JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

dubnow, simon
Dubnow took an active part in a number of Jewish activities.
In the Society for the Promotion of Culture he joined
the Zionists in their struggle for the establishment of national
Jewish schools. After the *Kishinev pogrom in 1903, he was
among those who called for an active Jewish self-defense. Opposing
the policy of the socialist-Marxist *Bund, he strongly
supported Jewish participation in the elections to the Duma in
1905, established a Jewish section of the Constitutional Democrat
party, and asked the Jewish deputies to join it. Dubnow
also took part in the work of the Society for the Full and Equal
Rights of the Jewish People in Russia in 1905, but later seceded
and founded the Jewish People’s Party in 1906. This “Folkist”
party never exercised much influence and was weakened by
internal dissension. It continued to exist until 1918.
The principal source on Dubnow’s life is his autobiography,
Kniga moey zhizni. The first two volumes appeared in
Russian (1930–34; partial Heb. trans., 1936; Yid., 1962; Ger.,
1937). A third volume, completed in 1940, was published in
Riga shortly before the German conquest; the entire edition
was destroyed by the Nazis. A single copy, however, rediscovered
in 1956, made it possible to publish a new complete
edition in 1957. Portions of Dubnow’s private archives are in
the possession of the Central *Archives for the History of the
Jewish People in Jerusalem. A festschrift on the occasion of
his 70th birthday was published in 1930; a memorial volume
appeared in 1954, edited by S. Rawidowicz; and a centenary
volume, edited by A. Steinberg, appeared in 1963 (all three
with bibliographies).
[Joseph Meisl]
Historian and Political Ideologist
In his youth, Dubnow was influenced by the positivism of
Comte and his followers, and especially by the philosophy
of J.S. Mill, the “Gospel of Individualism” and the “Absolute
Freedom of Thought and Speech.” For several years Dubnow
remained faithful to the teachings of these masters and attacked
Judaism sharply in the name of the individual, of scientific
thought, and of liberty.
Subsequently he was captivated by the historical world of
Judaism. In 1887, having gone through a severe physical and
spiritual crisis, he began to strive for a synthesis of “my selfacquired
general knowledge and my universal aims… with
my inherited treasures of Jewish wisdom and national ideals.”
To this synthesis he added a profound knowledge of the
life and history of Russia and Russian Jewry, and a tremendous
capacity for the uncovering of obscure sources of Jewish
history. There was, too, the influence of Renan and Taine.
Like Taine – who emphasized the importance of petits faits
significatifs, from which the general principles are evolved –
Dubnow placed the stress upon detail, which in its true form
can only be found at the source. Both historians taught Dubnow
the organic concept of the nation (which they termed
“race”), and from Taine, in particular, he took over the idea
that the situation of a people and its aspirations are faithfully
reflected in the spiritual creations of its great men. Renan’s
historical concepts made it easier for Dubnow to change his
adverse criticism of the Jewish religion into a positive evaluation
of it as the revelation of the national spirit. “A mixture
of the teachings of Renan and Tolstoy” was “the main element
in his state of mind” when he embarked upon the study of
Ḥasidism and of Jesus and the Apostles. In theory Dubnow
always remained a radical individualist, while as a historian,
he admired the national unit and the requirements of its life,
though these may put restrictions upon the individual. Again,
in theory he was a confirmed rationalist, yet he valued religion
and religious movements for their role in serving as the
nation’s shield and as the expression of its spirit. In the writing
of history, Dubnow preferred describing “objective” processes
and circumstances, based upon a study of detailed events, to
the portrayal of personalities, their feelings, and desires; and
he noted with pride that in later editions of his works “many
lyrical passages were omitted.”
Dubnow viewed Jewish history on the assumption that
a people is an organism whose life and development depend
upon its environment, the conditions under which it lives, and
upon the manner in which it chooses to react to them. “In the
course of the centuries, the nation passed from the embryonic
stage and achieved its own identity… assumed a certain national
form, created a state and forfeited it…, the form of the
national type reached its perfection when and, perhaps, because
its first statehood was destroyed.” Diaspora, as it were,
is a fate preordained for the Jewish people, from the moment
it entered Ereẓ Israel. Even toward the end of his life – on the
eve of the destruction of European Jewry in 1939 – Dubnow
restated in precise terms his conviction that “in the view of
historism, as opposed to dogmatism, the diaspora was not
only a possibility, but a necessity. A people small in numbers
but great in quality, situated on the crossroads of the giant
nations of Asia and Africa, could not preserve both its state
and its nationality, and had perforce to break the barrel in
order to preserve the wine – and this was the great miracle
in the history of mankind.” From this follows his definition
of the Jewish people as “a people whose home is the entire
world”; and his belief that what is known as Jewry is the result
of the growth of a people and its adaptation to the conditions
under which it lived; though of a special nature, these do
not transcend the general laws of history. “… Ancient tribes
combine to form a national entity, a state or kingdom. The
kingdom is destroyed and the national entity splits into parts,
which reconstitute as the communities.” Here lies the source
of the “unbroken chain of autonomy… of Jewish communities
everywhere.” Dubnow was convinced that in this respect
the Jewish people was a pioneer of national development far
wider in scope and much earlier in time than many nations
of the 20th century.
As for the religion of Israel, Dubnow held that until the
19th century it was part of Jewish nationalism, a means of selfdefense
used by a people which possessed none of the normal
defenses of other nations. When the Jewish people, by virtue
of its belief in monotheism, became a special group within
the pagan (and later Christian) world, having to fight against
36 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6