Modern Jewish Scholarship in Hungary : The ‚Science of Judaism‘ between East and West

Hungarian Jewish scholarship had a lasting impact on the Wissenschaft des Judentums (“Science of Judaism”). This volume presents an overview of a century of Hungarian Jewish scholarly achievements, examining their historical context and assessing their ongoing relevance.

The Habsburg Empire was one of the first regions where the academic study of Judaism took institutional shape in the nineteenth century. In Hungary, scholars such as Leopold and Immanuel Löw, David Kaufmann, Ignaz Goldziher, Wilhelm Bacher, and Samuel Krauss had a lasting impact on the Wissenschaft des Judentums (“Science of Judaism”). Their contributions to Biblical, rabbinic and Semitic studies, Jewish history, ethnography and other fields were always part of a trans-national Jewish scholarly network and the academic universe. Yet Hungarian Jewish scholarship assumed a regional tinge, as it emerged at an intersection between unquelled Ashkenazi yeshiva traditions, Jewish modernization movements, and Magyar politics that boosted academic Orientalism in the context of patriotic historiography. For the first time, this volume presents an overview of a century of Hungarian Jewish scholarly achievements, examining their historical context and assessing their ongoing relevance.

"This impressive volume describes key aspects of the development of Jewish scholarship in the Hungarian-speaking environment and the environment in which this took place. [...] This will be a basic work for many years on academic Jewish research in Hungary. It provides material for comparisons with such studies in other contexts and with other religious groups in Central Europe. It is also a fine starting point for beginning work on individuals and on subspecialties for which Hungary was (and is) noted, including folklore and Oriental studies."
Shaul Stampfer in: Religious Studies Review 43.4 (2017), 413-414

"Insgesamt ist das Buch ein wichtiger Beitrag für die Geschichte der Wissenschaft des Judentums."
Mihály Riszovannij in: Chilufim. Zeitschrift für Jüdische Kulturgeschichte 24 (2018), 125-128