Elusiveness of Tolerance: The "Jewish Question" from Lessing to the Napoleonic Wars (Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award, 1997)

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Summary: Professor David Murphy's Review from German Studies Review
Review: Peter R. Erspamer, The Elusiveness of Tolerance: The "Jewish Question" from Lessing to the Napoleonic Wars, reviewed by Dr. David T. Murphy, Professor of History at Anderson University, in German Studies Review, Vol. XXII, No. 1, pp. 116-117

The title of Peter Erspamer's study of early German literature concerning what became known as the "Jewish question" is well chosen, in two ways: Not only have the goals of legal toleration and cultural acceptance for eligious and ethnic minorities in Germany and the West proven elusive, but, as this study makes abundantly clear, agreement upon the meaning of the term "tolerance" itself has turned out to be equally difficult to attain. In Germany during the Enlightenment and Revolutionary eras, for example, "tolerance" could and did signify a range of meanings. While the term evoked a narrowly conceived sense of permission or "sufferance of evil" to some, for a smaller group of others it suggested a much broader notion of freedom of convictions.

Erspamer's revised dissertation provides a competent introduction to the early decades of the literary debate over the proper status of Jews in Germany. Taking as his starting point Lessing's Nathan the Wise of 1779, a work whose impact upon public understanding of the struggle for Jewish rights led George Mosse to describe it as the "Magna Carta" of German Jewry, Erspamer follows the reactions which Lessing's philo-Semitic drama provoked among a number of German audiences over the next several decades. The author gives particular attention to the views of Prussian officialdom, as expressed in the writings of Christian Wilhelm Dohm, the responses of Germany's various Jewish communities themselves, the emergence of a short-lived school of emancipatory drama and of course, the beginnings of the more enduring anti-Semitic backlash against the drive for emancipation.

Among the strengths of this monograph is its insightful attention to nuance in the response of Germany's Jews to the public debate about emancipation as it was carried on both within the Jewish community and in the larger Gentile culture. Contrary to widespread Christian perceptions, German Jewry of the period constituted a highly fragmented and heterogeneous group, embracing the reform-oriented Maskilim of the Jewish Enlightenment, the considerable community of "Taufjuden", or converted Jews, and the German orthodox community. The diversity of Judaism conditioned a wide range of responses to the drive for emancipation, from the almost Deistic Judaism of Moses Mendelssohn, the most famous Jewish proponent of emancipation, to the involved struggle toward self-identity of the remarkable converted Jew Rahel Varnhagen.

Erspamer also does a nice job of explicating the emerging anti-Semitic ideology which began to be elaborated in response to demands for Jewish emancipation. At this time, the remarkably durable Judeophobic religious prejudices of the Middle Ages began to merge with the clearly racial anti-Semitism of theorists such as Ernst Moritz Arnt, crystallizing and then disseminating what Erspamer describes as popular "myths of ethnic homogeneity." The author's understanding of the paradoxical ideological appeal of anti-Semitism as both the tool of an authoritarian state as well as a form of political expression of an oppressed people is perceptive.

While this work is well edited in regard to technical matters, it is burdened by a few stylistic shortcomings, including unnecessary repition of key concepts and sometimes of almost complete sentences in the early portions of the book. Clumsy neologisms like "dialecticizing" also crop up occasionally, though that is perhaps unavoidable in a contemporary work of literary criticism. Taken as a whole, however, this is a study whose virtues considerably outweigh its defects and which provides valuable insight into the dynamics of the evolution of ideas.

Rating:
Summary: Professor Erlis Wickerham's Review from Choice
Review: The Elusiveness of Tolerance: The "Jewish Question" from Lessing to the Napoleonic Wars, by Peter R. Erspamer, reviewed by Erlis G. Wickersham, Professor of German at Rosemont College, in: Choice, July/August 1997--Vol. 34, No. 11/12, pp. 182-83

In this interesting, well-conceived study, Erspamer considers the tolerance debate in Germany and Austria from the publication of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise (1779) to the end of the Napoleonic era. Erspamer makes excellent use of sources, presenting a balance of documents for and against the Enlightenment ideal promulgated by Lessing and influenced by the leading figure of the Haskalah: Moses Mendelssohn. He discusses both authors in fresh, insightful ways, while providing a balanced view of historical criticism. He analyzes pamphlets engendered by Lessing's book from writers like Pfranger, Dohm, Ascher, and Diez, and dramas with Jewish themes by writers like Reinicke, Bischof, Lotich, and Ziegelhauser. In such chapters as "Emancipatory Drama after Lessing" and "Myths of Homogeneity: Anti-Semitic Literature after 1800," he traces the devastating effects of nationalistic sentiments inspired by the Wars of Liberation. He illuminates the polemics of antisemitic Romantics like Achim von Arnim and Fichte, using well-chosen quotations in German. Despite quirks of style, Erspamer provides an integrated view of a seminal era for German-Jewish relations, needed materials, and valuable insights. Extensive bibliography, notes, and index. Recommended for all collections.