NAHMAN

KROCHMAL (1785–1840)  , Jewish scholar, was born at Brody in Galicia in 1785 . He was one of the pioneers in the revival of Jewish learning which followed on the age of Moses Mendelssohn . His chief work was the Moreh Nebuche hazeman (" Guide for the Perplexed of the Age "), a title imitated from that of the 12th-century " Guide for the Perplexed " of Maimonides (q.v.) . This book was not published till after the author's death, when it was edited by Zunz (1851) . The book is a philosophy of Jewish history, and has a double importance . On the one side it was a critical examination of the Rabbinic literature and much influenced subsequent investigators . On the other side, Krochmal, in the words of N . Slouschz, " was the first Jewish scholar who views Judaism, not as a distinct and independent entity, but as a part of the whole of civilization." Krochmal, under Hegelian influences, regarded the nationality of Israel as consisting in its religious genius, its spiritual gifts . Thus Krochmal may be called the originator of the idea of the mission of the Jewish people, " cultural Zionism " as it has more recently been termed . He died at Tarnopol in 1840 . See S . Schechter, Studies in Judaism (1896), pp .

56 seq.; N . Slouschz, Renascence of

Hebrew Literature (1909), pp . 63 seq . (I .