Der "Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden" und sein Mitglied H. Heine

Describes restrictions imposed on Jews in early modern Germany generally, and in Frankfurt and Berlin specifically, and steps toward emancipation in the late 18th-early 19th centuries and their retraction due to growing antisemitism. Jews reacted by engagement in education and scholarship in order to break out of the narrow tradition for which they were blamed and to participate in humanity with a modern, rational version of Judaism. Argues that this was the main purpose of the Verein; the "Hep-Hep" disorders that took place in the year of its founding, 1819, were of minor importance. Describes the activities of the Verein and Heine's relation to it, which broke down when members failed to back him against antisemitic attacks and discrimination. However, shows that Heine's choice of Jewish themes in "The Rabbi of Bacherach" grew partly out of the ambience of the Verein.