Leopold Zunz

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Leopold Zunz (1794–1886) (Hebrew: יום טוב ליפמן צונץ—"Yom Tov Lipmann Tzuntz") was the founder of what has been termed the "Science of Judaism" (Wissenschaft des Judentums), the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual.

[edit] Biography

Leopold Zunz was born at Detmold in 1794, and settled in Berlin in 1815, studying at the University of Berlin and obtaining a doctorate from the University of Halle. He was ordained by the early Reformer, Aaron Chorin, and served for two years as preacher in the Reform New Synagogue in Berlin. He found the career uncongenial, and in 1840 he was appointed director of a Lehrerseminar, a post which relieved him from pecuniary troubles. Zunz was always interested in politics, and in 1848 addressed many public meetings. In 1850 he resigned his headship of the Teachers' Seminary, and was awarded a pension. Throughout his early and married life he was the champion of Jewish rights, and he did not withdraw from public affairs until 1874, the year of the death of his wife Adelheid Beermann, whom he had married in 1822.

Together with other young men, among them the poet Heinrich Heine, Zunz founded the Verein fur Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden [The Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews] in Berlin in 1819. In 1823, Zunz became the editor of the Zeitschrift fur die Wissenschaft des Judenthums [Journal for the Science of Judaism]. The ideals of this Verein were not destined to bear religious fruit, but the "Science of Judaism" survived. Zunz "took no large share in Jewish reform", but never lost faith in the regenerating power of "science" as applied to the traditions and literary legacies of the ages. He influenced Judaism from the study rather than from the pulpit.

Zunz died in Berlin in 1886.

[edit] Works

• In 1832 appeared "the most important Jewish book published in the 19th century." This was Zunz's Gottesdienstliche Vorträge der Juden, i.e. a history of the Sermon. It lays down principles for the investigation of the Rabbinic exegesis (Midrash) and of the siddur (prayer-book of the synagogue). This book raised Zunz to the supreme position among Jewish scholars.

• In 1845 appeared his Zur Geschichte und Literatur, in which he threw light on the literary and social history of the Jews.

• He had visited the British Museum in 1846, and this confirmed him in his plan for his third book, Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters (1855). It was from this book that George Eliot translated the following opening of a chapter of Daniel Deronda: "If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the nations"...

• After its publication Zunz again visited England, and in 1859 issued his Ritus. In this he gives a masterly survey of synagogal rites.

• His last great book was his Literaturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie (1865). A supplement appeared in 1867.

Besides these works, Zunz published a new translation of the Bible, and wrote many essays which were afterwards collected as Gesammelte Schriften.

S. Maybaum published his biography, Aus dem Leben von Leopold Zunz (Berlin, 1894).

[edit] References

• Zunz, Leopold, jewishencyclopedia.com
• Zunz, Leopold, 1911encyclopedia.org
• Leopold Zunz, myjewishlearning.com
• Leopold (Yom Tov Lippmann) Zunz, bh.org.il

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.