ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to reflect on the last years of a renowned German-Jewish institution, the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, from 1936 to its closing in July 1942. This period witnessed its greatest expansion in faculty, students, and in its curriculum. It also witnessed its greatest reduction in operations, staff, and students from 1938/39 on, as the Jewish community in Germany fled into emigration in panic numbers. The idea of such a Jewish branch of scholarship had been born in the first flush of rebellion against Jewish culture and society among a small group of traditional brilliant young university graduates in philosophy, history, or law. The children of emancipated German Jewry were not attracted by such rigors in any numbers even if they would have had the thorough grounding brought along by offsprings of traditionally religious households from Poland and Hungary, the Eastern provinces of Prussia like Posen or Silesia or rural areas.
