Graetz received his first instruction at Zerkow, where his parents had relocated, and in 1831 was sent to Wollstein, where he attended the yeshivah up to 1836, acquiring secular knowledge by private study.

[1] After Graetz had obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Jena (his dissertation being "De Auctoritate et Vi Quam Gnosis in Judaismum Habuerit," 1845; published a year later under the title "Gnosticismus und Judenthum"), he was made principal of a religious school founded by the Conservatives in Breslau, again under the leadership of Frankel.

Hirsch, who then contemplated the start of a rabbinical seminary, employed Graetz temporarily as teacher at Nikolsburg, and made him principal of the Jewish school in the neighboring city of Lundenburg (1850).

[3] It seems that Hirsch's departure from Nikolsburg had an influence on Graetz's position; for in 1852 the latter left Lundenburg and went to Berlin, where he delivered a course of less than successful lectures on Jewish history to rabbinical students.

Even friends of the Jews, like Mommsen, and advocates of Judaism within the Jewish fold expressed their condemnation of Graetz's passionate language.

It was due to this comparative unpopularity that Graetz was not invited to join the commission created by the union of German Jewish congregations (Deutsch-Israelitischer Gemeindebund) for the promotion of the study of the history of the Jews of Germany (1885).

His seventieth birthday was the occasion for his friends and disciples to bear testimony to the universal esteem in which he was held among them; and a volume of scientific essays was published in his honor ("Jubelschrift zum 70.

A year later (27 October 1888) he was appointed an honorary member of the Spanish Academy, to which, as a token of his gratitude, he dedicated the third edition of the eighth volume of his history.

His Geschichte der Juden superseded all former works of its kind, notably that of Jost, in its day a very remarkable production; and it has been translated into many languages.

In spite of this reserve he gravely offended the Liberal party, which inferred, from articles that Graetz contributed to the Monatsschrift, that he would show little sympathy for the Reform element, and therefore refused to publish the volume unless the manuscript was submitted for examination.

For more popular purposes Graetz published later an abstract of his work under the title Volksthümliche Geschichte der Juden, in which he brought the history down to his own time.

The fourth volume of the History of the Jews received a detailed review by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in a series of essays in Vols.

Graetz claims, on the basis of quotations from certain Talmudic sages, that they "were wont to do" something – despite sources explicitly to the contrary – and goes on to develop these suppositions into theories affecting the entire Torah tradition.

Hirsch accuses Graetz of fabricating dates, rearranging generations, overstating results, misinterpreting and distorting the Talmudic tradition to serve his narrative needs.

David N. Myers argues that Hirsch's criticisms of his one-time student's work were motivated by a complete difference of opinion on the value of historicism.

(1853) and "Die Grosse Versammlung: Keneset Hagedola" (1857); and with his translation of and commentaries on Ecclesiastes and Canticles (Breslau, 1871) he began the publication of separate exegetical works.

The most characteristic features of Graetz's exegesis are his bold textual emendations, which often substitute something conjectural for the Masoretic text, although he always carefully consulted the ancient versions.

He continued steadily in this task once the Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums was firmly established under Frankel's editorship in Breslau, between 1851 and 1853.

Frankel and Graetz practically took over the periodical with the leadership of the concept of Wissenschaft des Judentums from its Reform initiators, Leopold Zunz and Eduard Gans.

In the early years of the anti-Semitic movement he wrote, besides the articles in which he defended himself against the accusations of Treitschke, an anonymous essay entitled "Briefwechsel einer Englischen Dame über Judenthum und Semitismus" (Stuttgart, 1883).

Graetz and Kompert were brought to court in Vienna for publishing claims that were contrary to the Catholic faith, as well as contradicting Jewish tradition.

Viennese rabbis Isaak Noah Mannheimer and Lazar Horowitz defended Graetz, and Azriel Hildesheimer criticized them for doing so; Isaac Hirsch Weiss published a pamphlet entitled Neẓaḥ Yisrael in support of their testimony.

Thus, within the Jewish fold the lawsuit also had its consequences, as the Orthodox raised against Graetz the accusation of heresy because he had denied the personal character of the prophetic Messiah.

According to Arthur Hertzberg, Baron was writing social history, insisting that spiritual creativity and the political situation were all borne by a living society and its changing forms.