The Satyr as Prophet: Notes on the “Jewish” Michelangelo

Images ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Asher Biemann
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Michelangelo Buonarroti ◽  
Ernst Bloch ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Jewish Intellectuals ◽  
Hermann Cohen

AbstractFocusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the essay argues that there existed a Jewish fascination with the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti that was representative not only of a larger German and Jewish Italophilia at the time but also indicative of Jewish aesthetic concerns. Lodged between popular culture and the intellectual quest for an aesthetics that would problematize the figurative image and the classical sense of the beautiful, the Jewish reception of Michelangelo was guided by the themes of terribilita, unfinishedness, and the destruction of form. What emerges is a consistent dialectic of image and anti-image particularly in the writings of Salomon Ludwig Steinheim, Sigmund Freud, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ernst Bloch. But what also emerges is that German Jewish intellectuals entertained a great, though often ambivalent, admiration for the Italian Renaissance and the culture of modern Italy.

Sacred Torrents in Modernity: German Jewish Philosophers and the Legacy of Secularization

transversal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Nils Roemer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
German Jewish

AbstractThis article investigates the ongoing interaction between the Jewish sacred past and its modern interpreters. Jewish thinkers from the eighteenth century reclaimed these ideals instead of dismissing them. Sacred traditions and modern secular thought existed in their mutual constitutive interdependence and not in opposition. When the optimism in historical progress and faith in reason unraveled in the fin de siècle, it engendered a new critical response by Jewish historians and philosophers of the twentieth century. These critical voices emerged within the fault lines of nineteenth and early twentieth century Jewish anti-historicist responses. What separated twentieth-century Jewish thinkers such as Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Gershom Scholem from their nineteenth-century forerunners was not their embrace of religion but their critical stance toward reason and their crumbling faith in historical progress.

scholarly journals Ernst Bloch as a Non-Simultaneous Jewish Marxist

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 346
Author(s):  
Przemyslaw Tacik
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Ernst Bloch ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Jewish Heritage ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Hermann Cohen

The paper attempts to reassess the fundamentally paradoxical position of Ernst Bloch in 20th century philosophy in the light of the Marranic condition. Indebted, among others, to Jewish heritage and Christian tradition, Bloch considered himself primarily a Marxist. Bloch’s uniqueness consists in the stunning equiponderance of the currents he drew from. Contrary to a classic model of modern Jewish philosophy, inaugurated by Hermann Cohen, Bloch’s thinking does not allow of easy juxtaposition of “sources” with languages into which they were translated. In this sense, Bloch cannot be easily compared to Franz Rosenzweig, Emmanuel Levinas or even Walter Benjamin (although he bore some striking similarities with the latter). His position at least partly stems from a specific form of directness with which he often used these languages, composing his philosophy in quite an anachronist manner. For this reason his thinking—in itself “die Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen”, as one of his key concepts theorises—is a very modern, internally incoherent space of cross-fertilising inspirations. The paper demonstrates two levels on which Bloch’s indebtedness to Judaism might be analysed and then re-assesses his Marxist affiliations as a kind of modern faith which, in a specifically Marranic manner, seals the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous.

scholarly journals JEWISH PHILOSOPHY AND EDUCATION: THINKING ARGENTINA’S DIASPORA FROM THE THEOLOGY OF FRANZ ROZENZWEIG

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Taub
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
The Core ◽  
Jewish Philosophy ◽  
Hermann Cohen

Latin American Jewish philosophy requires us to rethink the categories of Philosophy and Judaism. In order to articulate these two dimensions it is necessary to understand that Jewish philosophy must start from the attributes of the Jewish tradition. The matter of the education and Jewishness comes from the beginning of Judaism. Throughout the Twentieth Century, the Diaspora in Modern States acquired its peculiarities in relation to these two dimensions, education and Jewishness. Both aspects have been developed in the work of Franz Rosenzweig, one the most important Jewish philosophers of the century. The main goal of this paper is to rethink the core of Rosenzweig’s thought and his dialogues with Martin Buber and Hermann Cohen. Therefore, we will be able to explain the diaspora’s peculiarities in relation to Jewish identity and education in Latin America, especially in Argentina.

Hölderlin in Jerusalem: Buber and Strauss on Poetry and the Limits of Dialogue

Naharaim ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Barouch
Keyword(s):  
Martin Buber ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
German Jewish

AbstractThis paper discusses a series of commentaries and lyrical texts by Martin Buber and Ludwig Strauss, which dwell on Hölderlin’s poetry and the dialogical ideas implicit therein (e.g. the dialogical vocation of the poet). The paper distinguishes between the dialogical ideal and its concretization in language, as the selected texts all strive to develop a dialogical poetics, yet at the same time engage with textual junctures where the dialogical mode collapses. This collapse is also registered in the historical sphere: Buber’s engagement with Heidegger’s paradigmatic Hölderlin studies calls for a comparison with Strauss’s reception of Hölderlin, and therefore points to an absent dialogue between these two contemporary scholars. This historical lacuna, which Buber may have wished to bridge, thus resonates with ideas on the limits of dialogue in the poetic sphere. The paper draws on further Hölderlin scholars, such as Peter Szondi and Winfried Menninghaus, and their discussion of the lyrical results of failed dialogue, and on the ideas of Franz Rosenzweig and Rabbi Nahman, in the mapping of the dialogical ideas of both Buber and Strauss. Strauss himself thus emerges as a scholar and poet who draws both on Hölderlinian motifs and notions and on dialogical ideas in contemporaneous German-Jewish thought.

scholarly journals Repositioning The “Holy Remnant” of Israel: German Jewish Negotiations with Christian Culture on the Eve of the Holocaust

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Krell
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
German Society ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Cultural Relevance ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
German Jewish

By maintaining the spiritual centrality of Israel as God’s “holy remnant,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, unwittingly perhaps, entered into negotiations with Jewish thinkers over their continued theological and cultural relevance to German society. This paper focuses on the Jewish side of these negotiations by examining the work of three Jewish thinkers who helped shape them, Franz Rosenzweig, Hans Joachim Schoeps and Martin Buber. Despite their divergence from one another, the theological approaches of Rosenzweig, Schoeps and Buber represent a common attempt to map out the course of twentieth-century Jewish identity construction based on a shared, but at times unacknowledged engagement with Christian thought and culture. Their writings constitute a mutual opposition to the perceived failure of their forbearers in the Wissenschaft des Judentums to balance Jewish particularity and universalism, while at the same time reflecting a desire for varying degrees of mutual coexistence with their Christian contemporaries. Ultimately the work of Rosenzweig, Schoeps and Buber confirmed Bonhoeffer’s portrayal of the continuing validity of Jewish existence in relation to God during the Holocaust, while at the same time providing models for a later, dialogical mapping of Jewish identities vis à vis Christianity in an increasingly multicultural, post-Holocaust world.

Holiness in Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Plevan
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Cultural Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Jewish ◽  
Hermann Cohen

This chapter explores the conception of holiness in three influential modern Jewish thinkers, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig, with particular attention to the problem of Jewish distinctiveness. Each thinker’s approach to holiness represents their attempt to define the meaning of Jewish distinctiveness in light of the social, political, and cultural challenges faced by the Jews of Germany in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and by modern Jews more broadly. Consideration of these three thinkers’ conceptions of holiness also offers us the opportunity to examine the strengths and limitations of contemporary approaches to Jewish distinctiveness within North American Jewish spiritual life over the last several decades.

Living Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Political Condition ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Jewish Philosophy ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Hermann Cohen

This book discusses the political theology developed by German Jewish philosophy in the 20th century on the basis of its original reconstruction of the teachings of Jewish prophetology. In the shadow of the modern experiences with anti-Semitism, the rise of Zionism, and the return of charismatic authority in mass societies, the discourse of Jewish political theology advances the radical hypothesis that the messianic idea of God’s Kingdom correlates with a post-sovereignty, anarchist political condition of radical non-domination. However, this messianic form of democracy, far from being antinomian, was combined with the ideal of cosmopolitan constitutionalism, itself based on the identity of divine law and natural law. This book examines the paradoxical unity of anarchy and rule of law in the democratic political theology developed by Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt. Critical of the Christian theological underpinnings of modern “representative” political institutions, this group of highly original thinkers took up the banner of Philo’s project to unify Greek philosophy with Judaism, so influential for medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and rejected the separation between faith and reason, biblical revelation and pagan philosophy. The Jewish political theology they developed stands for the idea that human redemption is inseparable from the redemption of nature.

scholarly journals Propheten des Mitleids: Herman Cohens Mitleidsbegriff als Tor zum Stern der Erlösung

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Gesine Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Central Point ◽  
General Philosophy ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Hermann Cohen ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Looking Back

The German-Jewish philosophers Hermann Cohen and Franz Rosenzweig, have - both in their own ways - produced systems of philosophy at a time that was supposed to be the time after systems. With their respective systems they - both in their own ways - transcended the apologetic stance of Jewish thought by placing the Jewishness of their thinking at a methodologically central point for ?general philosophy.? However, the link between Cohen?s system and the Star of Redemption, is hard to find. Looking back from the perspective of a ?return of religion? in late twentieth century, the essay proposes to see the link between both systems in Cohen?s notion of compassion.

Book reviews

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-198
Author(s):  
Lars Aejmelaeus ◽  
Karl-Erich Grözinger ◽  
Tryggve Kronholm ◽  
Karl-Gustav Sandelin ◽  
Svante Lundgren ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Martin Buber ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Jewish Intellectuals

Paulus und das Judentum. Antropologische Erwägungen (Timo Laato, 1991 diss.) is reviewed by Lars Aejmelaeus.Moses Hess on religion. Judaism and the Bible (Svante Lundgren, 1992) is reviewed by Karl-Erich Grözinger.Abraham ibn Ezra y su tiempo / Abraham ibn Ezra and his age (ed. Fernando Diaz Esteban, 1990) is reviewed by Tryggve Kronholm.Kommentar till påskhaggadan (Nils Martola, 1988) is reviewed by Tryggve Kronholm.Pilatusbilledet i den antike jødedom og kristendom (Niels Willert, 1989) is reviewed by Karl-Gustav Sandelin.Die unterlegene Religion. Das Judentum im Urteil deutscher Alttestamentler. Kritik theologischer Geschichtsschreibung (Ulrich Kusche, 1991) is reviewed by Svante Lundgren.Judentum im deutschen Sprachraum (ed. Karl E. Grözinger, 1991) is reviewed by Svante Lundgren.Jiddische Sprachgeschichte (Bettina Simon, 1988) is reviewed by Theodor Katz.Kinesiske jøder (Jens Christian Larsen, 1991) is reviewed by Theodor Katz.Människan och hennes bildkonst (Martin Buber, 1991) is reviewed by Siv Illman.Kuolleen meren kirjakääröt. Qumranin tekstit suomeksi (ed. Raija Sollamo, 1991) is reviewed by Antti Laato.Fortolkning som formidling. Om den bibliske eksegeses funktion (eds. Lone Fatum & Eduard Nielsen, 1992) is reviewed by Roger Syrén.Alkukirkko ja juutalaisuus (eds. Anne-Marit Enroth-Voitila, Matti Myllykoski, 1991) is reviewed by Nils Martola.Short notice by Nils Martola.Motståndet. Arton brev om död och liv (Per Ahlmark & Georg Klein, 1991) is reviewed by Karl-Johan Illman.Judarna i det svenska samhället. Identitet, integration, etniska relationer (ed. Kerstin Nyström, 1991) is reviewed by Karl-Johan Illman.Divided passions. Jewish intellectuals and the experience of modernity (Paul Mendes-Flohr, 1991) is reviewed by Karl-Johan Illman.

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