By Alex Gordon
HAIFA, Israel — In 1819 the Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews was organized in Berlin, whose president from 1821-1824 was the lawyer Dr. Eduard Gans. The Society published the journal Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft des Judenthums (Journal of the Science of Judaism), in which the purpose of the union was formulated as “the dissemination among the Jews of European education and scientific knowledge of Judaism in order to prepare in this way a painless transition from the Middle Ages to modernity, especially in order to avoid mass conversions to Christianity.” Each new member joining The Society, “thereby joined the oath not to be baptized because of public service.” On September 22, 1822, the poet Heinrich Heine joined The Society.
Eduard Gans was born on March 22, 1797, in Berlin to a family of well-to-do Jews. He studied law first at the University of Berlin, then at Göttingen, and finally at Heidelberg. He attended lectures by Hegel and became imbued with the principles of Hegelian philosophy. In 1820, having become a private associate professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Berlin, Gans opposed the then prevailing “historical” school of jurisprudence. He criticized the one-sidedness of the “historical” direction, which investigated facts in the field of legal history and neglected the construction of philosophical principles of law.
In his work on the history of hereditary law Das Erbrecht in weltgeschichtlicher Entwickelung (1824-1835) (The Law of Continuity in World-Historical Development) Gans considered the law of individual nations as an expression of the legal genius of mankind and sought to find out the principles and common features peculiar to the law of each nation. This work included a chapter on the principles of biblical-Talmudic inheritance law.
Gans was one of Hegel’s best students. The philosophical justification for the activities of The Society its leaders borrowed from Hegel, whose supporters they were. Hegel wrote that Jewry, which gave the world the monotheistic idea, ended its role in history with the emergence of Christianity. Christianity, then, was the brilliant victory of Judaism, which extracted the monotheistic idea from the narrow conception of a national religion into the expanse of a world religion. But this victory made superfluous the existence of the nation of Israel. The Jews must pass from the stage of world history like the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and other vanished peoples who have fulfilled their mission.
Gans tried to soften his teacher’s sentence. At a meeting of The Society on October 28, 1822, he said: “The disappearance of the Jews and Judaism is impossible. The future of Jewry is to be part of a great movement and to continue to exist as a river in the ocean.” The 25-year-old president of The Society consoled his bewildered colleagues. He, too, believed that the collapse of Judaism as a world religion was inevitable, but he envisioned it as a powerful undercurrent in the ocean of world culture. Since the disappearance of Judaism was only a matter of time, it was better to leave Jewry and dissolve into the German nation proudly and honorably, realizing the greatness of its culture.
At one of the meetings Gans proclaimed: “We have a homeland, and we can rejoice in that homeland.” But the patriotism of Gans and other members of The Society was one-sided: the German homeland did not welcome them into its fold. Like all liberals, they believed in progress, that history was moving toward freedom and equality. They believed that when the process of assimilation was successfully completed, discrimination against the Jews would end. “There is not another pillar of fire to light up the night of Israel,” Gans said. – “But one day the clouds will part!” But the clouds did not disperse, but thundered: news came of Gans’ baptism in December 1825 in Paris.
Heine was shocked and disappointed. On the one hand, he praised Gans for his achievements in German science: “He was one of the most diligent apostles of Hegel’s philosophy.” On the other hand, he condemned the former president of The Society for Jewish Culture and Science for breaking the union of his tribesmen: “Gans’s apostasy was all the more repugnant because he played the role of agitator and assumed some leadership duties. It is a rule that the captain is always the last to leave a wrecked ship; Gans was the first to be rescued.”
However, there is an obvious lack of logic in this reaction, as the poet was baptized before Gans. Such behavior was characteristic of Heine: he condemned others for his weaknesses. The poet reported on the further fate of the former leader of the Jews: “After adopting Lutheranism, Gans’ career was quickly determined: already in the same year he was appointed extraordinary, and three years later – ordinary professor at the University of Berlin.” Unlike Heine’s conservative university of Göttingen, the University of Berlin made a favorable impression on him with its greater freedom and tolerance.
In 1826 Gans was awarded a chair in law at the University of Berlin. His lectures, in which he praised the French Revolution, its values of “liberty, equality and fraternity” were very popular. But Heine somewhat exaggerated the freedom-loving nature of the University of Berlin: the Prussian authorities banned Gans’s lectures.
Heine often reminisced about the work of The Society and once gave his version of its creation – not only to promote Jewish emancipation, but mainly to create a German-Jewish renaissance and to conform Jewry to the spirit of the times, like what Philo did in Alexandria. Gans’ departure from the Society and from Judaism was predetermined by Hegel’s philosophy, which was taken up by the Young Hegelians, who were close in their views to the members of the Society.
The Young Hegelians had a negative attitude not only toward the Jewish religion but also toward the Jewish people, attributing to them numerous vices. Although they opposed religion in all its manifestations, they asserted the superiority of Christianity as a universal spiritual religion over Judaism, to which they attributed selfishness and narrow practicality. From the very beginning, the idea of creating a Society for Jewish Culture and Science was doomed to failure by the very philosophy of its organizers: they did not study Jewish culture but set the task of adapting it to German culture. The Society died, for at its core was self-denial. Its ideologist and leader, Eduard Gans, died in Berlin on May 5, 1839.
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Alex Gordon is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the Academic College of Education, and the author of 11 books.