All Scholars

Eugen Täubler (from 1941 Eugene Taeubler) studied both at an orthodox rabbinical seminary and at the more liberal Academy of Jewish studies, where the academic rather than pious study of the scriptures was maintained in the manner of 19^th-century scientific inquiry in all fields of study. At Berlin he was taught by four of the greatest classicists of the late nineteenth century: Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1848-1931), Eduard Norden (1868-1941), Eduard Meyer (1855-1930), and Theodore Mommsen (1817-1903), whom Täubler served as an assistant in publishing the Codex Theodosianus. In 1902 he assisted Adolf Harnack (1851-1930) with the Church Fathers edition. He wrote his dissertation on Josephus under Otto Hirschfeld (1843-1922).. He also directed the Archive of German Jews and edited its Mitteilungen. He returned to his Lehrenstalt to lecture on Jewish history, employing the methods of scientific inquiry on the model of his Berlin professors. His scholarly interest was the history of Jews in the Roman era, guided by his twin studies of ancient history and Hebrew history. He early in his career decided to produce a multi-volume work, Imperium Romanum, but was only able to complete the first volume before the onset of World War I, in which he was wounded in the service of the German army. After the war he helped establish and direct research for the Akademie fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums where he and a handful of associates developed systematic methods of research into Jewish history. The project was never well funded and Täubler supplemented his income by lecturing at the University of Berlin on ancient history and the history of Prussian Jewry. He married a research fellow at the Academy, Selma Stern, in 1927. After a stint at Zurich he moved to Heidelberg where he taught until he resigned from this and all posts in 1933 in protest of the Nazi policy against Jews in university positions. He was officially fired from his positions in April 1934. His second book, Der römische Staat was banned shortly after its publication. Täubler returned to the Lehranstalt in Berlin, where he continued to lecture until 1941 when the Institute was closed. Reluctant to move to Palestine, where friends worked to secure him a position in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he and his wife emigrated to the United States, where with the help of his friend, Julian Morganstern (1881-1976), the president of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, he was given a research professorship. He taught Hellenistic Jewish literature until his death.

Täubler was a major influence on Jewish historiography, combining both his broad knowledge of ancient history and his understanding of Jewish culture. His most notable publications are his volumes of Imperium Romanum (1913), Tyche(1926-7), a collection of essays. At his death he left a number of unpublished essays which were published posthumously: Biblische Studien (1958), dealing with the period of the Judges, appeared posthumously in 1958, and in 1977 Aufsätze zur Problematik jüdischen Geschichtsschreibung 1908-1950, essays on Jewish historiography, and Ausgewaehlte Schriften zur Alten Geschichte (1987) studies on Jewish historiography.. His mastery of ancient history and the methods of historical scholarship was reflected in his understanding of the geographical and geopolitical elements in early Jewish history, the relations between Jews and the lands in which they lived, and the nature of Jewish autonomy in the Diaspora. The Jewish University and the University of Heidelberg began a Eugene Täubler Lecture series in 2008.