Laura Flatt
December 18, 2014
Mrs. Urowitz
Jewish History Major Assignment
Leopold Zunz
Contribution to Judaism

Judaism is the way it is today because of Leopold Zunz. Leopold was born in Detmold, Germany in 1794. Throughout his life, Zunz critically investigated Judaism. Through his interesting and intriguing points of views, he influenced the modern days of Judaism. Leopold Zunz is shown as a contributing figure to the evolution of Jewish culture in the 19th Century, as seen through his writings that stressed the importance of reform in Jewish customs, the modernization of Jewish texts and his involvement in the study of the Science of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums) movement.

Leopold Zunz produced many pieces of writings throughout …show more content…
Leopold’s books all have one commonality of stressing that religion must change with our times. One of his earlier books, Etwas Uber die Rabbinische Literatur focuses on the development of Oral Law. Leopold Zunz used collected material to explain the historical and philosophical goal of the new Jewish science that he later develops. Leopold Zunz’s second edition of ”Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortaege der Juden Historisch Entweicklt,” states the political controversy and the defense of religious reforms. Through his book, he explains that a Jew familiar with their religion’s and people’s past, then they will know how to reform their religious customs. His ultimate goal of this book was to influence Jews to be a part of the development of a unified culture. Therefore, this book stresses the need to reform Judaism. Another book that particularly emphasizes the need to change Judaism while still referring to Jewish literature, is his third book, Zur Geschichte Und Literatur. This book focuses on how it is not right to restrict Jewish literature from the general public. He believes that people should be exposed to literature in order to be able to develop their own opinions on it. Leopold Zunz states that he …show more content…
As stated in his books, Zunz believed that it is crucial to the development of Judaism to bring in historical texts like the Talmud. He talks about the Talmud and challenges what other scholars said about the basis of Judaism. Therefore, historical texts allow for a better understanding of the religion itself. Zunz’s overall idea was that Judaism is a religion with its own background history and traditions. In conclusion, Leopold Zunz explained the importance and impact of historical texts and the modernization of them on Judaism, furthering people’s knowledge about the