Von Berlin nach Jerusalem und zuruck

Gershom Scholem zwischen Israel und Deutschland

by Noam Zadoff

Book cover: Von Berlin nach Jerusalem und zuruck

Extent: 416 pages

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Subjects: Jewish Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Judische Religion, Geschichte und Kultur

Series volume number: 23, 23

Language: German

Hardback (Published)

(April 2020)

ISBN: 9783525570357

6.06 x 9.09 inches

Price: $64.00

In stock

Although Gershom Scholem presented his life in his autobiography as a one way movement from Berlin to Jerusalem, a closer look in mainly unpublished documents reveals a different picture. Since the moment of his arrival in Palestine in 1923 and until his death in 1982, he remained in close contact to the German speaking cultural and intellectual worlds. In the 1920ies and 1930ies he contributed to the Hebrew and Jewish cultural circles in Berlin, and even after the shock of the Holocaust he gradually returned to shorter and longer visits in Germany. In the postwar Federal Republic Scholem played a central role as a moral authority, who offered an alternative for young intellectuals to their corrupted fathers generation. By doing so, the German-Israeli intellectual served as a generational link, bridging over the abyss created by the Holocaust. For Scholem himself this return was the outcome of a long process of disillusionment with his Zionist utopia.

  • By (author) Noam Zadoff
  • Translated by Dafna Mach