"Morality is holiness": German Jewish spiritual life at the beginning of the 20th century - Single View

WEGEN DER JÜDISCHEN FEIERTAGE BEGINNT DIE LEHRVERANSTALTUNG ERST AM 29.10.2019.

The early 20^th century was a turbulent and creative period in German Jewry. Historical processes that began after Mendelssohn, the problem of emancipation and assimilation peaked during this period. The call for a renewal in Judaism was heard by both scholars and community rabbis. An example of this renewal is the establishment of the “Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus” of Frankfurt, which was a meeting point for discourse and study among scholars, rabbis, and community members. Nahum Glatzer wrote that the purpose of the Lehrhaus was to help Jews return to a “true Jewish life […]. The Jew’s ‘true’ life has been reduced, obscured, if not destroyed by the over-zealous philosophy of enlightenment and by the misuse of science and art as substitutes for religion”. In this seminar, we will discuss the interactions between rabbis: Nehemia Anton Nobel, Georg Salzberger, Salman Baruch Rabinkow, and philosophers: Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber and others, and their understanding of Judaism and its meaning for modern man.

Literature

Albert H. Friedlander, “Baeck and Rosenzweig”, European Judaism 20, 2 (1986), pp. 9-15

Christian Wiese, “Counterhistory, the “Religion of the Future” and the Emancipation of Jewish Studies: The Conflict between the Wissenschaft des Judentums and Liberal Protestantism 1900 to 1933”, Jewish Studies Quarterly, 7, 4 (2000), pp. 367-398

Christian Wiese, Challenging Colonial Discourse, Leiden and Boston 2005, pp. 314-337

Erich Fromm, Das jüdische Gesetz: Zur Soziologie des Diaspora-Judentums [1922], in: Rainer Funk und Bernd Sahler (eds.), Nachgelassene Schriften 2, Stuttgart 1989

Erich Fromm, “Der Sabbat”, Imago 13 (1927), pp. 223-234

Erich Fromm, You Shall be as God’s, New York 1966

Erich Fromm, “Reminiscences of Shlomo Baruch Rabinkow”, in: Leo Jung (ed.) Sage and Saints, Hoboken 1987, pp. 93-132

Franz Rosenzweig, “It Is Time: Concerning the Study of Judaism [1917]”; “Towards a Renaissance of Jewish Learning [1920]”, “Upon the Opening of the Jüdisches Lehrhous [1920]”, in: N. Glatzer (ed.), On Jewish Learning, Wisconsin 2002, pp. 27-54, 55-71, 95-102.

Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, London 2005

Franz Rosenzweig, Gesammelte Schriften I, Briefe und Tagebücher, Dordrecht 1979

Frederick Beiser, Hermann Cohen: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford 2018

Georg Salzberger, “Heldentum”, in: Sabbathgedanken für jüdische Soldaten, Leipzig 1918, pp. 23-27, 46-48

Georg Salzberger, “Erinnerungen von Rabbiner Dr. Georg Salzberger über das ‘Freie Jüdische Lehrhaus”, Sendung des Senders Freies Berlin I (1974) (Manuskript im Erich-Fromm Archiv, Tübingen)

Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason Out of the the Sources of Judaism, New York 1995

Hermann Cohen, Reason and Hope, Eva Jospe (trans.), New York 1971

Karl Abraham, “The Day of Atonement: Some Observations on Reik’s Problems of the Psychology of Religion” [1920], in: (trans. H. Abraham and D. Ellison), Clinical Papers and Essays on Psychoanalysis, New York 1979, pp. 137-147

Martin Buber, I and Thou, w. Kaufmann (trans.), New York 1970

Martin Buber, On Judaism, New York 1973

Michael Meyer, “Caesar Seligmann and the Development of Liberal Judaism in Germany at the Beginning of Twentieth Century”, Hebrew Union College Annual 40, 41 (1969-1970), pp. 529-554

Nahum Glatzer, “The Frankfurt Lehrhaus”, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 1 (1956), pp. 105-122

Nahum Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, His Life and Thought, New York 1961

Nehemiah Nobel, “Sermons and Texts: Kol Nidre, The Guidelines, The Sabbath”, in: Rachel Heuberger, Rabbi Nehemiah Anton Nobel: The Jewish Renaissance in Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt 2007, pp. 103-125

Paul Mendes-Flohr, “The ‘Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus’ of Frankfurt,” in: Karl Grözinger (ed.), Jüdische Kultur in Frankfurt am Main von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, Wiesbaden 1997, pp. 217-229.

Paul Mendes-Flohr, German Jews A Dual Identity, New Haven and London 1999

Rivka Horwitz, “Holiness in modern Jewish thought”, in: M. Idel at el. (eds.) Tribute to Sara: Studies in Jewish Philosophy and Kabbala, Jerusalem 1994, pp. 135-154 [Heb.]

Salman Baruch Rabinkow, “Individuum und Gemeinschaft im Judentum”, in: Die Biologie der Person. Ein Handbuch der allgemeinen und speziellen Konstitutionslehre, hg. von Th. Brugsch und F.H. Lewy, Berlin und Wien 1929, pp. 799-824

Seminar requirements: weekly reading assignments, one in-class presentation and submission of its manuscript (printed), active participation in class discussion.