Joseph Klausner
Encyclopedia
Joseph Gedaliah Klausner (20 August 1874 – 27 October 1958), , was a Jewish historian and professor of Hebrew Literature
. He was the chief redactor of The Hebrew Encyclopedia. He was an ardent Zionist polemicist, supportive of Revisionist
and religious
ideologies, and a candidate for President in the first Israeli presidential election
in 1949, losing to Chaim Weizmann
by 83 votes to 15.
, Lithuania in 1874. At the turn of the 20th century, his family left Lithuania due to growing antisemitism (Amos Oz tells that the reason for leaving was his grandmother's health)and settled in Odessa
where her closest family lived)], where Klausner was educated. He frequented scientific, literary, and Zionist circles. Klausner was a committed Zionist, and knew Theodore Herzl personally.
In 1912, he visited Palestine for the first time, and moved there in 1919. In 1925, he became a professor of Hebrew literature at the University of Jerusalem. He embarked upon research on the history of the Second Temple period
. Although not an Orthodox
Jew, he observed Sabbath
and the dietary laws
. He had a wide grasp of the Talmud
and Midrash
ic literature.
Joseph Klausner was a member of the circle of Russian Zionist political activists from Odessa, which included Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Ussishkin, and although 'not a party man' he was a fellow traveler with Revisionist Zionism
. Klausner contributed significantly to the 'Zionist education' of the Revisionist youth movement, Betar
, and nationalist youth movements in general. With his background as an academic with expertise in the Jewish history, he was also and unusually an activist in Zionist polemics, and rarely stood on the side of majority Zionist leadership; this eventually brought him to the forefront of Jewish anger at the failure of the Zionist establishment in Palestine. In July 1929, Klausner established the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee
to defend Jewish rights, and resolve problems over access and arrangements for worship at the Western Wall. Demonstrations by Revisionist youth stemming for the committee's work were later identified as the proximal cause of the 1929 Palestine riots
by the Shaw Commission. Also as a result of the ensuing riots, his house in Talpiot
was virtually destroyed.
Amos Oz wrote about his great uncle in his autobiography, "A Tale of Love and Darkness
" (ch.9-11).
in Germany
. One of his most influential books was about Jesus
. The book Jesus of Nazareth, and its sequel, From Jesus to Paul, gained him some celebrity. In it, Klausner described how Jesus was best understood as a Jew and Israelite
who was trying to reform the religion, and he died as a devout Jew. He was attacked about this issue as much by Christians as by Jews. The book was considered to be so informative by Herbert Danby
, an Anglican priest, that he translated the work from Hebrew into English so that English scholars might avail themselves of the information contained within this book. A number of clergymen were so incensed at Danby for translating this controversial work that they demanded his recall from Jerusalem. Later in his career, he was given a chair in Jewish history
.
He was an ardent Zionist, but had numerous disagreements with Chaim Weizmann
. The two were candidates in the presidential election of 1949
; Weizmann was declared the first President of Israel
.
"...the Anglican bishops in Jerusalem demanded that the archbishop dismiss Dr. Danby, the missionary who had translated Jesus Of Nazareth into English, as it was a book that was 'tainted with heresy, in that it portrays our Saviour as a kind of Reorm rabbi, as a mortal, and as a Jew who has nothing at all to do with the Church.' " quoted in Amos Os's memoir, A Tale Of Love And Darkness, Harcourt, 2003, p. 60.
Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews...
. He was the chief redactor of The Hebrew Encyclopedia. He was an ardent Zionist polemicist, supportive of Revisionist
Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism is a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement. It is the founding ideology of the non-religious right in Israel, and was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism...
and religious
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
ideologies, and a candidate for President in the first Israeli presidential election
Israeli presidential election, 1949
An election to choose the first President of Israel was held in the Knesset on 16 February 1949. The new president would replace the president of the Provisional State Council as head of state of Israel.-Candidates:There were two candidates:...
in 1949, losing to Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
by 83 votes to 15.
Life
Klausner was born in OlkenikiValkininkai
Valkininkai is a historic town in Lithuania, located about northeast from Varėna and about southeast from Vilnius. According to the 2001 census, it had a population of 238. It is situated on the confluence of Merkys River with its tributaries Šalčia and Geluža...
, Lithuania in 1874. At the turn of the 20th century, his family left Lithuania due to growing antisemitism (Amos Oz tells that the reason for leaving was his grandmother's health)and settled in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
where her closest family lived)], where Klausner was educated. He frequented scientific, literary, and Zionist circles. Klausner was a committed Zionist, and knew Theodore Herzl personally.
In 1912, he visited Palestine for the first time, and moved there in 1919. In 1925, he became a professor of Hebrew literature at the University of Jerusalem. He embarked upon research on the history of the Second Temple period
Second Temple period
The Second Temple period , in Jewish history, is the period between 530 BCE and 70 CE, when the Second Temple of Jerusalem existed. It ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Temple's destruction....
. Although not an Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
Jew, he observed Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
and the dietary laws
Kashrut
Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with halakha is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér , meaning "fit" Kashrut (also kashruth or kashrus) is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with halakha (Jewish law) is termed...
. He had a wide grasp of the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
and Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
ic literature.
Joseph Klausner was a member of the circle of Russian Zionist political activists from Odessa, which included Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Ussishkin, and although 'not a party man' he was a fellow traveler with Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism is a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement. It is the founding ideology of the non-religious right in Israel, and was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism...
. Klausner contributed significantly to the 'Zionist education' of the Revisionist youth movement, Betar
Betar
The Betar Movement is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group...
, and nationalist youth movements in general. With his background as an academic with expertise in the Jewish history, he was also and unusually an activist in Zionist polemics, and rarely stood on the side of majority Zionist leadership; this eventually brought him to the forefront of Jewish anger at the failure of the Zionist establishment in Palestine. In July 1929, Klausner established the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee
Pro-Wailing Wall Committee
The Pro–Wailing Wall Committee was established in Palestine on 24 July 1929, by Joseph Klausner, Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University, to promote Jewish rights at the Western Wall....
to defend Jewish rights, and resolve problems over access and arrangements for worship at the Western Wall. Demonstrations by Revisionist youth stemming for the committee's work were later identified as the proximal cause of the 1929 Palestine riots
1929 Palestine riots
The 1929 Palestine riots, also known as the Western Wall Uprising, the 1929 Massacres, , or the Buraq Uprising , refers to a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 when a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into violence...
by the Shaw Commission. Also as a result of the ensuing riots, his house in Talpiot
Talpiot
Talpiot , is a neighborhood in southeast Jerusalem, Israel, established in 1922 by Zionist pioneers.-Etymology:The name Talpiot derives from a verse in Song of Songs 4:4 – "Thy neck is like the tower of David, built with turrets." According to rabbinic sources, Talpiot refers to the Temple...
was virtually destroyed.
Amos Oz wrote about his great uncle in his autobiography, "A Tale of Love and Darkness
A Tale of Love and Darkness
A Tale of Love and Darkness is an autobiographical novel by Israeli author Amos Oz, first published in Hebrew in 2002.The book has been translated into 28 languages and over a million copies have been sold worldwide. In 2011, a bootleg Kurdish translation was found in a bookstore in northern Iraq...
" (ch.9-11).
Work
Klausner earned his Ph.D.Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. One of his most influential books was about Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
. The book Jesus of Nazareth, and its sequel, From Jesus to Paul, gained him some celebrity. In it, Klausner described how Jesus was best understood as a Jew and Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
who was trying to reform the religion, and he died as a devout Jew. He was attacked about this issue as much by Christians as by Jews. The book was considered to be so informative by Herbert Danby
Herbert Danby
Herbert Danby was an Anglican priest and writer who played a central role in the change of attitudes toward Judaism in the first half of the twentieth century.- Education :...
, an Anglican priest, that he translated the work from Hebrew into English so that English scholars might avail themselves of the information contained within this book. A number of clergymen were so incensed at Danby for translating this controversial work that they demanded his recall from Jerusalem. Later in his career, he was given a chair in Jewish history
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
.
He was an ardent Zionist, but had numerous disagreements with Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
. The two were candidates in the presidential election of 1949
Israeli presidential election, 1949
An election to choose the first President of Israel was held in the Knesset on 16 February 1949. The new president would replace the president of the Provisional State Council as head of state of Israel.-Candidates:There were two candidates:...
; Weizmann was declared the first President of Israel
President of Israel
The President of the State of Israel is the head of state of Israel. The position is largely an apolitical ceremonial figurehead role, with the real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister. The current president is Shimon Peres who took office on 15 July 2007...
.
Awards and honours
- In both 1941 and 1949, Klausner was awarded the Bialik PrizeBialik PrizeThe Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...
for Jewish thought. - In 1958, he was awarded the Israel PrizeIsrael PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
in Jewish studies. - In 1982, in recognition of his scholarly achievements, the State of Israel issued a stamp with his picture on it.
"...the Anglican bishops in Jerusalem demanded that the archbishop dismiss Dr. Danby, the missionary who had translated Jesus Of Nazareth into English, as it was a book that was 'tainted with heresy, in that it portrays our Saviour as a kind of Reorm rabbi, as a mortal, and as a Jew who has nothing at all to do with the Church.' " quoted in Amos Os's memoir, A Tale Of Love And Darkness, Harcourt, 2003, p. 60.
See also
- List of Israel Prize recipients
- List of Bialik Prize recipientsBialik PrizeThe Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...
External links
- "Into the fray: Joseph Klausner's approach to Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman world". Dissertation.
- (Univ. of) Heidelberg's Hope, address by Fania Oz-Salzberger, great-great-niece of Klausner
- Herbert Danby: "The Jew and Christianity, Jewish attitude towards Christianity", ch.5 (I propose to bring this series of lectures to an end by describing...Dr. Joseph Klausner's Jesus of Nazareth : his Times, his Life and his Teaching ; and by indicating the kind of reception which this book has met within various Jewish circles...) read all online on archive.org