Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

50 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

struct are riven asunder and the prey of barbarians, fools, money-changers,

idiots and parnasim.... [ Jews’] own scholarship [Die eigene Wissenschaft]

has died out among the German Jews, and they have no interest [Sinn] in

European scholarship because they have become untrue to themselves,

alienated from their Idea [der Idee entfremdet], and the slaves of naked self-

interest.... After this grisly sketch of Jewry, you’ll require no explanation

as to why the Verein and its journal have expired [eingeschlafen] and are as

little missed as the temple, schools and civic happiness [das Bürgerglück].

The Verein didn’t die as a result of the special Vereine, which could have

been called merely the consequence of an administrative error, but rather

never existed in reality. Five to ten enthusiastic people found each other

and, like Moses, dared to hope for the propagation of this spirit. That was

delusion. The only lasting thing to emerge from this mabul [deluge] is the

Wissenschaft des Judenthums; for it will live on, even if no one were to lift a

finger for it for centuries. I confess that, along with surrender to God’s final

Judgment, the occupation with this science [Wissenschaft] is my comfort and

security.^26

Even as Zunz identifies Wissenschaft des Judentums as the sole abiding rem-

nant of the Verein, he comes very close to opposing Wissenschaft des Judentums

—as it remained—to the Verein’s project of reforming the Jews. Whereas Wis-

senschaft des Judentums will persist, the Verein never really existed: it was

grandiose illusion and self-deception (Täuschung). The Wissenschaft des Ju-

dentums that abides is clearly not synonymous with the Verein, or even with

Wissenschaft as it was deployed in the Verein’s illusory ideology, which envi-

sioned Wissenschaft as part of a massive reorganization of Jewish culture and

society. Post-Verein Zunzian Wissenschaft des Judentums, unlike that of the

Verein, is not inherently transformative: it will endure even if no one contrib-

utes to it for a century. No longer aligned with the ineluctable march of world

history, Wissenschaft des Judentums becomes the Trost und Halt of its solitary

practitioner.^27

Heinrich Heine describes his 1844 eulogy for his friend and fellow Verein

member Ludwig Marcus as also a eulogy for the entire Verein (he comments

also on Gans, Zunz, Moses Moser, and, as I discuss at the end of chapter 1 ,

Bendavid). Like Zunz’s letter, Heine’s homage to Marcus distinguishes between

scholarship and the Verein as a project. “We considered Marcus’s participation

in the Association for the Culture and Scholarly Study of Judaism more impor-

tant and notable than all of his tremendous knowledge and the entirety of his

scholarly contributions. The time when he gave himself over to the endeavors