Zionist historians and science of Judaism

In connection with the Zionism studies a few points are worth noting as follows:
1. Most references in the study of Zionism and Israel are the same Zionist resources! As a result, the searchers may find themselves captive in a logic that these resources are calling for it.
2. Zionism deliberately seeks to keep an essential part of their activities and communications as a secret. It is very difficult to achieve the truth.
3. Zionists' efforts on buying anything that will expose the Zionist plans; especially the content of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
It should be noted that the phenomenon of "new historians" has played an important role in the interests of Zionism. Anything that they think was necessary was said, although the arguments and discussions could lead to serious conflicts. For historians Israel it was important that how the history of Israel was re-written again, especially in the school curriculum in favor of their interests and caused creating a view in favor of the Zionists - or at least not anti-Zionism is, and of course, this was counted as a kind of challenge.
Although the need to know the history of the Jews began earlier by the Jewish movement "Haskalah" in the mid-eighteenth century but the start of historiography of the Jews returns back to later, and in fact, it began with the taken measures in the twenties of the nineteenth century known as science of Judaism. In fact, "Maskilim" that is the modified form of "Haskalah" in the traditional understanding of them about history, as it mentioned in periodical Hebrew magazine published in 1783 and the writings of the founding father of the movement known as the Moses Mendelssohn philosopher (1729-1788) clearly has studied this issue.
Emanuel Wolff , the author of paper " in portrayal of Jews" in the journal ZEITSCHRIFT FUR Diewissen Schaftdes Judentums affiliated to Jewish Culture and Science Association in 1819, also referred to this issue. In this article things such as reading the literature, history and philosophy of Judaism, the need for serious study about the Jewish faith were stressed for the first time. This new view prepared backgrounds for the development of Jewish historiography according to Yosef Chaim Yeru Shalomi approach.
Intellectual history has been one of the most important interesting subjects of knowledge of Judaism especially for Leo Poldezuns, one of the greatest researchers in the field. The intellectuals also sought to deal with Christian thinkers who believed the proportion of Jews in the Bible was completed. Zunes the Jew tried to identify ancient monuments remaining from the prior period to Biblical literature. In this regard, he published two important papers in 1845 that regardless of the hidden science of the Bible and the Talmud and reflectance of Jews about ancient writers, and in this regard, Zunes turned into to the biography of the old authors. Zunes in addition to mentioning the history of Christian institutions and intolerance of Prussian government in banning prayer in German synagogues started writing "History of Jewish rhetoric" in the 1832. He also referred to the primacy of Jewish worshipers on Christianity, and began to write a general history of Judaism. In his study, in regard to history of literature and poetry during the Middle Ages, provides events of Jewish victims and their problems, especially in Crusader.
Other researchers have also written texts in the field of Judaism and Jewish history and the history, literature, especially history and list of books and authors, Hebrew grammar, philosophy of history and so on.
Solomon Leo Vizohen (1789-1821) was born in Moore in Hungary, and he was commentator and translator of the Bible. He published the first guide geography and Jewish history.
If we know Joost as a pioneer in research about Jewish studies, Heinrich Gratz (1817-1891) should be known as the true father of modern Jewish history and the history of Jewish studies. "The Jewish Antiquities" (including 11 volumes, with no order of chronology between 1852 and1876) was quite different from his previous authors and this issue was partly due to the quality of writing and partly because of the historical incarnation of the author.
As the author remained faithful to Judaism and its ancient traditions, he is influenced by Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) the most prominent thinker of New-orthodox. He once said in this regard: Although I have grievances of the Talmud, the book (the book of Hirsch) is a kind of resurrection in making coordination between the two of us. I decided to study on this subject with passion to achieve its philosophical knowledge. Gratz considered Judaism as a political and religious body that the Torah is the soul and the body is the Holy Land. In an article published in a French magazine, he stated his views. Gratz also considered Jews as united people and this view is evident in all his historical works.
Although he is influenced by the ideas of Moses Hess, who in his famous article "Rome and Jerusalem" in 1862 considered the Jews as a nation, did not still believe in the political rebirth of Jews in Palestine. However, he remained on his views as a cultural Jewish patriot.
Gratz was the unique historian of Jewish studies who tried to revive historical past of the Jews. In fact, the Jews of Eastern Europe despite the hardships of their lives had serious limitations before the First World War. They had their citizen rights only in 1917 in Russia and in 1919 in Romania. Jewish nationalism and self-determination during their restrictions in places where they lived, was encouraged. It is not surprising that in the Journal Hebrew published in Vienna by Perez Semolfeskyn, the idea of using Zionist and the Land of Israel (Palestine) were stated many years before Theodor Herzl:
Be in search of knowledge, avoid superstitions... be proud of your literature like other people, be jealous of self-support, be full of hope such as people who have been persecuted for political and religious reasons who are waiting for death, be sure that you will come back to your land which was truly yours and will be yours.
Theorist of Jewish self-government theory was a historian, who was born in Russia in the name of Simon Dobnu (1860-1941) that noted Jews should enjoy the same rights of other citizens. Donbu's idea based on having individual freedom was consistent with national individual freedom perspective. Jewish nationalism influenced on Jewish literature and Europeans in the nineteenth and early twentieth century witnessed major changes in the historiography of science among researchers of Jewish studies. This time most of the emphasis is on the economy and social aspects on structure of society and religion, as well as cultural institutions, emphasizing the national aspirations and everyday life of simple people, lower classes of the society and stuff that had been forgotten by history. Meanwhile Simon Dobnu made fundamental changes in terms of the development of Judaism. He began to write the history of the Jewish people in the world and after the publication of a book about the Jews of Russia, released world history of the Jewish people (originally written in Russian) in the German language in ten volumes (1925-1929) and then in Hebrew and Russian.
In relation to the long history of Jews, the author has called them "the people of the world" in his book that have had several geographical centers after the disappearance of the old State of Israel:
- Babylon during the early Middle Ages;
- Spain and Germany during the Middle Ages;
- Poland and Lithuania at the end of the Middle Ages and in the new century;
- Poland and Russia during the modern era.
According to Dobnu's view during the Middle Ages, Jews were European people. He has considered their share in European civilizations as a significant share, especially in all intellectual, science, literature, art, music spheres.... in the 1919, three appeals and requests were raised by the Jewish delegation at the Paris Peace Conference:
1. Freedom of Jews in the countries where they have been deprived of their civil rights (Romania).
2. . Minority rights for Jews in countries by limitations (Eastern Europe and anywhere else they claimed.)
3. . Recognition of the Jewish national homeland in Palestine.
Jewish history was seriously studied by Zionists as a sense of national identity at the end of the nineteenth century and in this regard, Jewish Studies Association was founded in 1880 and began its activity. In Romania, Historical Society Association of Julius Barash began its activity in 1886 by Jacob Pesantear, the author of the first history of the Jews in Romania. The book was published in Hebrew in 1887 in Lemberg. Then such activities were followed by scholars such as Moses Gaster, Lazar Saynynu, and Schwartz Feld Brothers and articles were published in the German Israeli magazine. Jewish Studies society was founded in French in 1880 and released Jewish Studies magazine. The Jewish Historical Society of Jews in England was founded in 1901 in Great Britain and the Association of Russian Ethnology was formed in 1908 in St. Petersburg.
Due to Gratz's approach, the new era began when intellectual movements penetrated into the Jewish community. According to this theory, the first modern Jew was philosopher Moses Mendelssohn who was a German Jew and the first person who laid the foundations of modern Judaism. He did a translation of the Torah which helped to raising the level of Jewish culture in Central Europe. In Dobnu's point of view, the French Revolution, which brought political freedom to the Jews, allowed them to enter modernity and earn equal rights with others as free citizens. According to Ben Sion Dinawar the beginning of a new era for the Jews was when they discovered their political connections with the land of Israel again that he knows it in 1700; when history has recorded the first wave of immigration of Polish Jews in Jerusalem.