Gershom Scholem

"By focusing on Scholem, Corbin, and Eliade, Steven Wasserstrom has brought to light many of the tacit assumptions that have informed the study of religious culture in our time. Particularly important is his attentiveness to the primary emphasis placed on the symbolic imagination in these three seminal thinkers and the impact that this orientation had on their assessment of history, politics, and ethics. Wasserstrom has produced a study that will have major implications for the way that historians of religion think about their own discipline."--Elliot R. Wolfson, New York University

About Gershom Scholem: [Scholem's] work on Jewish mysticism, messianism, and sectarianism, spanning now half a century, constitutes . . . one of the major achievements of the historical imagination in our time. I would contend that it is of vital interest not only to anyone concerned with the history of religion but to anyone struggling to understand the underlying problematics of the human predicament.--Robert Alter, Commentary He [Scholem] labors the wealth, even the scandal, of the past in order to multiply options of survival. No great textual scholar, no master of philology and historical criticism commands a technique at once more scrupulously attentive to its object and more instinct with the writer's voice. That voice reaches out and grabs the layman.--George Steiner, The New Yorker One of the most important scholars of our century, Gershom Scholem (1897- 1982) opened up a once esoteric world of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, to concerned students of religion. The Kabbalah is a rich tradition of repeated attempts to achieve and portray direct experiences of God: its twelfth- and thirteenth-century beginnings in southern France and Spain are probed in Origins of the Kabbalah, a work crucial in Scholem's oeuvre. The book is a contribution not only to the history of Jewish medieval mysticism but also to the study of medieval mysticism in general and will be of interest to historians and psychologists, as well as to students of the history of religion.

The German-Jewish Dialogue offers a unique selection of short stories, plays, poems, essays, letters, and diary entries that illustrates through literature the history of German-Jewish relations. From the eighteenth century, when civil rights for Jews were first proposed, through the 1990s and contemporary considerations of the Holocaust, this anthology sheds light on the interaction between Jews in Germany and Austria and their fellow Gentile Germans with works of high literary merit, each introduced with a short preface. Ritche Robertson's lucid introduction puts the selections in their historical context and his translations make available in English--in some cases for the first time--both Jewish writers on various aspects of Jewish experience and responses of Gentile writers to the Jews in their midst.

Praeger, in collaboration with the distinguished International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, Jerusalem, and in association with Israeli's Open University, has undertaken the publication of this multi-volume series. Binah brings together for the first time in English seminal articles in Jewish history, thought, and culture. This landmark series, edited by Joseph Dan and under the general supervision of Moshe Davis, will provide resource materials for students enrolled in courses in Jewish studies, religion, history, literature, sociology, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. Binah includes topics from the Biblical period through the 20th century. Each volume of articles is approximately 300 pages in length. An introduction explains the criteria for selecting the articles and indicates their contribution to Jewish history, thought, and culture. The articles, not previously translated, are adapted from their original Hebrew sources in order to make them more accessible to the undergraduate reader, but the editors have made every effort to remain faithful to the intent of the original authors. Each article is preceded by a statement that indicates the original source, a brief biographical sketch of the author placing the article within the framework of his life-work, and the name of the translator/adaptor. The series is bound in both a hardcover library version and in a loose-leaf format, allowing the instructor maximum flexibility in utilizing the materials. By special agreement, purchasers acquire the right to make copies of the articles for student use. Thus, instructors can virtually build a package of readings for their students.

Was there a German-Jewish dialogue? This seemingly innocent question was silenced by the Holocaust. Since then, it is out of the question to take comfortable refuge to a distant past when Mendelssohn and Lessing started this dialogue. Adorno/Horkheimer, Arendt, and above all Scholem have repeatedly pointed out, how the noble promises of the Enlightenment were perverted, which led to a complete failure of Jewish emancipation in Germany. It is against this backdrop of warning posts that we dare to return to an important chapter of Jewish culture in Germany. This project should not be seen, however, as an attempt to idealize the past or to harmonize the present, but as a plea for a new dialogue between Germans and Jews about their common past.