Educating the Jews to Become Germans: Naftali Herz Homberg’s ‘Civilizing Mission’ to the Jewish Community of Galicia
Educating the Jews to Become Germans: Naftali Herz Homberg’s ‘Civilizing Mission’ to the Jewish Community of Galicia

Summary/Abstract: The isolation of Jews in the German states and territories began decreasing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At the same time, Jews started to represent a ‘problem’ for the enlightened concept of a modern society with its uncompromising demand for cultural homogeneity. Philosophers of the Enlightenment, such as Kant, implied that Jewish religious observance stood for a separatist interpretation of religion and wanted to ‘educate’ the Jews to be Germans. This ‘education’ was also promoted by enlightened Jews, such as the Austro-Bohemian educator Naftali Herz Homberg (1749–1841), who was the superintendent of German-Jewish schools of Galicia. In my paper, I analyze Homberg’s magnum opus Bne-Zion which was meant to function as a catechism for the enlightened Jewish youth. The intention of this paper is to add a new sociological perspective to the Homberg bibliography, with an emphasis on intergroup relations between the Jewish minority and the non-Jewish majority. I look into the assimilationist policies of the German Enlightenment and the Austrian Empire, and try to show how these were internalized by Homberg in his work.

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