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No “German-Jewish Dialogue”? On Gershom Scholem’s Concept of Jewish Totality as the Cornerstone for Cultural Resilience

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Catastrophes

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Abstract

The 27th of the month of Nisan (March/April in the Gregorian calendar) is the commemoration day for Yom ha-Shoah. As an official resolution on Yom ha-Shoah, i.e. the Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Knesset of the State of Israel in 1951 proclaimed the 27th day of Nisan as “the Holocaust and Ghetto Uprising Remembrance Day—a day of perpetual remembrance for the House of Israel”. It is a commemoration day for Israel.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This paper was read for the first time at the Lexington Theological Seminary, Lexington, KY, on the occasion of Yom ha-Shoah in 2002, and was slightly revised and updated for publication.

  2. 2.

    The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989) (Deut 25, 17–19). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

  3. 3.

    Gershom Scholem, Against the Myth of the German-Jewish Dialogue, in: On Jews and Judaism in Crisis. Selected Essays, (Ed.) by Werner J. Dannhauser, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books 2012, 61–64, 61–62; see also idem, Once More: The German-Jewish Dialogue, in: On Jews and Judaism 65–70.

  4. 4.

    G. Scholem, Against the Myth 62–63 f.

  5. 5.

    On this entire complex, see also A. Gotzmann, ‘Zwischen Nation und Religion: die deutschen Juden auf der Suche nach einer bürgerlichen Konfessionalität’, in: A. Gotzmann, R. Liedtke et al. (Eds.), Juden, Bürger, Deutsche. Zur Geschichte von Vielfalt und Differenz 1800–1933. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, 241–261.

  6. 6.

    Cf. H. Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen, The Life of a Jewish Woman. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 1974, 120.

  7. 7.

    German quotation translated from R. Schaeffler, “Die Wissenschaft des Judentums in ihrer Beziehung zur allgemeinen Geistesgeschichte im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in: J. Carlebach, ed., לארשיתמכח. Wissenschaft des Judentums. Anfänge der Judaistik in Europa, Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges. 1992, 113–131, 116.

  8. 8.

    German quotation translated from Gotzmann, Juden, Bürger, Deutsche, 258.

  9. 9.

    See G. Scholem on his parents’ attitude towards Christianity in: G. Scholem, From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memories of my Youth, New York: Schocken Books 1988, esp. 28–31.

  10. 10.

    In: With Gershom Scholem: An Interview, in: On Jews and Judaism in Crisis 4.

  11. 11.

    G. Scholem, From Berlin to Jerusalem, 11.

  12. 12.

    Scholem, From Berlin to Jerusalem, 42 f.

  13. 13.

    G. Scholem, “Once more: The German-Jewish Dialogue”, in: idem, On Jews and Judaism 65–70, 68–69.

  14. 14.

    See U. Kaufmann, “Kultur und ‘Selbstverwirklichung.’ Die vielfältigen Strömungen des Zionismus in Deutschland 1897–1933,” in: A. Schatz/Ch. Wiese (Eds.), Janusfiguren: “jüdische Heimstätte”, Exil und Nation im deutschen Zionismus, Berlin: Metropol, 43–60; D. N. Myers, “Von Berlin nach Jerusalem. Zionismus, jüdische Wissenschaft und die Mühsal kulturelle Dissonanz,” in: ibid. 331–347.

  15. 15.

    See also J. Hetkamp, Die jüdische Jugendbewegung in Deutschland von 1913–1933, Essen, Univ. Diss. 1991, esp. 59–64.

  16. 16.

    G. Scholem, Martin Buber’s Conception of Judaism, in: On Jews and Judaism in Crisis 126–171, 138.

  17. 17.

    Sh. Magid, “Mysticism, History, and a ‘New’ Kabbalah: Gershom Scholem and the Contemporary Scene,” in: Jewish Quarterly Review 101, 4, 2011, 511–525.

  18. 18.

    See Ch. Horowitz, Sefer Chibbat Yerushalayim, 1844, reprint Jerusalem 1964 (http://www.hebrewbooks.org/32382; access April 2014).

  19. 19.

    Scholem, “Israel and the Diaspora,”, in: idem: On Jews and Judaism in Crisis 244–260, 246.

  20. 20.

    Ibid. 255.

  21. 21.

    Israel and the Diaspora 258.

  22. 22.

    Quoted in M. Kaplan, “What is ‘Religion’ among Jews in Contemporary Germany?”, in: S. L. Gilman/K. Remmler (Eds.), Reemerging Jewish Culture in Germany: Life and Literature since 1989, New York: New York University Press 1994, 77–112, 89.

  23. 23.

    On this issue see in particular A. Mintz, Hurban. Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature, New York: Syracuse University Press 1984.

  24. 24.

    See also T. Linafelt, Surviving lamentations: catastrophe, lament and protest in the afterlife of a biblical book, Chicago: Chicago University Press 2000; H. Liss, Die unerhörte Prophetie. Kommunikative Strukturen prophetischer Rede im Buch Yesha’yahu, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2003, esp. 272–290.

  25. 25.

    See http://abraham-geiger-kolleg.de/welcome.html?L=2 (access March 2014).

  26. 26.

    Due to the fact that Jewish Studies was not integrated into the academic traditional core subjects at German Universities, in the seventies of the nineteenth century, three rabbinical seminaries were founded within two years, the Jüdisch-Theologisches Seminar in Breslau (1874), the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1872), and the Berlin Rabbinerseminar für das Orthodoxe Judentum (1873). All three institutions sought to combine rabbinical education with a thorough philological and historical academic training, and were closed between by the Nazi regime; see J. Carlebach (Ed.), חכמת ישראל. Wissenschaft des Judentums. Anfänge der Judaistik in Europa, Darmstadt 1992.

  27. 27.

    See e.g. E. Singer (Ed.), Paradigm Shift: From the Jewish Renewal Teachings of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Jason Aronson, Northvale, NJ. 1993; P. Ochs (Ed.), Reviewing the covenant: Eugene B. Borowitz and the Postmodern Renewal of Jewish Theology, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 2000. On Jewish Renewal in Germany see http://www.ohel-hachidusch.org (access March 2014).

  28. 28.

    See https://lauderfoundation.com/tag/germany (access March 2014).

  29. 29.

    See http://www.jewishexperience.de (access March 2014).

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  1. Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, Landfriedstraße 12, D-69117, Heidelberg, Germany

    Hanna Liss

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  1. Department of Geology, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Andreas Hoppe

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Liss, H. (2016). No “German-Jewish Dialogue”? On Gershom Scholem’s Concept of Jewish Totality as the Cornerstone for Cultural Resilience. In: Hoppe, A. (eds) Catastrophes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20846-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20846-6_3

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