The German-Jewish Experience Revisited

Steven E. Aschheim, Vivian Liska, Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem, Steven E. Aschheim, Vivian Liska

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9783110393323
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios judíos

In the past decades the "German-Jewish phenomenon" (Derrida) has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars from various fields: Jewish studies, intellectual history, philosophy, literary and cultural studies, critical theory. In all its complex dimensions, the post-enlightenment German-Jewish experience is overwhelmingly regarded as the most quintessential and charged meeting of Jews with the project of modernity. Perhaps for this reason, from the eighteenth century through to our own time it has been the object of intense reflection, of clashing interpretations and appropriations. In both micro and macro case-studies, this volume engages the multiple perspectives as advocated by manifold interested actors, and analyzes their uses, biases and ideological functions over time in different cultural, disciplinary and national contexts. This volume includes both historical treatments of differing German-Jewish understandings of their experience – their relations to their Judaism, general culture and to other Jews – and contemporary reflections and competing interpretations as to how to understand the overall experience of German Jewry.

Endnotes

The Jews as Educators of Humanity – a Christian-Philosemitic Grand Narrative of Jewish Modernity?
1	See Mulsow (2005, 181–211).
2	On the meaning of the term, see Carhart (2007, 200–201).
3	See Polaschegg (2005, 15–18); Toomer (1996, 309–313). See also Said (1978, 117–123).
4	On Lessing’s view of Judaism’s role in history, see also Taubes (2009, 131–137).'
5	See also Hillen (1986, 186–197).
6	On this text, see Hartwich (1997).
7	See, for example, Mendes-Flohr (1999).
Transfers of Categories: the German-Jewish Experience and Beyond
8	See, e.g., the various attempts to describe this tradition in Skinner (2002) as well as some of the other essays in this collection; Santner (2006, 12), or Niehoff (1993); Smith (1993), and Wiese and Urban (2012).
9	We cannot discuss here whether “pure monotheism” reflects the impact of Maimonides.
10	Compare to the statement of Margarete Susman, cited in Scholem (1976b, 89): “The vocation of Israel as a people is not self-realization but self-surrender for the sake of a higher, transhistorical goal.”
11	See Buber (1982, 5–6); Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption and Scholem (1976b, 261–289).
12	See Idel (2004).
13	On the historical thought of Baer see, e.g., Myers (1995, passim); Yuval (1998); and Nirenberg (2002).
14	The particularistic stand is obvious and is reinforced by many other statements dealing with an organic vision of the Jewish communities and their history. See Yuval (1998).
15	(Baer 1986, 1: 16) The passage is part of an article printed originally in 1938.
16	The book was originally written in 1936.
17	For an understanding of Baer’s thought as circling around exile and redemption, see the introduction of Jacob Neusner to Galut (1988, unnumbered). See, however, the different reading and practice emphasizing the interaction between the Jews and their environment in Yuval (1998, 78).
18	See the Epilogue added ten years after the first publication of the book (Baer 1988, 123).
19	See Idel, (2009, 34–36, 127–128). See also Idel (1991).
20	See Idel (2009, 138–146).
21	See also the similar use of “breakthrough” elsewhere in the same book, Origins of the Kabbalah (original title Ursprung und Anfänge der Kabbala, 1962, 345).
22	See Dan (1991, 6, 8–9).
23	See, especially, his letter to Walter Benjamin from 1934 in Scholem (1980, 157, 166–68, 175); and his response to H. J. Schoeps (Scholem 1932, 243). For discussions of these views see Biale (1982, 129–131); Mosès (1992, 218–119, 222–223, 236–237, 243); Alter (1991, 108–110; and Handelman (1991, 50–51, 165).
24	Original in Scholem (2003, 100–101).
25	See Biale (1987, 110–111).
26	See Scholem (1963, 441–443). Compare also to Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1969b, 12–13, and especially 217); his Kabbalah (1974, 94–95, 147, 149, 156, 404), and his On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism (1969c, 41, 102–103, 122, 125) (the “nothingness of the divine idea”), where he emphasizes the divine “nothingness” as part of the process of creation in Kabbalah. The French translation of Scholem’s book seems to be the source of Nancy (2007, 70). See also Nancy (2002). See Franck (1843, 186–187), as well as my forthcoming Primeval Evil: Totality, Perfection and Perfectibility (ch. 1, section 10). On Hegel and Kabbalah, see also Franks (2010, 269–275); Kilcher (1998, 226, 229–230); Wolfson (2005, 100–104); and Drob (2001, 185–240).
27	On the flirtation with negativity in Scholem, see also the incisive remarks of Harold Bloom (1987, 7, 13, 55, 57, 60–67); idem (1983, 83); idem (1984, 53ff). See also e.g., Mosès (1989, 209–224; or Wolosky (1995). Compare to my remarks in Idel (2002, 423–427).
28	See Idel (2002, 80–110).
29	It was first published a year before Scholem delivered the lecture that became his essay on “Mysticism and Authority.”
30	Scholem (1969c, 37), originally printed in Diogenes 14 (Summer 1956) and (Fall 1956) and in Scholem (1976, 268–269). This view reflects the impact of Ahron Marcus, as we shall see below.
31	See Idel (2009, 83–108 and 2002, 274–276).
32	See Idel (1988b, 1–7).
33	See my “Johannes Reuchlin: Kabbalah, Pythagorean Philosophy and Modern Scholarship” (2008).
34	On the reticence of attributing a seminal role to symbolism in Judaism, see Heschel (1996,83–84). For more on Heschel and symbolism, see Kaplan (1996, 75–89). For my reservations concerning the exaggeration of the status of symbols in Kabbalah, see my detailed discussion in Idel (2002, 272–94).
35	See Scholem (1969a, 7).
36	See the essays in Scholem (1976b, 61–92).
37	See also (1980, 160) and Scholem’s analysis (1976, 156–159) of Buber’s treat of the issue.
38	Letter to Rosenzweig, on 3 July 1924. In another instance, however, Buber says something quite...