Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Heinrich Graetz" in English language version.
At the same time, during the second half of the nineteenth century a new variant of Jewish historiography developed that put passionate emphasis on the existence of a unified Jewish national history. Its beginnings are found in the work of the most important Jewish historian of the nineteenth century, Heinrich Graetz... It was this Graetz, in some places so altered as to be unrecognizable, that was to go through numerous editions in Hebrew and later be used as a textbook in Israeli schools. This explains why readers of the Hebrew editions often regarded Graetz as a Zionist. The truth is more complicated, however. His support for the construction of Palestine is as un- questionable as is his positive attitude toward the continuation of the Jewish nation. In addition, he reported enthusiastically on his journey to Palestine. But at the same time he felt himself to be a German who did not want to reverse the achievements of emancipation, rejected plans for the establishment of a Jewish state, and had no intention of leaving his homeland. "The fence around the Talmud makes every Jewish house in the world into a distinctly circumscribed Palestine," he had written in his Die Konstruktion der juedischen Geschichte (A Construction of Jewish History). Until recently, however, Israeli historians tried to present Graetz as a proto-Zionist. Yet it may be typical of Graetz's indecision regarding the question of a "return" to Palestine that in his fictional Correspondence with an English Lady regarding Judaism and Semitism, first published anonymously in 1883, he answered all his correspondent's questions, but left open the last one, in which she asked him about his attitude toward the construction of Palestine. Her comment, "So you haven't said anything indicating what you think about the Palestine question," is applicable to his general attitude with regard to this issue. The last sentence of the final letter, "You must later explain what you think about this," remained an unfulfilled demand.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) Reprinted in Littell, Eliakim; Project, Making of America; Littell, Robert S (1893). "Littell's Living Age". 197 (April–June 1893). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)