Introduction

The Introduction begins with the simple question that opens Marc Bloch’s classic book The Historian’s Craft: “What is the use of history?” This question has assumed particular urgency in the past decade as interest in the humanities and the study of history has waned. But well before, various modern commentators, ranging from Friedrich Nietzsche to Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, have questioned the utility of historical research that tells us more and more about less and less. In contrast to this claim, this chapter suggests that history, while it has the capacity to distort, can and often does edify. It also suggests that history should not be seen in opposition to memory, but rather frequently serves as a tool of remembrance. In this regard, the chapter engages in a sustained dialogue with Yerushalmi’s seminal 1982 book Zakhor, which posits a bright-line distinction between history and memory—as well as with other writings of his that present a more complicated assessment of the relationship between them.

The Stakes of History

Why do we study history? What is the role of the historian in the contemporary world? These questions prompted David N. Myers’s illuminating and poignant call for the relevance of historical research and writing. His inquiry identifies a number of key themes around which modern Jewish historians have wrapped their labors: liberation, consolation, and witnessing. Through these portraits, Myers revisits the chasm between history and memory, revealing the middle space occupied by modern Jewish historians as they work between the poles of empathic storytelling and the critical sifting of sources. In this regard, the book engages in an extended dialogue with the seminal work by his teacher’s teacher Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory. History, properly applied, can both destroy ideologically rooted myths that breed group hatred and create new memories that are sustaining of life. Alive in these investigations is Myers’s belief that the historian today can and should attend to questions of political and moral urgency. Historical knowledge is not a luxury to society but an essential requirement for informed civic engagement, as well as a vital tool in policy making, conflict resolution, and restorative justice.