Zunz, Leopold

Zunz, Leopold (lā`ōpôlt tsnts`), 1794–1886, German Jewish scholar. His critical research on Judaism became one of the cornerstones of the "science of Judaism," the modern approach of studying Judaism and Jewry in the context of the general history of humanity, particularly in its progress. Part II of his Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters (1855) was translated as The Sufferings of the Jews during the Middle Ages (1907).

Bibliography

See the letters of Leopold and Adelbeid Zunz, ed. by N. N. Glatzer (1958).

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Zunz, Leopold

 Hebrew Yom-Tob Lippmann

(born Aug. 10, 1794, Detmold, Lippe—died March 18, 1886, Berlin) German historian of Jewish literature. After taking his doctorate at Halle, he spent much of his life in a precarious struggle with poverty. With the publication of his seminal work, On Rabbinic Literature (1818), he initiated (1819) the movement called Wissenschaft des Judentums (“Science of Judaism”), which stressed the analysis of Jewish literature and culture with the tools of modern scholarship. His On History and Literature (1845) places Jewish literary activity in the context of European literature and politics. Zunz is often considered the greatest Jewish scholar of the 19th century.