Constructing Modern Identities: Jewish University Students in Germany, 1815-1914

223 Pages·2017·8.892 MB·English

by  Keith H. Pickus

CONSTRUCTING
M O D E R N
IDENTITIES

CONSTRUCTING
M O D E R N
IDENTITIES
Jewish University Students in
Germany
1 8 1 5 1 9 1 4
Keith H. Pickus
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS DETROIT
Copyright © 1999 by Wayne State University Press,
Detroit, Michigan 48201.
All material in this work, except as identified below,
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 3.0 United States License. To view a
copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/.
All material not licensed under a Creative Commons li-
cense is all rights reserved. Permission must be obtained
from the copyright owner to use this material.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pickus, Keith H., 1959–
Constructing modern identities : Jewish university
students in Germany, 1815–1914 / Keith H. Pickus.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-8143-4352-4 (paperback);
978-0-8143-4351-7 (ebook)
1. Jewish college students—Germany—History—
19th century. 2. Jews—G ermany—History—1800–1933.
3. Jewish college students—Germany— Societies, etc.—
History—19th century. 4. Jews—Germany—Identity. 5.
Germany—Ethnic relations. I. Title.
DS135.G33 1999
378.1'982'9924043—DC21
99-11845
Designer: S. R. Tenenbaum
The publication of this volume in a freely accessible
digital format has been made possible by a major grant
from the National Endowment for the Humanities and
the Mellon Foundation through their Humanities Open
Book Program.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Koret Foun-
dation for financial support in the publication of this
volume.
Wayne State University Press thanks the following
individuals and institutions for their generous permis-
sion to reprint material in this book: Paul Fairbrook; The
Leo Baeck Institute; and Stanford University Press.
http://wsupress.wayne.edu/
For my parents
Art and Jean Pickus
with love and devotion

Contents
Preface 9 Acknowledgments 15 List of Organizations 17
I
THe TransformaTion of JewisH educaTion
1. Identity and Education in the Modern Era 21
2. Jewish University Students in Preunification Germany 37
II
THe organizaTional imPulse
3. Emancipation and the Reintroduction of the “Jewish Question” at
German Universities 61
4. The Emergence of Jewish Student Associations 81
III
defining and redefining THe subJecT
5. Reconstructing Forgotten Jews: Portraits of the
Noncorporate Student Body 113
6. A Coat of Many Colors:
German Jewry on the Eve of World War I 141
Conclusion 167
Notes 171 Bibliography 197 Index 215

Preface
Few people today would challenge the claim that the intersection
of German and Jewish history conjures up powerfully evocative
images. The contorted face of Adolf Hitler delivering an emotion-
ally charged speech, the minions of black-booted soldiers
goose-stepping through the streets of Berlin and the smoke-
belching crematorium of Auschwitz are but a few of the historical
portraits that emerge when reflecting upon the subject of German
Jewry. Not only does our historical memory of Jewish life in Ger-
many focus on forces of destruction, but the tragic reality of the
Holocaust casts a long and foreboding shadow over the historical
scholarship that portrays Jewish life in Germany before the ad-
vent of Nazism. Given this situation, therefore, it is not surprising
that much of the literature on nineteenth-century German Jewry
is concerned with the rise of antisemitism and Jewish responses to
it. Seldom does the historiography of German Jewry reflect the
fact that antisemitism was not the determinant influence on the
lives of many German Jews.
The question, then, is how does one strip away the layers of
historical memory that may distort the image of nineteenth-
century German Jewry? Is it possible to sketch portraits of G erman
Jewish existence that are not dominated by discrimination and
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