The renaissance of Jewish culture in Weimar Germany

While the "contributions" of German Jews to Weimar culture have been the topic of numerous studies, it has hardly been noticed that the Jews of Weimar Germany also developed their own particular Jewish culture. The nineteenth-century definition of Judaism as a religious denomination no longer reflected the way many Jews of Weimar Germany came to define their Jewishness--that is, increasingly in ethnic and cultural, rather than exclusively religious terms. This dissertation examines how the changing self-definitions among Jews in Weimar Germany found their concrete expression in the creation of new forms of Jewish culture. While many German Jews were eager to rediscover their lost Jewish heritage, only very few were ready to retreat from German or European culture. The result was the invention of a new tradition of German-Jewish culture, in the realms of Jewish scholarship, education, literature, music, and fine art.In a new context and used for different purposes, traditional texts, artifacts, and even songs attained a new meaning and thus became new traditions themselves. Multi-volume encyclopedias redefined Jewish knowledge, modern translations made classical Jewish texts accessible to those who did not know Hebrew, Jewish museums displayed ceremonial artifacts in a secular framework, arrangements of Jewish music transformed traditional folk songs and synagogue liturgy for a concert audience, and popular novels recalled selected aspects of the Jewish past. Jewish culture in Weimar Germany was neither characterized by a radical break with the past, nor by a return to the past. It used distinct forms of Jewish traditions, marking them as "authentic," and dressed them in the garb of modern forms of cultural expression.While this dissertation is confined to an analysis of one particular attempt to implant new expressions of Judaism within a highly acculturated Jewish community, it also raises broader issues of modern Jewish existence and identity, namely, how to preserve Jewish distinctiveness, and at the same time participate in a secular, non-Jewish society.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Columbia University, 1994.School code: 0054