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, trans. Eliot, George, 2d ed. (London, 1892), pp. 758–784.Google Scholar
50. Haym, Rudolf, Aus Meinem Leben: Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1902), pp. 105–117;Google Scholar Johannes B. Kissling, Der deutsche Protestantismus, 1: 182–92; Bigler, Robert, The Politics of German Protestantism: The Rise of the Protestant Church Elite in Prussia, 1815–1848 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972), pp. 117–18, 177–78.Google Scholar
51. Appendix 10.
52. Less well known, but more vicious were the writings of the Nuremberg municipal librarian, Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany. In a pseudonymous work of 1833 (K. F. Leonegg, Glaubensbekenntniss [Nuremberg, 1833]) he had already cast his lot with theological radicalism, denying all supernatural revelation and declaring that Jesus was no more than a human being. Following the Damascus Affair he published a thick volume wholly devoted to proving that human sacrifice was a part of the state cult of ancient Israel and that the possibility of its remnants continuing in contemporary Judaism could not be ruled out. The circumcision ritual served him as an example of such a latter-day survival. See Ghillany, F. W., Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebrder (Nuremberg, 1842). Ghillany followed up Bauer's essay with one of his own in which he declared that Jewish emancipation was impossible as long as Jews persisted in their exclusivism. He called for a “reformirtes judisches Bekenntniss.” Though Ghillany aroused widespread contempt among Jews, including reformers, it is not unlikely that the type of thinking represented by the following statement had its impact on some individuals who were sympathetic to the Reformfreunde. He concluded his essay with this warning to the “clearerheaded” Jews: “Should they, however, refuse to dissociate themselves from the traditionalists [den Alten], they would thereby indicate that they too still harbor collective Jewish national hopes, that their connection with fanatical coreligionists is more important to them than entry into the community of German citizens. In that case, they would be well advised to stop talking about emancipation; instead of making accusations against the German spirit (which, to be sure, does not undergo reform rapidly), they should blame no one but themselves.” See his Die Judenfrage. Eine Beigabe zu Bruno Bauer's Abhandlung uber diesen Gegenstand (Nuremberg, 1843), p. 47.Google Scholar
53. According to Jost, Geschichte der Israeliten, p. 217, n. 1, Albert Frankel was the son of David Frankel who, in addition to being a teacher in Dessau, was a founder and editor of Sulamith, the pioneering periodical of Jewish enlightenment in the German language. His pamphlet was entitled Das moderne Judenthum, die Frankfurter Reformfreunde und die neue Zeit. Ein Beitrag zur Kritik religioser und socialer Zustdnde der Gegenwart (Reutlingen, 1844).
54. Pinoff, F., Der Judenkampf (Leipzig, 1845), p. 23.Google Scholar
55. ZGJD, o.s. 2 (1888): 72–73.
56. AZJ, August 28, 1843, p. 520; Der Orient, November 21, 1843, pp. 741–42; Geiger in ZJiD 2 (1844): 114 (and the variant, more complete version of his letter in Nachgelassene Schriften 5: 167–70); and many other instances. It is noteworthy that even within the Reformfreunde circle, neo-Hegelianism was not universally regarded as a badge of honor. An unnamed member of the group responded to the criticism of Samuel Hirsch (above, n. 10) by charging the Luxemburg rabbi with Hegelian discipleship. Employing an untranslatable play on words, he wrote: “Unser Verfasser ist wie Ruge, Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach u.a. Hegelscher Ableger, nur ein judischer, und possierlich genug, zugleich Rabbine, der, seine Sprache zu reden, das Juden- in Hegel-, und sich in Flegelthum schlechterdings aufgehen lasst” (idnJ, October 20, 1844, p. 336).
57. Kampe, Ferdinand, Geschichte der religiosen Bewegung der neuern Zeit, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1852–1860), 2: 167–75; Kissling,Google ScholarDer deutsche Protestantismus, 1: 200–8; Bigler, Politics of German Protestantism, pp. 187–261. On both Lichtfreunde and German Catholics see Catherine Magill Prelinger, “A Decade of Dissent in Germany: A Historical Study of the Society of Protestant Friends and the German Catholic Church, 1840–48” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1971). (My thanks to Professor Ismar Schorsch for calling this to my attention.) For the political impact of the Lichtfreunde see Rosenberg, Hans, “Theologischer Rationalismus und vormarzlicher Vulgarliberalismus,” Historische Zeitschrift 140 (1930): 529–541Google Scholar; Brederlow, Jorn, “Lichtfreunde” und “Freie Gemeinden ‘: Religioser Protest und Freiheitsbewegung im Vormdrz und in der Revolution von 1848/49 (Munich and Vienna, 1976).Google Scholar
58. Wislicenus, Gustav Adolph, Ob Schrift? Ob Geist? Verantwortung gegen meine Ankldger, 2d ed. (Leipzig, 1845), pp. 17–18.Google Scholar
59. [Johannes Czerski], Offenes Glaubenbekenntniss der christlich–apostolisch-kalholischen Gemeinde zu Schneidemuhl in ihren Unterscheidungslehren von der romisch-katholischen Kirche das heisst der Hierarchie (Stuttgart, 1844), pp. 10–20; Ronge, John, The Holy Coat ofTreves and the New German Catholic Church (New York, 1845). The German Catholic movement found some enthusiastic support among German Jews. E. Birkenstein, a teacher of Judaism, urged that Ronge serve as a model for the Jewish reformers. Using–and in part copying without citation–an anonymous pamphlet which had appeared the previous year, he held that the German Catholics had aroused deep feelings of sympathy among many Jews and had raised their hopes for a similar revitalization and renewal within Judaism. However, the editors of the periodical in which Birkenstein wrote, the reform rabbis A. Adler and H. Wagner, claimed in a note that the German Catholic movement did not influence Jewry and that the Jewish reformers must go their own way. See Die Reform des Judenthums, July 15, 1846, pp. 121–26. The pamphlet was entitled Eine deutsch–jiidische Kirche. Die ndchste Aufgabe unserer Zeit. Von einem Candidaten der jiidischen Theologie (Leipzig, 1845). A Konigsberg Jew, Dr.ph. M. Freystadt, wrote a letter to Johannes Czerski, one of the principal leaders of the movement, telling him that through his efforts all peoples, including the children of Israel, would be blessed. The letter appeared in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, where it appalled the Berlin Protestant missionary to the Jews, Rev. R. Bellson. He reprinted it in his Blatter fur Israels Gegenwart und Zukunft 1 (1845): 220–21. See also ZrU 2 (1845): 426–27. Geiger, too, saw at least some positive impulse for Judaism in the German Catholic movement: Nachgelassene Schriften 5: 177–78.Google Scholar
60. In 1846 Carl Scholl, minister of the Mannheim German Catholic congregation, saw in the new movement ”not merely the basis for a unification of Catholicism and Protestantism, but also the possibility of a reunion of Protestantism and reformed Judaism” (cited by Prelinger, “A Decade of Dissent,” p. 353). In later reflecting upon the 1840s Scholl remembered that his efforts had been greeted with sincere enthusiasm by local Jews, who especially appreciated the view of Jesus as “an enlightened Jewish reformer.” Some had joined their ranks. The German Catholic movement eventually merged with the Protestant Lichtfreunde into “free congregations” which transcended not only internal Christian differences, but Christianity as such. The slogan in the Mannheim community became: “Not pagan, not Jew, but a new creation–not Jew, not Christian, but the new human being.” See Scholl, Carl, Drei Vortrdge (Darmstadt, 1846), and his Das Judenthum und die Religion der Humanitdt (Leipzig, 1879)Google Scholar. Mundt, Cf. Theodor, Der heilige Geist und der Zeitgeist. Zwolf Capitel, den Reformfreunden auf kalholischem, protestantischem und judischem Gebiet gewidmet (Berlin, 1845). For the later rela tionship between Jews and the free congregations, see Toury, Soziale undpolitische Geschichte, pp. 132–33, and his Die politischen Orientierungen der Juden in Deutschland (Tubingen, 1966), p. 26.Google Scholar
61. Benfey, Rudolph (1823–1873) published two pamphlets in which he confessed to Wislicenus that, while he bore the name Jew, he felt himself inwardly to be a Christian. Like the Reformfreunde, Benfey valued the strong family ties among Jews, but he believed that this virtue could serve as the dowry which Jews would bring with them into Christianity. Accepting the Hegelian critique of Judaism as sharply separating the divine from the human, he found his inherited faith religiously deficient and asked Wislicenus to accept him as a Christian. He desired only that Jews be spared the symbolism of separation from their ancestry represented by baptism. The address to Wislicenus was accompanied by a complaint to Moriz Abraham Stern, whom he called his teacher. To Benfey's mind, Stern and the Reformfreunde were engaged in the futile task of trying to preserve a corpse. In contrast, he held that Judaism could not be made to fit the modern world because, by its very nature, it could not fully recognize the historical importance of Christianity. Only a reformed Christianity could approach the ideal of Humanitat. See his Die Stellung des fortgeschrittenen Juden zu derfreien evangelischen Gemeinde (Halle, 1846) and Die Protestantischen Freunde und die Juden (Leipzig, 1847). Wislicenus welcomed Benfey's overtures (Bigler, The Politics of German Protestantism, p. 239). Benfey, who like Stern had once been destined for the rabbinate, after his conversion became conferencier of Wislicenus's free congregation in Halle.Google Scholar
62. Uhlich, Leberecht, Bekennlnisse von Uhlich. Mit Bezug aufdie protestantischen Freunde und auf erfahrene Angriffe (Leipzig, 1845), p. 46.Google Scholar
63. In the press the group was sometimes referred to as “die jiidischen Protestanten” or “die Freien” (Der Orient, August 22, 1843). An orthodox writer of the twentieth century attempted to link the entire awakening of reform activity in the 1840s with the Lichtfreunde and the German Catholics. See Auerbach, Moses, “Die Braunschweiger Rabbinerversammlung i. J. 1844,” Jahrbuch der Jiidisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft 22 (1931–32): 127Google Scholar
64. Beyschlag, Willibald, Aus Meinem Leben (Halle, 1896), pp. 257–58. He says of the Jewish participants: “... while they were welcome as supporters, as Jews they remained abhorrent to a genuine Frankfurter.”Google Scholar
65. Der Orient, August 20, 1846, September 3, 1846.