Johann Jacob Schudt

Johann Jacob Schudt (born January 14, 1664 in Frankfurt am Main ; † February 14, 1722 there ) was a Lutheran theologian, educator and orientalist. He also published many writings on Judaism . Although Schudt adopted many of the clichés of his time, he was also a chronicler of contemporary Jewish life in Frankfurt.

Life

Schudt was the son of the Lutheran pastor Konrad Schudt (1624–1680). From 1671 to 1680 he attended the municipal high school . On the recommendation of the then senior Philipp Jakob Spener , he studied philosophy and Protestant theology at the University of Wittenberg from 1680 to 1684 . In 1684 he moved to Hamburg to study Oriental and Hebrew studies with the Christian Hebraist Esdras Edzardus until 1689 . In 1689 he returned to his hometown. He preached publicly several times, including on the occasion of the election of Joseph I.

In 1691 he became a teacher ( praeceptor primarius ) at the town high school, in 1695 vice rector and 1717 rector. He worked on works on classical and Hebrew philosophy and devoted the rest of his life to research into Jewish history, language and theology.

Works

In 1700 he published the Compendium Historiæ Judaicæ , a compilation of works by ancient writers on the Israelites, with an appendix on methods of mission to the Jews . In 1703 he published the anti- Judaistic text Judæus Christicida ("The Jew as Christ Murderer "), in which he tried to prove that the Jews were collectively to blame for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and had deserved physical and psychological punishment for it. The sufferings inflicted on them in their history are the consequences of this guilt, which they have long since taken away.

Schudt had good contacts in Frankfurt's Jewish community. In 1712 he wrote a foreword to the edition of the Book of Psalms published by the Frankfurt Rabbi Grünhut with Ḳimcḥi's commentary. His work Jüdisches Frankfurter und Prager Freuden-Fest , published in 1716, is the only surviving description of the Purim festival of the Frankfurt Jews with a game of Achasveros .

Jewish merchandise

Schudt's most important work was Jewish merchandise , three volumes of which appeared in 1714. The first volume describes the Jewish communities around the world. The second volume describes the past of the Jewish community in Frankfurt, for example the fat milk uprising . The third volume deals with Schudt's observations in the Frankfurt Jewish ghetto and also contains his description of the Purim festival. A fourth volume followed in 1717.

Jewish oddities is a literary turning point in anti-Jewish polemics because it uses secular or social arguments. For example, the aspect of cleanliness symbolizes the adherence to a social order of values ​​that is secular. The Jewish body can be corrected through a clean way of life and the integration of the Frankfurt Jews into a clean Christian society through a civilization process is possible if these were clean . True civilization is only possible through integration into a Christian society. On the one hand, the work contains many anti-Semitic prejudices and was thus also responsible for the spread of anti-Jewish stereotypes up into the 19th century. On the other hand, the work also shows numerous details from contemporary Frankfurt Jewish life.

Schudt and his attitude towards Jews corresponded to contemporary anti-Jewish prejudice. Schudt repeats numerous stereotypes from Discovered Judaism by Johann Andreas Eisenmenger , one of the pioneers of modern anti-Semitism. The anti-Jewish ideas formulated by the Frankfurt city doctor Ludwig von Hörnigk can also be found in Schudt. Despite his anti-Jewish claims, Schudt was very interested in the life of Frankfurt's Jews. In his scientific approach, he was guided by a clear research agenda and thus also paved the way for the Jews to be viewed as part of society that should prepare the way for Jewish emancipation in European society.

Appearance of the Jews

Schudt dedicated a chapter of his book to the body of the Jews. According to Schudt, it is very easy to distinguish a non-Jew from a Jew, "that one can immediately recognize a Jew among many thousands of people". God endowed the Jews with unique "characters or symbols", "that they will soon be seen in the first sight for Jews". Schudt particularly emphasizes the face, "that the Jew peeps out ... at the nose ... lips ... eyes also of the color and the whole body posture". Schudt sees the body as a medium of character and way of life (like his contemporaries) but the external appearance is determined by the social role (and not by the theological one like his contemporaries). According to Schudt, Jews disturb the divine order because of their appearance.

Cleanliness of the Jews

Schudt regards the cleanliness of the Jews as inadequate. The diet of the Jews is characterized by garlic. The aprons of the Jewish butchers and their wives are made of blood and excrement. The obsolete hygiene implies an obsolete religion of the Jews. Schudt combines cleanliness with smell as the "extension of the body into the room". From ancient times the Jews were ascribed their own stench, a "foetor judaicus". Schudt also claims that Ashkenazi Jews have a very unpleasant odor and attributes this to the consumption of garlic. Schudt said this was an etiquette problem because garlic was only consumed by the lower classes. He described the garlic smell of the Jews as a social misstep, as embarrassing and inappropriate. The way out is a Christian way of life, that is, living together with Christians in a common house. Schudt's argument is not theological, but rather socially based. As an example, Schudt cited Jewish meat sellers who were so "disgustingly dirty" that he no longer had an appetite for meat from a Jewish butcher. He compared the aprons of the Jewish slaughterers and their wives with “skinners who covered carrion”. According to Schudt, according to an interpretation of Deuteronomy 21:14 , the Jews would sell carcasses and dead animals to Christians. Jews would disturb the divine order because of their smell. According to Schudt, they would not only live in a “deplorable state of dirt and grime”, but also in a “religion that has long been obsolete”.

Schudt's attitude towards the Jews and Judaism is based on his goal of converting the Jews. According to Schudt, a Christian approach to Judaism not only requires knowledge of the Hebrew language, but also knowledge of Jewish teachings, customs and behavior. Schudt described the conversion of the Jews in his own way by analyzing, interpreting and publishing Jewish customs and behavior in detail for a Christian readership.

Character of the Jews

Schudt calls the character of the Jews characterized by "inner pomposity, flattering and talkative false friendliness where need and benefit are required, treacherous, deceitful, fame and profitable." Christians would “feel disgust” when meeting a Jew and Jews would “passionately hate everything Christian”. Like Luther, he argued that Jewish children “soak up this hatred”. Jews would order their children to sully, spit on, and urinate on meat. The deliberate contamination and compliance with their own dietary laws are the result of "Jewish hatred".

Language of the Jews

Schudt dedicated a chapter of his book to the languages ​​of the Jewish population of Frankfurt, Hebrew and Yiddish . His criticism of the Jews in a social, cultural and especially in a religious sense as a linguistic minority was primarily aimed at his Christian readership in order to convey a religious and social message from a Lutheran theological point of view.

Distortion of Hebrew

The object of his criticism was the lack of language skills of the German Jews and the “distortion of Hebrew” by the German-Jewish population. He contrasted their incorrect pronunciation of Hebrew with the perfect knowledge of Hebrew of the German Christian Hebraists. The reason for the inadequate knowledge of Hebrew is the way in which Jews prayed in the synagogue, where the Tanakh is not read, but prayers are said. The synagogue, the Siddur , the Talmud , the post-biblical works and the mixed-language Hebrew became objects of his criticism. He certified his Protestant readership that only Christian readers really knew the Tanach. But since the Bible is the true source of religious truth and the German Jews are ignorant of it, this proves that the Jews are on the wrong track in questions of faith. Proof of this is that the Ashkenazi Jews gave preference to studying the Talmud over the Tanakh.

The object of his criticism was, in particular, the lack of knowledge of Yiddish and Hebrew among German Jewish women. He criticized the fact that although they prayed in the language of the Tanakh, they did not understand the words of their prayer. He compared the Jewish women with Roman Catholic nuns who did not understand their Latin prayers either. Schudt's criticism of the Protestants of the Catholics was directed equally at the Jewish women. This gave the Protestant readership the impression that the German Jews were "on the wrong track" with regard to their prayers. Schudt may also have intended to convey that the Protestant Church was the "New Israel", especially because after the Reformation the Tanach and its language became a religious authority among Protestants. Furthermore, the Protestants differentiated between the idealized biblical Israelites and the contemporary discriminated Jews. Hebrew was the language of the chosen people, and Schudt's ignorance of it was proof of how far the contemporary Jews were from being that chosen people. Furthermore, the intention was to bring contemporary Jews to conversion and to replace the Jewish identity with a Lutheran one. They wanted to replace the Jewish claim to be the “chosen people” with the Lutheran claim to be the “chosen people and the new Israel”.

Yiddish language

Schudt used the everyday language of the German Jews, Yiddish , to stigmatize the German-Jewish population as inferior. He also mentioned the special pronunciation and accent "that a Jew ... as soon as he opens his mouth ... is betrayed ... then his language betrays him".

Yiddish is a "Jewish-Teutsch", a "Teutsch of its kind" or "Hebräisch-Teutsch" a "fairly crude and depraved German with many intermingled Hebrew words". Thus a Jew cannot be a “real” German. With the distinction between “our Teutsch” and “Teutsch of their kind”, the Jewish-German was separated from the rest of the German-speaking population. He claimed that because of the differences in the German language, communication between Christian and Jewish Germans and an understanding of cultures are impossible. There were also differences in the German language due to the various German dialects, but these belonged to a “generally recognized, normative national language”. Yiddish was “actually Teutsch” and he said that it was easy for the German-speaking population to learn Yiddish because of the similarity. Nevertheless, Schudt separated Yiddish from German and concluded that Yiddish did not belong to this “core language” because it was not an expression of a cultural subgroup of the German population and the Jewish population was not German.

Finally, Schudt recommended to the authorities, theologians, doctors, merchants and business people to learn Yiddish in order to proselytize the Jews on the one hand and to protect themselves from fraudulent business practices of the Jews on the other hand and listed a number of Yiddish textbooks.

Yiddish literature

Schudt used the Yiddish literature of the German Jews to discriminate against the Jewish-German population. He described Yiddish as "in Teutsch of its kind" and named Yiddish works such as the Zennorenna , the Jewish song on the great fire , the Vinz Hanß song . He also quoted Purim games like The Ahasuerus game and Sales Fung Joseph . Schudt was referring to the Frankfurt Purim game, which was called Purim Vintz and has been a reminder of the fat milk pogrom since 1616 .

The readers of this literature are mainly women and uneducated men who are not able to speak the Hebrew language and who also influenced the content and style of this literary. He also called the language of this literature Weiber-Teitsch . In his opinion, this is also the reason why “the theoretical and abstract passages, intellectual debauchery” have been deleted.

reception

Yiddish literature, however, was highly valued by the rabbis because they advocated "better Yiddish than not at all" because of the lack of knowledge of Hebrew among German Jews. The rabbis recommended praying or studying in Yiddish so that one does not completely apostate from religion. Schudt's descriptions of Frankfurt's Jews later played a certain role in the discourse of Yiddish among rabbis.

The significance of Johann Jacob Schudt's published description of the Frankfurt Ahasuerus play for Purim, of which no other copy has survived, can be gauged from the fact that Chone Schmeruk said that the description of the circumstances surrounding the performance of these pieces was invaluable because it otherwise no other information about this Frankfurt Purim game was given.

literature

• Dechent:  Schudt, Johann Jakob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 32, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, p. 651 f.
• Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . Second volume. M – Z (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 2 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7829-0459-1 .
• Chone Schmeruk: Yiddish Biblical Plays 1697–1750 , Jerusalem 1979, p. 211 (in Hebrew)
• Yaacov German: Johann Jacob Schudt - The first ethnographer of the Jewish community in Frankfurt am Main in: Fritz Backhaus, Gisela Engel, Robert Liberles, Margarete Schlüter: Die Frankfurter Judengasse , Frankfurt, 2007
• Maria Diemling: That one can immediately recognize a Jew among so many thousand people : Johann Jacob Schudt and the Jewish body in: Fritz Backhaus, Gisela Engel, Robert Liberles, Margarete Schlueter: Die Frankfurter Judengasse , Frankfurt, 2007
• Aya Lahav-Elyada: From the Frankfurter and other Jews German-Hebrew language : The representation of the Jewish language in JJSchudt's "Jüdische Merckworthheiten", in: Fritz Backhaus, Gisela Engel, Robert Liberles, Margarete Schlueter: Die Frankfurter Judengasse , Frankfurt, 2007
• Jutta Braden: "The Rich Jew". An anti-Jewish anecdote on the religious and social order in Hamburg in the 17th century , in: Hamburg Key Documents for German-Jewish History, 22 September 2016. doi : 10.23691 / jgo: article-64.de.v1

Web links

• Works by Johann Jacob Schudt in the Gutenberg-DE project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ German, p. 68
2. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Handbook of Antisemitism Volume 2: People. KG Saur Verlag 2009, ISBN 3-598-24072-4 , p. 749
3. ^ J. Friedrich Battenberg: The Jews in Germany from the 16th to the end of the 18th century. Oldenbourg, 2001, ISBN 3-486-55777-7 , p. 37
4. ^ Johann Jacob Schudt: Jewish Merckworthiness. Imagining what Curieuses and memorable things have happened in recent times in a few centuries with those Jews who have been scattered in all parts of the world, especially through Germany. Collects a complete Franckfurt Jewish Chronicle [...]. I – IV, Frankfurt 1714–1717.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Diemling, p. 88.
6. ↑ Jüdische Merckworthiness , II, 1, pp. 382-405.
7. ↑ Wolfgang Treue : Between Jewish tradition and Christian university: The academization of the Jewish medical profession in Frankfurt am Main in the early modern period. In: Würzburger medical history reports 17, 1998, pp. 375–397; here: p. 393.
8. ↑ Diemling, p. 78
9. ↑ Diemling, p. 79
10. ↑ Diemling, p. 82
11. ↑ ^{a b} Diemling, p. 83
12. ↑ ^{a b} Diemling, p. 84
13. ↑ Diemling, p. 85
14. ^ Diemling, p. 87
15. ↑ Diemling, pp. 79 and 80
16. ↑ Diemling, pp. 86 and 87
17. ↑ Lahav-Elyada, p 90
18. ↑ Lahav-Elyada, p 91
19. ↑ Lahav-Elyada, p 92
20. ↑ ^{a b} Lahav-Elyada, p. 93
21. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lahav-Elyada, p. 94
22. ↑ Diemling, p. 80
23. ↑ Lahav-Elyada, p 95
24. ↑ Lahav-Elyada, p 96
25. ↑ ^{a b c} Lahav-Elyada, p. 97
26. ↑ German, p. 74