The History of 'positive-historical' ('Conservative') Judaism in Germany (1844-1912/13)

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Recent historiography has described religious modernization within German Jewry as an important element within the process of the creation of a Jewish middle class. However, to date historical inquiry has not sufficiently dealt with a key fact: beginning with the second third of the 19th century, a third religious current emerged to find its place between the two poles of Orthodoxy and Reform, namely positive-historical Judaism. This middle-of-the- road current represented a Jewish identity in which espousal of a positive religious tradition and the concomitant insight into its historical development were both equal integral components. The middle-of-the-road party defined its central aims as the investigation and translation of tradition, the modernizing reorganization of the religious institutions as well as a cautious reform of the religious service. By means of self-organizing in its own institutions, it sought to assert itself as a third religious force along side the two other currents. The concrete concern was to assert the relevance of a positive-historical theology in the shaping of religious life in the Jewish Communities - particularly within the synagogue and other public Jewish religious structures as well as in the private sphere of the family. The goal of the present project is to close the previous empty gap in historiography by calling attention for the first time to positive-historical Judaism as a separate and independent religious current in its own right. The study seeks to work out the history of this current in the context of the transformation of religious practice and the ongoing processes of cultural change, looking at its genesis and spread, organization, institutionalization and history of ideas. The analysis also explores the social strata that were active in its development, both its leading representatives and the broader community of adherents. The chosen time frame for analysis, 1844-1912/13, marks the period from Frankel's first coining of the term positive-historical Judaism to the controversy over the Guidelines for a Program for Liberal Judaism in 1912/13, and also looks on ahead to the years of the Weimar Republic. Particular emphasis is given to exploring the question as to why the representatives of the middle path, a current that in the 1850s appeared to represented the religious orientation of a majority of the Jews in Germany, despite a number of attempts did not succeed in achieving more lasting consolidation of its structure as a trans-regional religious movement. In addition, the study attempts to shed light on the place occupied by this current in the religious history of German Jewry and what role it played as a variant of a middle-class religious denomination or bürgerliche Konfession.