Wilhelm Humboldt first came to her house, the real history of the Berlin
_salon_ begins. The Humboldts' acquaintance with the Herz family dates
from the visit of state councillor Kunth, the tutor of the Humboldt
brothers, to Marcus Herz to advise with him about setting up a
lightning-rod, an extraordinary novelty at the time, on the castle at
Tegel. Shortly afterward, Kunth introduced his two pupils to Herz and
his wife. So the Berlin _salon_ owed its origin to a lightning-rod;
indeed, it may itself be called an electrical conductor for all the
spiritual forces, recently brought into play, and still struggling to
manifest their undeveloped strength. Up to that time there had been
nothing like society in the city of intelligence. Of course there was no
dearth of scholars and clever, brilliant people, but insuperable
obstacles seemed to prevent their social contact with one another.
Outside of Moses Mendelssohn's house, until the end of the eighties the
only _rendezvous_ of wits, scholars, and literary men, the preference
was for magnificent banquets and noisy carousals, each rank entertaining
its own members. In the middle class, the burghers, the social instinct
had not awakened at all. Alexander Humboldt significantly dated his
first letter to Henriette Herz from _Schloss Langeweile_. In the course
of time the desire for spiritual sympathy led to the formation of
reading clubs and _conversazioni_. These were the elements that finally
produced Berlin society.
The prototype of the German _salon_ naturally was the _salon_ of the
rococo period. Strangely enough, Berlin Jews, disciples, friends, and
descendants of Moses Mendelssohn, were the transplanters of the foreign
product to German soil. Untrammelled as they were in this respect by
traditions, they hearkened eagerly to the new dispensation issuing from
Weimar, and they were in no way hampered in the choice of their
hero-guides to Olympus. Berlin irony, French sparkle, and Jewish wit
moulded the social forms which thereafter were to be characteristic of
society at the capital, and called forth pretty much all that was
charming in the society and pleasing in the light literature of the
Berlin of the day.
To judge Henriette Herz justly we must beware alike of the extravagance
of her biographer and the malice of her friend Varnhagen von Ense; the
former extols her cleverness to the skies, the other degrades her to the
level of the commonplace. The two seem equally unreliable. She was
neither extremely witty nor extremely cultured. She had a singularly
clear mind, and possessed the rare faculty of spreading about her an
atmosphere of ease and cheer--good substitutes for wit and
intellectuality. Upon her beauty and amiability rested the popularity of
her _salon_, which succeeded in uniting all the social factors of that
period.
The nucleus of her social gatherings consisted of the representatives of
the old literary traditions, Nicolai, Ramler, Engel, and Moritz, and
they curiously enough attracted the theologians Spalding, Teller,
Zoellner, and later Schleiermacher, whose intimacy with his hostess is a
matter of history. Music was represented by Reichardt and Wesseli; art,
by Schadow; and the nobility by Bernstorff, Dotina, Brinkmann, Friedrich
von Gentz, and the Humboldts. Her drawing-room was the hearth of the
romantic movement, and as may be imagined, her example was followed for
better and for worse by her friends and sisters in faith, so that by the
end of the century, Berlin could boast a number of _salons_,
meeting-places of the nobility, literary men, and cultured Jews, for the
friendly exchange of spiritual and intellectual experiences. Henriette
Herz's _salon_ became important not only for society in Berlin, but also
for German literature, three great literary movements being sheltered in
it: the classical, the romantic, and, through Ludwig Boerne, that of
"Young Germany." Judaism alone was left unrepresented. In fact, she and
all her cultured Jewish friends hastened to free themselves of their
troublesome Jewish affiliations, or, at least, concealed them as best
they could. Years afterwards, Boerne spent his ridicule upon the
Jewesses of the Berlin _salons_, with their enormous racial noses and
their great gold crosses at their throats, pressing into Trinity church
to hear Schleiermacher preach. But justice compels us to say that these
women did not know Judaism, or knew it only in its slave's garb. Had
they had a conception of its high ethical standard, of the wealth of its
poetic and philosophic thoughts, being women of rare mental gifts and
broad liberality, they certainly would not have abandoned Judaism. But
the Judaism of their Berlin, as represented by its religious teachers
and the leaders of the Jewish community, most of them, according to
Mendelssohn's own account, immigrant Poles, could not appeal to women of
keen, intellectual sympathies, and tastes conforming to the ideals of
the new era.
As for Mendelssohn's friends who flocked to his hospitable home--their
names are household words in the history of German literature. Nicolai
and Lessing must be mentioned before all others, but no one came to
Berlin without seeking Moses Mendelssohn--Goethe, Herder, Wieland,
Hennings, Abt, Campe, Moritz, Jerusalem. Joachim Campe has left an
account of his visit at Mendelssohn's house, which is probably a just
picture of its attractions.[82] He says: "On a Friday afternoon, my wife
and myself, together with some of the distinguished representatives of
Berlin scholarship, visited Mendelssohn. We were chatting over our
coffee, when Mendelssohn, about an hour before sundown, rose from his
seat with the words: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I must leave you to receive
the Sabbath. I shall be with you again presently; meantime my wife will
enjoy your company doubly.' All eyes followed our amiable
philosopher-host with reverent admiration as he withdrew to an adjoining
room to recite the customary prayers. At the end of half an hour he
returned, his face radiant, and seating himself, he said to his wife:
'Now I am again at my post, and shall try for once to do the honors in
your place. Our friends will certainly excuse you, while you fulfil your
religious duties.' Mendelssohn's wife excused herself, joined her
family, consecrated the Sabbath by lighting the Sabbath lamp, and
returned to us. We stayed on for some hours." Is it possible to conceive
of a more touching picture?
When Duchess Dorothea of Kurland, and her sister Elise von der Recke
were living at Friedrichsfelde near Berlin in 1785, they invited
Mendelssohn, whom they were eager to know, to visit them. When dinner
was announced, Mendelssohn was not to be found. The companion of the two
ladies writes in her journal:[83] "He had quietly slipped away to the
inn at which he had ordered a frugal meal. From a motive entirely worthy
I am sure, this philosopher never permits himself to be invited to a
meal at a Christian's house. Not to be deprived of Mendelssohn's society
too long, the duchess rose from the table as soon as possible."
Mendelssohn returned, stayed a long time, and, on bidding adieu to the
duchess, he said: "To-day, I have had a chat with mind."
This was Berlin society at Mendelssohn's time, and its toleration and
humanity are the more to be valued as the majority of Jews by no means
emulated Mendelssohn's enlightened example. All their energies were
absorbed in the effort of compliance with the charter of Frederick the
Great, which imposed many vexatious restrictions. On marrying, they were
still compelled to buy the inferior porcelain made by the royal
manufactory. The whole of the Jewish community continued to be held
responsible for a theft committed by one of its members. Jews were not
yet permitted to become manufacturers. Bankrupt Jews, without
investigation of each case, were considered cheats. Their use of land
and waterways was hampered by many petty obstructions. In every field an
insurmountable barrier rose between them and their Christian
fellow-citizens. Mendelssohn's great task was the moral and spiritual
regeneration of his brethren in faith. In all disputes his word was
final. He hoped to bring about reforms by influencing his people's inner
life. Schools were founded, and every means used to further culture and
education, but he met with much determined opposition among his
fellow-believers. Of Ephraim, the debaser of the coin, we have spoken;
also of the king's manner towards Jews. Here is another instance of his
brusqueness: Abraham Posner begged for permission to shave his beard.
Frederick wrote on the margin of his petition: "_Der Jude Posner soll
mich und seinen Bart ungeschoren lassen._"
Lawsuits of Jews against French and German traders made a great stir in
those days. It was only after much annoyance that a naturalization
patent was obtained by the family of Daniel Itzig, the father-in-law of
David Friedlaender, founder of the Jews' Free School in Berlin. In other
cases, no amount of effort could secure the patent, the king saying:
"Whatever concerns your trade is well and good. But I cannot permit you
to settle tribes of Jews in Berlin, and turn it into a young
Jerusalem."--
This is a picture of Jewish society in Berlin one hundred years ago. It
united the most diverse currents and tendencies, emanating from
romanticism, classicism, reform, orthodoxy, love of trade, and efforts
for spiritual regeneration. In all this queer tangle, Moses Mendelssohn
alone stands untainted, his form enveloped in pure, white light.
LEOPOLD ZUNZ[84]
We are assembled for the solemn duty of paying a tribute to the memory
of him whose name graces our lodge. A twofold interest attaches us to
Leopold Zunz, appealing, as he does, to our local pride, and, beyond and
above that, to our Jewish feelings. Leopold Zunz was part of the Berlin
of the past, every trace of which is vanishing with startling rapidity.
Men, houses, streets are disappearing, and soon naught but a memory will
remain of old Berlin, not, to be sure, a City Beautiful, yet filled for
him that knew it with charming associations. A precious remnant of this
dear old Berlin was buried forever, when, on one misty day of the spring
of 1886, we consigned to their last resting place the mortal remains of
Leopold Zunz. Memorial addresses are apt to abound in such expressions
as "immortal," "imperishable," and in flowery tributes. This one shall
not indulge in them, although to no one could they more fittingly be
applied than to Leopold Zunz, a pioneer in the labyrinth of science, and
the architect of many a stately palace adorning the path but lately
discovered by himself. Surely, such an one deserves the cordial
recognition and enduring gratitude of posterity.
Despite the fact that Zunz was born at Detmold (August 10, 1794), he was
an integral part of old Berlin--a Berlin citizen, not by birth, but by
vocation, so to speak. His being was intertwined with its life by a
thousand tendrils of intellectual sympathy. The city, in turn, or, to be
topographically precise, the district between _Mauerstrasse_ and
_Rosenstrasse_ knew and loved him as one of its public characters. Time
was when his witticisms leapt from mouth to mouth in the circuit between
the Varnhagen _salon_ and the synagogue in the _Heidereutergasse_,
everywhere finding appreciative listeners. An observer stationed _Unter
den Linden_ daily for more than thirty years might have seen a peculiar
couple stride briskly towards the _Thiergarten_ in the early afternoon.
The loungers at Spargnapani's _cafe_ regularly interrupted their endless
newspaper reading to crane their necks and say to one another, "There go
Dr. Zunz and his wife."
In his obituary notice of the poet Mosenthal, Franz Dingelstedt
roguishly says: "He was of poor, albeit Jewish parentage." The same
applies to Zunz, only the saying would be truer, if not so witty, in
this form: "He was of Jewish, hence of poor, parentage." Among German
Jews throughout the middle ages and up to the first half of this
century, poverty was the rule, a comfortable competency a rare
exception, wealth an unheard of condition. But Jewish poverty was
relieved of sordidness by a precious gift of the old rabbis, who said:
"Have a tender care of the children of the poor; from them goeth forth
the Law"; an admonition and a prediction destined to be illustrated in
the case of Zunz. Very early he lost his mother, and the year 1805 finds
him bereft of both parents, under the shelter and in the loving care of
an institution founded by a pious Jew in Wolfenbuettel. Here he was
taught the best within the reach of German Jews of the day, the _alpha_
and _omega_ of whose knowledge and teaching were comprised in the
Talmud. The Wolfenbuettel school may be called progressive, inasmuch as a
teacher, watchmaker by trade and novel-writer by vocation, was engaged
to give instruction four times a week in the three R's. We may be sure
that those four lessons were not given with unvarying regularity.
In his scholastic home, Leopold Zunz met Isaac Marcus Jost, a waif like
himself, later the first Jewish historian, to whom we owe interesting
details of Zunz's early life. In his memoirs[85] he tells the following:
"Zunz had been entered as a pupil before I arrived. Even in those early
days there were evidences of the acumen of the future critic. He was
dominated by the spirit of contradiction. On the sly we studied grammar,
his cleverness helping me over many a stumbling-block. He was very
witty, and wrote a lengthy Hebrew satire on our tyrants, from which we
derived not a little amusement as each part was finished. Unfortunately,
the misdemeanor was detected, and the _corpus delicti_ consigned to the
flames, but the sobriquet _chotsuf_ (impudent fellow) clung to the
writer."
It is only just to admit that in this _Beth ha-Midrash_ Zunz laid the
foundation of the profound, comprehensive scholarship on Talmudic
subjects, the groundwork of his future achievements as a critic. The
circumstance that both these embryo historians had to draw their first
information about history from the Jewish German paraphrase of
"Yosippon," an historical compilation, is counterbalanced by careful
instruction in Rabbinical literature, whose labyrinthine ways soon
became paths of light to them.
A new day broke, and in its sunlight the condition of affairs changed.
In 1808 the _Beth ha-Midrash_ was suddenly transformed into the
"Samsonschool," still in useful operation. It became a primary school,
conducted on approved pedagogic principles, and Zunz and Jost were among
the first registered under the new, as they had been under the old,
administration. Though the one was thirteen, and the other fourteen
years old, they had to begin with the very rudiments of reading and
writing. Campe's juvenile books were the first they read. A year later
finds them engaged in secretly studying Greek, Latin, and mathematics
during the long winter evenings, by the light of bits of candles made by
themselves of drippings from the great wax tapers in the synagogue.
After another six months, Zunz was admitted to the first class of the
Wolfenbuettel, and Jost to that of the Brunswick, _gymnasium_. It
characterizes the men to say that Zunz was the first, and Jost the
third, Jew in Germany to enter a _gymnasium_. Now progress was rapid.
The classes of the _gymnasium_ were passed through with astounding ease,
and in 1811, with a minimum of luggage, but a very considerable mental
equipment, Zunz arrived in Berlin, never to leave it except for short
periods. He entered upon a course in philology at the newly founded
university, and after three years of study, he was in the unenviable
position to be able to tell himself that he had attained to--nothing.
For, to what could a cultured Jew attain in those days, unless he became
a lawyer or a physician? The Hardenberg edict had opened academical
careers to Jews, but when Zunz finished his studies, that provision was
completely forgotten. So he became a preacher. A rich Jew, Jacob Herz
Beer, the father of two highly gifted sons, Giacomo and Michael Beer,
had established a private synagogue in his house, and here officiated
Edward Kley, C. Guensburg, J. L. Auerbach, and, from 1820 to 1822,
Leopold Zunz. It is not known why he resigned his position, but to infer
that he had been forced to embrace the vocation of a preacher by the
stress of circumstances is unjust. At that juncture he probably would
have chosen it, if he had been offered the rectorship of the Berlin
university; for, he was animated by somewhat of the spirit that urged
the prophets of old to proclaim and fulfil their mission in the midst of
storms and in despite of threatening dangers.
Zunz's sermons delivered from 1820 to 1822 in the first German reform
temple are truly instinct with the prophetic spirit. The breath of a
mighty enthusiasm rises from the yellowed pages. Every word testifies
that they were indited by a writer of puissant individuality, disengaged
from the shackles of conventional homiletics, and boldly striking out on
untrodden paths. In the Jewish Berlin of the day, a rationalistic,
half-cultured generation, swaying irresolutely between Mendelssohn and
Schleiermacher, these new notes awoke sympathetic echoes. But scarcely
had the music of his voice become familiar, when it was hushed. In 1823,
a royal cabinet order prohibited the holding of the Jewish service in
German, as well as every other innovation in the ritual, and so German
sermons ceased in the synagogue. Zunz, who had spoken like Moses, now
held his peace like Aaron, in modesty and humility, yielding to the
inevitable without rancor or repining, always loyal to the exalted ideal
which inspired him under the most depressing circumstances. He dedicated
his sermons, delivered at a time of religious enthusiasm, to "youth at
the crossroads," whom he had in mind throughout, in the hope that they
might "be found worthy to lead back to the Lord hearts, which, through
deception or by reason of stubbornness, have fallen away from Him."
The rescue of the young was his ideal. At the very beginning of his
career he recognized that the old were beyond redemption, and that, if
response and confidence were to be won from the young, the expounding of
the new Judaism was work, not for the pulpit, but for the professor's
chair. "Devotional exercises and balmy lotions for the soul" could not
heal their wounds. It was imperative to bring their latent strength into
play. Knowing this to be his pedagogic principle, we shall not go far
wrong, if we suppose that in the organization of the "Society for Jewish
Culture and Science" the initial step was taken by Leopold Zunz. In 1819
when the mobs of Wuerzburg, Hamburg, and Frankfort-on-the-Main revived
the "Hep, hep!" cry, three young men, Edward Gans, Moses Moser, and
Leopold Zunz conceived the idea of a society with the purpose of
bringing Jews into harmony with their age and environment, not by
forcing upon them views of alien growth, but by a rational training of
their inherited faculties. Whatever might serve to promote intelligence
and culture was to be nurtured: schools, seminaries, academies, were to
be erected, literary aspirations fostered, and all public-spirited
enterprises aided; on the other hand, the rising generation was to be
induced to devote itself to arts, trades, agriculture, and the applied
sciences; finally, the strong inclination to commerce on the part of
Jews was to be curbed, and the tone and conditions of Jewish society
radically changed--lofty goals for the attainment of which most limited
means were at the disposal of the projectors. The first fruits of the
society were the "Scientific Institute," and the "Journal for the
Science of Judaism," published in the spring of 1822, under the
editorship of Zunz. Only three numbers appeared, and they met with so
small a sale that the cost of printing was not realized. Means were
inadequate, the plans magnificent, the times above all not ripe for such
ideals. The "Scientific Institute" crumbled away, too, and in 1823, the
society was breathing its last. Zunz poured out the bitterness of his
disappointment in a letter written in the summer of 1824 to his Hamburg
friend Immanuel Wohlwill:
"I am so disheartened that I can nevermore believe in Jewish reform. A
stone must be thrown at this phantasm to make it vanish. Good Jews are
either Asiatics, or Christians (unconscious thereof), besides a small
minority consisting of myself and a few others, the possibility of
mentioning whom saves me from the imputation of conceit, though, truth
to say, the bitterness of irony cares precious little for the forms of
good society. Jews, and the Judaism which we wish to reconstruct, are a
prey to disunion, and the booty of vandals, fools, money-changers,
idiots, and _parnassim_.[86] Many a change of season will pass over this
generation, and leave it unchanged: internally ruptured; rushing into
the arms of Christianity, the religion of expediency; without stamina
and without principle; one section thrust aside by Europe, and
vegetating in filth with longing eyes directed towards the Messiah's ass
or other member of the long-eared fraternity; the other occupied with
fingering state securities and the pages of a cyclopaedia, and constantly
oscillating between wealth and bankruptcy, oppression and tolerance.
Their own science is dead among Jews, and the intellectual concerns of
European nations do not appeal to them, because, faithless to
themselves, they are strangers to abstract truth and slaves of
self-interest. This abject wretchedness is stamped upon their
penny-a-liners, their preachers, councillors, constitutions,
_parnassim_, titles, meetings, institutions, subscriptions, their
literature, their book-trade, their representatives, their happiness,
and their misfortune. No heart, no feeling! All a medley of prayers,
banknotes, and _rachmones_,[87] with a few strains of enlightenment and
_chilluk_![88]--
Now, my friend, after so revolting a sketch of Judaism, you will hardly
ask why the society and the journal have vanished into thin air, and are
missed as little as the temple, the school, and the rights of
citizenship. The society might have survived despite its splitting up
into sections. That was merely a mistake in management. The truth is
that it never had existence. Five or six enthusiasts met together, and
like Moses ventured to believe that their spirit would communicate
itself to others. That was self-deception. _The only imperishable
possession rescued from this deluge is the science of Judaism. It lives
even though not a finger has been raised in its service since hundreds
of years. I confess that, barring submission to the judgment of God, I
find solace only in the cultivation of the science of Judaism._
As for myself, those rough experiences of mine shall assuredly not
persuade me into a course of action inconsistent with my highest
aspirations. I did what I held my duty. I ceased to preach, not in order
to fall away from my own words, but because I realized that I was
preaching in the wilderness. _Sapienti sat_.... After all that I have
said, you will readily understand that I cannot favor an unduly
ostentatious mode of dissolution. Such a course would be prompted by the
vanity of the puffed-out frog in the fable, and affect the Jews ... as
little as all that has gone before. There is nothing for the members to
do but to remain unshaken, and radiate their influence in their limited
circles, leaving all else to God."