Salo Baron: The Past and Future of Jewish Studies in America

273 Pages·2022·6.908 MB·English

by  Rebecca Kobrin (editor)

SALO BARON

Salo Baron
THE PAST AND FUTURE OF JEWISH STUDIES
IN AMERICA
Edited by Rebecca Kobrin
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2022 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kobrin, Rebecca, editor.
Title: Salo Baron : the past and future of Jewish studies in America /
edited by Rebecca Kobrin.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021044684 (print) | LCCN 2021044685 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231204842 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231204859 (trade paperback) |
ISBN 9780231555708 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Baron, Salo W. (Salo Wittmayer), 1895–1989. |
Jewish historians—United States—Biography. | Judaism—History—Study
and teaching (Higher)—United States. | Jews—History—Study
and teaching (Higher)—United States. | Columbia University. Center
of Israel and Jewish Studies.
Classification: LCC DS115.9.B37 K63 2022 (print) | LCC DS115.9.B37 (ebook) |
DDC 909/.04924007202 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021044684
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021044685
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design: Julia Kushnirsky
Cover photograph: University Archives, Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Salo Baron, Columbia University, and the Expansion
of Jewish Studies in Twentieth-Century America
REBECCA KOBRIN 1
Chapter One
Salo Baron’s Legacy and the Shaping of Jewish Studies
Into the Twenty-First Century
JASON LUSTIG 25
Chapter Two
Organizing the Jewish Past for American Students:
Salo Baron at Columbia
BERNARD D. COOPERMAN 37
Chapter Three
Emancipation: Salo Baron’s Achievement
DAVID SORKIN 81
Chapter Four
An Economic Historian Reads Salo Baron
FRANCESCA TRIVELLATO 97
Chapter Five
Salo Baron on Anti-Semitism
DAVID ENGEL 115
vi
CONTENTS
Chapter Six
The Professor in the Courtroom: Salo W. Baron at the Eichmann Trial
DEBORAH LIPSTADT 132
Chapter Seven
Building the Foundations of Scholarship at Home: Salo Baron and the
Judaica Collections at Columbia University Libraries
MICHELLE MARGOLIS CHESNER 153
Chapter Eight
From Europe to Pittsburgh: Salo W. Baron and Yosef H. Yerushalmi
Between the Lachrymose Theory and the End of the Vertical Alliance
PIERRE BIRNBAUM 174
Chapter Nine
Salo Baron and His Innovative Reconstruction of the Jewish Past
ROBERT CHAZAN 192
Chapter Ten
Remembering Professor Salo Baron: Personal Recollections
of a Former Student
JANE C. GERBER 207
Chapter Eleven
Recollections from the Baron Daughters
SHOSHANA B. TANCER AND TOBEY B. GITELLE 219
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PUBLICATIONS OF PROFESSOR SALO
WITTMAYER BARON (1895–1989)
MENACHEM BUTLER 225
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 255
CONTRIBUTORS 259
INDEX 263
Introduction
SALO BARON, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, AND
THE EXPANSION OF JEWISH STUDIES IN
TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA
REBECCA KOBRIN
On December 14, 1929, Nicholas Butler, president of Columbia University,
penned a letter that altered the course of academic Jewish Studies in America.
On that fateful day ninety years ago, he wrote to Dr. Salo Wittmayer Baron
(fig. 0.1), a young Eastern European scholar, who was teaching at the recently
established Jewish Institute of Religion.
There has been established at Columbia University by the generous bene-
faction of Mrs. Nathan J. Miller, a chair of Jewish History, Literature and
Institution, which it is our desire to fill by the appointment of a scholar of
first rank, who will be able, because of his learning, his contacts and his
point of view, to build up the strongest possible University department in
this field of advanced instruction and research. . . . It is the recommen-
dation of this committee that an invitation should be offered to you to
become Professor of Jewish History, Literature and Institutions at Columbia
University, from July 1, 1930 at an annual salary of $7,500 with a seat in the
graduate faculty of philosophy.”1
Baron accepted the offer, and Butler ultimately placed Baron and this chair
in the Department of History.2 These decisions not only altered the study of
the Jewish past at Columbia but, as scholar Robert Liberles has noted, would
“influence the growth of Jewish scholarship in universities throughout
2
INTRODUCTION
the United States for the rest of the century.”3 In short, Baron’s arrival at
Columbia was a transformational moment: thanks to Baron, the United
States, long viewed as an intellectual backwater in the Jewish world, had a
top-rate scholar; and the study of Jewish history, “long relegated to Jewish
institutions with limited financial and human resources,” moved into “the
general American university, which provided augmented resources, valu-
able new perspectives and challenging new questions.”4 The explosion of
Jewish studies in the American academy in the second half of the twentieth
century, anchored in history, is a direct result of Butler’s decision to offer
the position to Baron, whose erudition, professionalism, initiative, adept-
ness at institution building and numerous publications set the “standard of
excellence [that] almost single-handedly opened the American university
to the field of Jewish studies.”5
The coming pages seek to mark this milestone by reflecting on Baron’s
legacy within the context of American Jewish life, as he played an instru-
mental role in transforming Jewish studies in the United States through
his scholarship, teaching, institution building, and mentorship both at
Columbia University and far beyond its walls. To be sure, this book does
not mark the first attempt to reflect on Salo Wittmayer Baron’s legacy. Even
while Baron was alive, his stature as a scholar, public intellectual, and com-
munal leader prompted several publications to evaluate his scholarship, in
both Hebrew and English, by enlisting leading scholars on both sides of the
Atlantic.6 The scholarly volumes produced for him in his lifetime bespeak
his influential role in shaping the academic study of Jewish history as well as
the high esteem in which he was held. His very presence on the Columbia
campus, as Robert Chazan notes, “added immeasurably to the arguments
made for the academic seriousness of Jewish studies and Jewish history.”7
After his death in 1989, more reflections and reevaluations of Baron’s
work surfaced, starting with a series of articles and a biography in 1995,
along with numerous journal essays, anthologies, monographs, and popu-
lar works.8 Recently, new work has examined the organizations he founded
that restituted stolen Jewish intellectual property or supported the devel-
oping field of Jewish studies in the United States.9 Many scholars have
commented on Baron’s formative role as scholar, public intellectual, and
communal leader, but none has yet delved into how Baron used his perch
in Morningside Heights to train other scholars to transform the study of
the Jewish past in America.
3
INTRODUCTION
FIGURE 0.1. Salo Baron, circa 1934.
From the private collection of Shoshana Tancer.
Drawing on Columbia’s many resources, Baron trained numerous
students across several fields, produced expansive scholarly tomes, and
helped build up archives and Judaica collections not only at Columbia but
throughout the United States. Although several authors in this volume
debate whether Baron’s frameworks, concepts, insights, and arguments