The Epistemology of Time in Hebrew Encyclopedias: 1888-1914

• In Event: Perceptions of Time in Modern Jewish Historiography and Literature

Abstract

This paper examines concepts of time in Hebrew encyclopedias that were published between 1888 and 1914. Throughout this period, members of the burgeoning Jewish national movement initiated five encyclopedic projects in hope to demonstrate the cultural autonomy of the emerging Jewish nation and to create a collective national subject by providing Hebrew readers with the knowledge necessary for a ‘national revolution’. Each project was followed by a heated debate about the characteristics and meaning of this national knowledge, as editors and publishers discussed the importance of certain themes (e.g. national territory, Jewish religion) and the use of certain rhetoric devices. But, above all, attempts to define national knowledge had centered on matters related to time, in particularly to forms of periodization of Jewish history, the importance of certain historical periods and the literary devices applied in narrating the past. My study explores the different approaches and examines the ideological motivations that influenced the conceptualization of time. The paper gives a particular attention to the work of Ehad Haam, who stood behind some of the most ambitious attempts to publish Hebrew encyclopedias at the time. I argue that in an attempt to reconcile traditional Jewish periodization and the division of Jewish history offered by graduates of German academic institutions, he presented Jewish ethics and religious practices as a-historical phenomena.

author

• Dan Tsahor, New York University