Creating "Jewish history for our own needs:" The evolution of Cecil Roth's historical vision, 1925-1935

Modern Judaism

Volumn 21, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 216-237

  Krome, Frederic ^a  

^a Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84864454487     PISSN: 02761114     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/mj/21.3.216     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. See Todd Endelman, "Writing English Jewish History", Albion Vol. 27, No. 3 (Autumn 1995), p. 628.
2. On the milieu that Rorth came out of see Robert Liberies, "Postemancipation Historiography and the Jewish Historical Societies of America and England", in Reshaping the Past: Jewish History and the Historians (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Vol. 10), ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York, 1994), pp. 66-92.
3. See Irene Roth, Historian without Tears: A Memoir (New York, 1982).
4. See Geoffrey Alderman, "The Young Cecil Roth, 1899-1924", Jewish Historical Studies (Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England) Vol. 34(1994-1996), pp. 1-16.
5. See Robert Liberies, Salo Wittmayer Baron: Architect of Jewish History (New York, 1995).
6. On Marcus's career and significance see Lance J. Sussman, "'Historian of the Jewish People:' A Historiographic Reevaluation of the Writings of Jacob R. Marcus", The American Jewish Archives Journal Vol. 50, Nos. 1 & 2(1998), pp. 10-11;
7. and for a comparison between Marcus and Baron see Jeffrey Gurock, "Jacob Rader Marcus, Salo W. Baron, and the Public's Need to Know American Jewish History", The American Jewish Archives Journal Vol. 50, Nos. 1 & 2(1998), pp. 22-27.
8. Cecil Roth, The Last Florentine Republic (London, 1925).
9. For a concise survey of the ideas of this intellectual movement see Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. "Wissenschaft Des Judentums."
10. Chaim Raphael, "In Search of Cecil Roth", Commentary Vol. 50, No. 3(Sept. 1970), p. 75.
11. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession, (New York, 1988), pp. 52-53.
12. Jonathan D. Sarna, JPS: The Americanization of Jewish Culture, 1888-1988 (Philadelphia, 1989), pp. 163-164.
13. David N. Myers, Re-Inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History (New York, 1995).
14. David N. Myers, "Introduction" in The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians, ed. David N. Myers and David B. Ruderman, (New Haven, 1998), p. 9.
15. See David Weinberg's thoughtful critique of the Myers and Ruderman volume in American Historical Review Vol. 105, No. 1(February 2000), pp. 166-167.
16. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor. Jewish History & Jewish Memory (New York, 1989), p. 84.
17. On the creation of the JIR see Michael A. Meyer, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion: A Centennial History 1875-1975 (Cincinnati, 1992), pp. 137-169;
18. for an examination of the context of Jewish studies in general see Paul Ritterband and Harold S. Wechsler, Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century (Bloomington, 1994), chapter six, passim.
19. Meyer, Hebrew Union College, p. 152;
20. Liberies, Salo Wittmayer Baron, pp. 27-30.
21. Israel Abrahams (1858-1925) was a professor of rabbinic and Talmudic literature at Cambridge University. He had deep ties to the American Jewish community, corresponding with many prominent individuals. One of his most famous books, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, was published by the Jewish Publication Society. See Elliot Horowitz, "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages and the Jewish Life of Israel Abrahams", in The Jewish Past Revisited, pp. 143-162.
22. Ritterband and Wechsler, Jewish Learning in American Universities, chapter seven, gives a detailed discussion of the problems faced by Jewish Historians; Liberies, Salo Wittmayer Baron, chapter two, describes the specific travails Baron faced trying to find a permanent departmental "home" after being named to the Miller Chair at Columbia University.
23. On the Jewish Encyclopedia see Shuly Rubin Schwartz, The Emergence of Jewish Scholarship in America: The Publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia (Cincinnati, 1991).
24. The Menorah Journal Vol. 12, No. 6(December 1926), pp. 577-588.
25. See Seth Korelitz, "The Menorah Idea: From Religion to Culture, from Race to Ethnicity", American Jewish History Vol. 85, No. 1(March 1997), pp. 75-100
26. and Lauren Strauss, "Staying Afloat in the Melting Pot Constructing an American Jewish Identity in the Menorah Journal of the 1920s", American Jewish History Vol. 84, No. 4(December 1996), pp. 315-331.
27. Mark Krupnick, "The Menorah Group and the Origins of Modem Jewish-American Radicalism", Studies in American Jewish Literature Vol. 5(Winter 1979), p. 58;
28. also see Susanne Klingenstein, Jews in the American Academy, 1900-1940 (Syracuse, 1998), pp. 41-42.
29. Max L. Margolis and Alexander Marx, A History of the Jewish People (Philadelphia, 1927). The Russian born Max Margolis (1886-1932) was a prominent biblical and Semitic scholar who taught at several American universities.
30. See Ritterband and Weschsler, Jewish Learning in American Universities, p. 141 for a discussion of the Marx and Margolis book.
31. See Mark Levene, War, Jews, and the New Europe: The Diplomacy of Lucien Wolf 1914-1919 (Oxford, 1992);
32. Cecil Roth, "Jewish History for Our Own Needs", The Menorah Journal Vol. 14(May 1928), pp. 1-16.
33. See Ismar Schorsch, From Text to Context: The Turn to History in Modern Judaism (Hanover, 1994).
34. See Ritterban and Wechsler, Jewish Learning in American Universities, p. 141.
35. See Jewish Learning in American Universities, pp. 126-147 for the discussion.
36. See Cecil Roth, "The Jews in the Middle Ages", in The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. VII (New York, 1932). Roth covered the period between the destruction of the Temple and the fifteenth-century migration to eastern Europe.
37. Cecil Roth, "European History and Jewish History: Do Their Epochs Coincide?" The Menorah Journal Vol. 16(April 1929), pp. 293-306.
38. See Cecil Roth, The Jewish Contribution to Civilization (London, 1938).
39. See Kerry Marc Olitzky, "A History of Reform Jewish Education during Emanuel Gamoran's Tenure as Education Director of the Commission on Jewish Educadon of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations 1923-1958", (DHL Thesis, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1984);
40. Emauel Gameron, "Notes on Minutes of the Commission", p. 5, Small Collections, SC-3857, AJA.
41. Emanuel Gameron, "What the Jewish Religious School is Trying to do for the Jewish Child." Small Collections, SC-3854, AJA.
42. One of the most popular, and enduring, books sponsored by Gameron's program was Jacob Rader Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book: 315-1791 (Cincinnati, 1937). Originally intended for adult education, this book became a mainstay of Judaic studies and has been reprinted by at least four different publishers since 1937.
43. See also Jacob Rader Marcus, A Concise Dictionary of American Jewish Biography (New York, 1994), s.v. "Enelow, Hyman G."
44. Cecil Roth, A Bird's-Eye View of Jewish History (Cincinnati, 1935)
45. and subsequendy republished in Great Britain as A Short History of the Jewish People, 1600 B. C.-A. D. 1935 (London: Macmillan and Company, 1936);
46. in the U. S. it was later published as A History of the Jews: From the Earliest Times Through the Six Day War (New York, 1961), the copyright was renewed in 1989.
47. th, 1952", (New York, 1952). Typescript held at the Klau Library, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio.