The beginning of modern Jewish historiography: Prague – A center on the periphery

Abstract

This paper questions the well-established view that modern Jewish historical writing began in Germany about 1820, with the Wissenschaft des Judentums. Following a summary of various scholarly discussions of this issue, attention shifts to Prague. Prague was a center of Jewish historical writing before the birth of Wissenschaft, and the historical narratives of three distinct Bohemian maskilim, Peter Beer (1758–1838), Salomo Löwisohn (1789–1821), and Marcus Fischer (1788–1858) are shown to illustrate the options available to Jewish historians before institutionalized German historicism came to dominate the field. No less important, it becomes clear that scholars should treat Prague as a center of Jewish historical production, which they have not done in the past.