Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Becoming Citizens of Hegel’s State { 61

evidence that the Hegelians in the group thought along precisely these lines.

Their self-conception as arbiters of universal Wissenschaft seemed to authorize

them to claim a position in Hegel’s idealized bureaucracy. Their “objective”

expertise in Jewish history and culture permitted them to speak from a univer-

sal perspective and, in this way, to achieve contiguity with the universal state

bureaucracy. The Vereinler understood their function to be very much like that

of Hegelian Jewish bureaucrats: they would use their rational expertise to me-

diate between the private interests of the Jewish community and the universal

state.^66

The pioneering Jewish historian Isaak Markus Jost derides the narcissism

and hubris of the young Wissenschaftler in a letter to Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg

in August 1822. A founding member of the Verein, Jost withdrew from the or-

ganization in May 1820 after Gans prevailed in his efforts to make drawing up

formal statutes for the Verein and gaining official state recognition paramount

priorities.^67 Jost’s rancor is still evident in the letter he wrote to Ehrenberg two

years later: “[The Association] is a product of the wildest conceit, the stupidest

arrogance of a few young people who imagine themselves sufficiently grandi-

ose to change an entire nation that is unknown to them. As the foundation, so

its effectiveness. To this the ludicrously pretentious statutes, the childish cen-

soriousness about all that exists, and the mindless (verstandlose) Journal bear

witness.”^68 Jost ridicules the Vereinler’s assumption that they possess expertise

about Jews and the capacity to change them, both of which he feels they woefully

lack. He takes particular aim at the Verein’s preoccupation with its governance

statutes, which he describes as risibly self-important (prahlerisch lächerlich). Jost

diagnoses a void at the heart of the Verein: it is sustained by nothing but empty,

self-indulgent gestures like formal statues, pseudo-rigorous academic rhetoric,

and captious criticism. Jost views participation in the Verein as so much playact-

ing, a hall of mirrors that serves no purpose other than to sustain the Vereinler’s

pretentious self-image. The very bureaucratic trappings that Jost found such a

laughable distraction from the task of research, however, crucially facilitated the

Vereinler’s identification with the state.

Jost was also brutally lucid about the disparity between the overdrawn rheto-

ric of his Hegelian colleagues and existing Prussian political realities. Since the

Prussian authorities had not approved the Verein, he notes, it in fact existed

illegally:

Moreover, such boasting is altogether out of place in our state; they let (man

lässt) everyone say what he wants, and then continue to act according to the

existing laws. Furthermore, this Association has so far not been approved