Introduction: Writing Jewish History in the Postmodern Climate

Summary

OVER THE PAST GENERATION or so, intellectual life in the Western world has undergone a revolution. Postmodern sensibility has spawned a range of theoretical innovations—deconstructionist, poststructuralist, feminist, postcolonial, cultural studies, and others—that have had far-reaching implications for research and writing in all text-related disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. A central tenet of postmodern discourse—that there can never be objective description, only subjective interpretation—has been a serious obstacle to most academic disciplines trying to maintain their integrity and their self-confidence. If we cannot say something objective, if we cannot determine some truth, why say anything?

Jewish studies are no exception. In fact, given Jews’ inextricable involvement with many of the key events, turning points, processes, and trends in the politics, culture, society, and intellectual life of the modern world, Jews and things connected to them have been particularly susceptible to the postmodern critique. Such modern phenomena as nationalism, capitalism, liberalism, social science, and academic discourse have had significant Jewish dimensions, and also have been subject to withering postmodern criticism.

Beyond such problems, however, the study of Jewish history—indeed, all of Jewish studies—has come into question as a result of the postmodern approach. If nothing can be defined objectively, how can we identify a unitary, continuous, coherent Jewish People with a distinct culture and history? Is there a recognizable object for the subject of Jewish studies to study? And if we do assume there is a Jewish People with its own collective history, how can this history be researched and written in the shadow of postmodern postulates that seem to assert that facts are ‘constructed’, not ‘found’; that narratives are always ideological tracts, never simply descriptive disquisitions?

Has Jewish history also entered a—or the—postmodern phase? If so, what is the relationship between the Jewish past and the Jewish present? Is there some findable key to Jewish history across periods, or is there an infinite number of meta-historical interpretations of its meaning? In a world that is coming to be organized according to a multicultural paradigm, can the Jews and their history fit in? What is the relationship between Jewish culture and history and the culture and history of the non-Jews among whom the Jews lived and live?