Leopold and Adelheid Zunz: An Account in Letters, 1815-1885

The importance of Leopold Zunz as a pioneer in modern research in Jewish history and literature is increasingly recognized in this generation. After a long period of intellectual stagnation in Western European Jewish scholarship, Zunz initiated the dedicated interest in the critical study of Hebrew literary monuments along modern historical lines. Zunz the scholar evokes our curiosity about Zunz the man and the friend. The present collection of letters helps us to gain insight into the social and personal background of the period and the intellectual atmosphere of his life. A warm, intimate friendship with his early teacher, S. M. Ehrenberg, and with the younger Ehrenbergs, Philipp and Julie, accompanied the taciturn, reserved scholar throughout his career. His beloved wife, Adelheid, emerges in the letters as a wise, sensitive and spirited woman, one of the most enlightened Jewesses in the nineteenth century. With a few exceptions, the letters are published for the first time. The collection was preserved by the Ehrenberg Rosenzweig families and now forms a part of the Franz Rosenzweig Archives.