Against the Grain : : Jewish Intellectuals in Hard Times / / ed. by Ezra Mendelsohn, Richard I. Cohen, Stefani Hoffman.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2000-2013
• MitwirkendeR: Armon, Adi,; Barash, Jeffrey Andrew,; Biale, David,; Birnbaum, Pierre,; Browning, Christopher R.,; Gordon, Adi,; Harif, Hanan,; Jagendorf, Zvi,; Jay, Martin,; Liska, Vivian,; Maor, Zohar,; Marrus, Michael R.,; Mendelsohn, Ezra,; Miron, Guy,; Muller, Jerry Z.,; Rabinbach, Anson,; Volkov, Shulamit,
• HerausgeberIn: Cohen, Richard I.,; Hoffman, Stefani,; Mendelsohn, Ezra,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2013]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (320 p.)

Highlighting the seminal role of German Jewish intellectuals and ideologues in forming and transforming the modern Jewish world, this volume analyzes the political roads taken by German Jewish thinkers; the impact of the Holocaust on the Central and East European Jewish intelligentsia; and the conundrum of modern Jewish identity. Several of German Jewry’s most outstanding figures such as Scholem, Strauss, and Kohn are discussed. Inspired by Steven E. Aschheim’s work, several contributors focus on the fraught relationship between German and East European Jews (the so-called Ostjuden) and between German Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors. More generally, this book examines how Central European Jewish thinkers reacted to the terrible crises of the twentieth century—to war, genocide, and the existential threat to the very existence of the Jewish people. It is essential reading for those interested in the triumphs and tragedies of modern European Jewry.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Editors’ Note -- Introduction: Reading Steven Aschheim -- Part I Strauss, Scholem, Arendt, Benjamin -- Chapter 1 A Zionist Critique of Jewish Politics: The Early Thought of Leo Strauss -- Chapter 2 Leo Strauss Reading Karl Marx during the Cold War -- Chapter 3 Gershom Scholem, Einst und Jetzt: Zionist Politics and Kabbalistic Historiography -- Chapter 4 Death or Birth: Scholem and Secularization -- Chapter 5 Fragments from a Correspondence (Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem) A Poem -- Part II Politica Positioning in Hard Times -- Chapter 6 In Heidegger’s Shadow: Ernst Cassirer, Emmanuel Levinas, and the Question of the Political -- Chapter 7 Walther Rathenau’s Dilemma: Modernity and the Human Soul -- Chapter 8 “Nothing But a Disillusioned Love”? Hans Kohn’s Break with the Zionist Movement -- Chapter 9 Historicism and the Event -- Part III Brothers and Strangers: The Issue of Identity -- Chapter 10 Asiatic Brothers, European Strangers: Eugen Hoeflich and Pan-Asian Zionism in Vienna -- Chapter 11 “Brothers and Strangers” The American Example -- Chapter 12 “Man Kann Verjuden” Paradoxes of Exemplarity -- Part IV In the Shadow of the Holocaust -- Chapter 13 A “Usable Past” and the Crisis of European Jews: Popular Jewish Historiography in Germany, France, and Hungary in the 1930s -- Chapter 14 Three Jewish Émigrés at Nuremberg: Jacob Robinson, Hersch Lauterpacht, and Raphael Lemkin -- Chapter 15 The Frankfurt School and the “Jewish Question,” 1940–1970 -- Chapter 16 Holocaust History and Survivor Testimony: Challenges, Limitations, and Opportunities -- Contributors -- Selected Bibliography -- Index