Crisis and lachrymosity: on Salo Baron, Neobaronianism, and the study of modern European Jewish history

Salo Baron (1895–1989) remains an iconic figure among historians of the Jews, who routinely cite his dissent from the ‘lachrymose conception of Jewish history’ as a ideal to be upheld. Contemporary historians have generally understood the Baronian imperative to favor a historiography that seeks continuities instead of ruptures, deemphasizes Jews’ victimhood in favor of their achievements and successful integration, and affirms diaspora creativity in opposition to Zionist disparagement of exile. They have also affirmed that imperative equally for all periods and places in Jewish history. Close analysis of Baron’s corpus suggests that such a reading is better termed ‘neo-Baronian,’ for Baron himself employed his injunction against lachrymosity in reference to the middle ages only, whereas his depiction of the modern era stressed sustained crisis, conflict, and insecurity throughout the Jewish world. Such a depiction is fully consistent with his conception of the conditions under which Jews were most likely to find safety and prosperity. That conception, which posited the preferability of ‘states of nationalities’ to ‘nation-states’ and stressed the need for a strong international order capable of checking unrestrained state sovereignty, was evidently born out of Baron’s own experience as a refugee in Vienna during and after the First World War.