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No. 43.

Vienna, 25 October 1901.

Fifth Year

Jewish Science.

II.

In my previous article (No. 41 of the "Welt") I attempted to show that there can be no Jewish science valid in the strict methodical sense, but only a Jewish scientific complex, which might be produced by disengaging from the several disciplines those sections that concern Judaism, and by systematically annexing these sections to philological Judaistics as conceived in the modern manner. This premised, I shall in what follows, for reasons of convenience, designate it as "Jewish science".

Therewith our first question, "What is Jewish science?", would in essentials be answered. In truth, however, we already know its purpose as well. We are to pursue Jewish science in order to learn to know the Jewish people in its foundations, its development, its present constitution. This has a twofold intention. First, that of knowing what one loves. But then also, to search out from what is given what our people needs and what it has to expect, its requirements and its possibilities. The one as well as the other, in order to be able to draft scientifically a plan of Jewish policy upon the grandest scale, that is to say, in order to set about that which we have designated the "science of the Jewish question".

The purpose is accordingly a theoretico-practical one. The practical element in it may even be the preponderant. Now it is self-evident that it would not be the right way if all whom the matter concerns had to work their way through the whole of the disciplines that come into question, and each had to peel out the Jewish part for himself. That would be a squandering of strength and of time which we can by no means permit ourselves. Means will rather have to be sought which would make it possible for all to study Jewish science in a unified and systematic manner. Among these means there are two in particular, which I should like to call the Work and the University. They correspond to the twofold function of science: the active and the receptive.

I have already set forth why the Jewish Encyclopaedia may be regarded only as a preliminary labour. For Jewish science a Work will have to be created which should arise, not according to lexical (or even demonstrative) points of view, but according to a scientific plan. Biographica and generalities would have to give place to a strict presentation of the natural-scientific, historical and sociological facts and connexions. This Work I conceive as a collective creation, in which the most eminent Jewish scholars would take part, each conscious of his task as of a mission, each giving what is his own independently and completely, and yet all working together and into one another. This Work, when completed, would be a stage of the intellectual labour from which one might well already attempt to look into the future of the Jewish people.

Of a Jewish University there has of late been repeated talk. The thought lived in the best Jews of these days. It was uttered at the Zionist Congress. Then it emerged repeatedly in periodicals. Then in positive form in America, connected with the Encyclopaedia through the personality of its apostle. Thereupon periodical discussion again. Out of all this there have shaped themselves for me certain leading propositions, which stand in decided opposition especially to the American foundation. They run, put as briefly and precisely as possible: 1. A Jewish University is a necessity, as the chief means for the training up of a generation that thinks in a modern Jewish manner, as the preparation of a future for Jewish science, as the central office of the endeavours after a spiritual elevation of our people. 2. The subject-matter of instruction at the University is Jewish science, or the science of Judaism, in the sense I have set forth. 3. The subject-matter of instruction is to be divided into departments, not according to the traditional and inadequate scheme "History, Literature, Theology", but according to modern scientific methodology (say Anthropology, History — wherein, of course, the history of literature and of religion would also be included — and Social Science). 4. The present seat