Jewish history, intellectual history, and the history of ideas 1

Jewish history and historiography are complex subjects focusing on various geographic, linguistic, and cultural frameworks from antiquity to the modern era. Although Jewish intellectual history did not emerge as an academic discipline prior to the writings of European Enlightenment historians, both Jewish and non-Jewish historians have written about the history of the Jews since biblical times when focusing on a variety of key ideas. The nineteenth century was characterized by a new interest in the study and writing of history. Jews shared this new focus on history with non-Jewish Europeans. Jewish readers felt the same as their non-Jewish fellow citizens, and more popular editions of Jewish history enjoyed great popular appeal, for example Heinrich Graetz&s; Volkstumliche Geschichte der Juden , which was a popularized version of Graetz&s; History of the Jews . The Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities throughout Europe, but Jewish intellectual history continued to be written.