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SELTZER / GRAETZ, DUBNOW, BARON
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veyed the elements and interconnections that would have to
be included in a truly comprehensive presentation o f Jewish
history, the
Jiidische Weltgeschichte
which Dubnow envisioned but
was not able to carry ou t satisfactorily. Similarly, Baron had
a grasp o f sociological theoreticians, such as Max Weber, that
was fa r more sophisticated than Dubnow’s despite Dubnow’s
insistence on the term “sociological,” so that it was Baron and
not Dubnow who applied these perspectives to Jewish demog
raphy and economic history. One can conclude, therefore , that
Baron synthesized the intellectual-religious history o f Graetz
and the communal-social history o f Dubnow, overcoming the
one-sided approaches o f each, eliminating the blatant ideolog
ical
tendenz
his illustrious predecessors brough t to their writing,
in effect annihilating the scientific value o f their work.
Graetz, Dubnow, and Baron epitomize modern Jewish history
writing at its most substantial, purposeful, and daring, as it g rad
ually shifted from a romanticism and idealism to quantification
and a “socioreligious” focus. Few scholars would dare any more
to reduplicate their most ambitious undertaking . Baron may
have been the last Jewish historian to have known so much about
so many d iffe ren t domains o f Jewish and general learning that
he could set ou t to write with confidence
the
social and religious
history o f the Jews in volume after volume o f detailed recon
struction. Even the greatest o f 20th-century Jewish scholars,
such as Gershom Scholem and Yehezkel Kaufmann, decided
that was quite enough for a scholarly career to concentrate on
one subject o f Jewish research and clarify with new dep th its
peculiar structure and content.
What has been gained and what has been lost in the em er
gence o f a specialized, non-ideological Jewish historical schol
arship? Given the vastness and the growing complexity o f the
overlapping levels o f Jewish history, we may never again be
able to formulate with scientific exactitude a few clear and sim
ple tru ths that all should learn from Jewish history, tru ths that
could enable us to reforge Jewish identity in its fu tu re travails.
Graetz presupposed and found a fine compatibility between the
teachings o f Judaism and insights gained th rough a study o f
the Jewish past. Dubnow’s was one o f the most extreme positions
in modern Jewish though t — that Jews can find in their history
the content o f Jewishness and that the essence o f Jewishness
is
a certain historical consciousness. Baron, in his enormous con