Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Locating Themselves in History { 121

in it for Jews, but rather leaning heavily on Hegel’s state—which, as Gans under-

stands it, has a place for Jews—in order to contest the emerging Christian- German

state, which emphatically does not. He is thinking Jewish with, not against,

Hegel.

As the Verein’s estrangement from both the Prussian state and the Jewish

community became evident, Hegelian theory was all the Vereinler had left to

sustain their self-image and claim to authority and agency. In this sense, Hege-

lian theory sustained the Vereinler by sustaining their illusions (which, as Leo-

pold Zunz, Heine, and others, looking back, concurred were what the Verein

had actually consisted of ). Hegelian thought generated a place for a secular

investigation and theorization of Judaism by giving the Verein an institutional

locus, at a critical remove from both the Jewish Gemeinde and the Prussian state

apparatus, in a “state” that existed nowhere but in Hegelian theory. Hegel’s state,

and only Hegel’s state, gave the Verein a home. A remark by Gans anticipating

skepticism that the Vereinler would likely encounter regarding the authority on

which they presumed to speak and act illustrates to what extent Hegelian theory

was ultimately all the Vereinler possessed to legitimize themselves. “There will

be people,” Gans remarks,

those who, unable to marshal any objection to the conception [Gedanke] of

your association, will ask... about your license [Patent] and your creden-

tials [Ausweisung] for your vocation [Beruf]. Should you bother to answer

the petty souls who inquire about your qualifications [Competenz] when it

is substance [die Sache] that matters; who, when collective enthusiasm is

propelling everyone toward the desired goal, still have not been able to break

through the layer of ice of their personal concerns? What you are doing you

owe as human beings to humanity, as brothers to your coreligionists, and as

citizens to your king and your fatherland: it is a debt of gratitude that you are

repaying.^103

In an evolution of the sentiment Gans had voiced in his first presidential

address—that the Verein was elected to represent the Jewish community by vir-

tue of its superior intelligence rather than by popular vote—he here dismisses

questions regarding the Vereinler’s credentials and authority with an appeal to

theoretical expertise. Though Hegel is not named explicitly, it is unmistakable

that it is Hegelian historical and political theory that gives the Vereinler purchase

on die Sache, gives them the true competence that trumps their lack of official

credentials or authority. In contrast to the triumphalism and exuberance of the

early Verein vision, here we begin to see the Vereinler as exposed and defensive,

retreating into the refuge of Hegelian theory rather than drawing on it to con-