Between visiting diary and political visions: recovering treasures from the Lazarus estate for the present

Abstract

Making accessible the estate of 19th-century German-Jewish intellectual Moritz (Moshe) Lazarus at the National Library of Israel benefits biographical research as well as studies in history, sociology, memory studies or philosophy. Documents like his visiting diaries demonstrate the reality of an intense German-Jewish social life not at all restricted to Jewish circles, even in a nationalist, Christian and authoritarian environment like Imperial Germany. This article discusses the possibilities and problems of digital editions and proposes four paths through the digital material now available, from the personal networks found in the diaries, to the political visions of the lectures and manuscripts.