Jacob Katz on Halakhah, Orthodoxy, and History
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Jacob Katz's research touched upon patterns of continuity and change in central domains of Jewish history. He investigated medieval Jewish society's attitude toward its Christian environment and its transformation when Jews began to integrate into European society from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries. He examined the internal structure of traditional Jewish society in Central and Eastern Europe and its disruption with the rise of Hasidism and the Haskalah. And last, but not least, he analyzed the emergence of Orthodoxy as a response to the crisis of traditional society, and the advent of Jewish nationalism in the modern age. Beyond his major achievements in these areas, Jacob Katz made a unique methodological contribution to social history. He taught us to think not only about events and people, but also about structures and patterns. His writings on these varied subjects exhibit a marvelous and unique sense of language clear, penetrating, and restrained. His writing neither praises exorbitantly nor condemns ruthlessly. His sentences are careful, considered, and economical. This restraint is manifest in his work even when he discusses complex subjects, such as relations between Jews and non Jews or the rise of Orthodoxy, subjects that invite the scholar to involve himself, to appraise different positions, and to render a verdict. Katz analyzes these subjects in detail and in a most incisive way, but he abstains from expressing a position and from making value judgments. Yet, after many years of scholarship, Jacob Katz broke his silence and took a stand. With the dedicated help of Emanuel Etkes, Katz prepared his last book, ‘Et Laḥkor ve-‘Et Lehitbonen (“A Time to Study and a Time to Reflect”), which not only crystallizes his position on methodological issues in history, but also reflects his views on Israeli society—its hopes and predicaments. The fact that this time of reflection came in his later years, as his final bequest, means that this book has the quality of a will and testament. It is a fascinating personal verdict, which demands the special attention of his students and readers. My essay, which concentrates on Jacob Katz's last book, is, therefore, not devoted to a detailed analysis of one of the many subjects with which he dealt as an historian. My aim is to explicate his value stance, to address how Katz used historical investigation to shape and support such a stance, and how, in tum, his position may have shaped his direction as an historian. I shall focus on the connection between Katz's great historical and structural analysis of the rise of Orthodoxy and his judgment and assessment of its role in modem-day Israel. Katz articulated his principled value stance with a two-front polemic: his response to the critique of Zionism as advanced by the “new historians” and his reservations concerning the attitude of the State of lsrael toward Orthodox Judaism, in both varieties, the Ḥaredi or ultra-Orthodox and Religious Zionism. Although, on the face of it, these are two entirely different issues, a unifying concept lies behind Katz's response. He makes a methodical defense of classical Zionism based on a clear-headed view of national sovereignty—the sovereign government, in Weber's definition, has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and a sovereign power is judged on the basis of whether it uses too much or too little coercion. In contrast to the critical attitude of the “new historians,” Katz identifies entirely with the decisions made by the Yishuv leadership during the Holocaust. Since Ben-Gurion understood that the Yishuv was powerless to do anything to change the fate of European Jewry, he refrained from investing resources in that direction. An investment of resources in a lost cause, when those same resources were critical for the future struggle for national independence, was for Ben-Gurion a luxury that the Yishuv could not afford. Ben-Gurion rejected his critics' contention that such an investment would fulfill a sentimental moral obligation. Ben-Gurion acted as a statesman, and his greatness lay in not allowing his emotional instincts to determine his political decisions. Katz makes a similar argument about the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. When the War of lndependence began, Ben-Gurion believed that the Yishuv would not be able to survive without a Jewish majority and a broad territory. His critics err in assuming that the outcome of the struggle was clear from the start. Yet this was not how it looked to those who held the political and existential fate of the Yishuv in their hands. In a state of existential danger a state can permit itself exceptional, painful measures. In both these matters Ben Gurion acted as a pragmatic politician and used force justifiably. In Katz's opinion, the “new historians” display a great deal of the wisdom of hindsight and very little political sense.
Source Publication
The Pride of Jacob: Essays on Jacob Katz and His Work
Source Editors/Authors
Jay M. Harris
Publication Date
2002
Recommended Citation
Halbertal, Moshe, "Jacob Katz on Halakhah, Orthodoxy, and History" (2002). Faculty Chapters. 755.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/755
