Jewish Thinkers Series
By Shlomo Avineri, David Aberbach, David Sorkin and
3.5/5
()
About this series
Titles in the series (7)
- Bialik
1
During his lifetime, Chaim Nachman Bialik was hailed and the poet larueate of Jewish nationalism and was regarded as one of the major Jewish cultural influences of his age. He was seen as the poet of hope and revival in an age which witnessed the Russian Pale of Settlement, pogroms, the Russian Revoltuion, the rise of Zionim and of Hebrew as a living language. David Aberbach explores the historical, social and literary background to Bialik's rise a a Romantic-nationalist poet, his ambivalence to this national role, his obsession with intensely private themes and the interplay between the public figure and the confessional lyric poet. Aberbach shows how Bialik's poetry reveals a profoundly tortured inner life and how strongly he felt the inseparble links between his art and his life.
- Ahad Ha'am Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha'am and the origins of Zionism
1
An incisive biography of the guiding intellectual presence - and chief internal critic - of Zionism, during the movement's formative years between the 1880s and the 1920s. Ahad Ha'am ('One of the People') was the pen name of Asher Ginzberg (1856-1927), a Russian Jew whose life intersected nearly every important trend and current in contemporary Jewry. His influence extended to figures as varied as the scholar of mysticism Gershom Scholem, the Hebrew poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik, and the historian Simon Dubnow. Theodor Herzl may have been the political leader of the Zionist movement, but Ahad Ha'am exerted a rare, perhaps unequalled, authority within Jewish culture through his writings. Ahad Ha'am was a Hebrew essayist of extraordinary knowledge and skill, a public intellectual who spoke with refreshing (and also, according to many, exasperating) candour on every controversial issue of the day. He was the first Zionist to call attention to the issue of Palestinian Arabs. He was a critic of the use of aggression as a tool in advancing Jewish nationalism and a foe of clericalism in Jewish public life. His analysis of the prehistory of Israeli political culture was incisive and prescient. Steven J. Zipperstein offers all those interested in contemporary Jewry, in Zionism, and in the ambiguities of modern nationalism a wide-ranging, perceptive reassessment of Ahad Ha'am's life against the back-drop of his contentious political world. This influential figure comes to life in a penetrating and engaging examination of his relations with his father, with Herzl, and with his devotees and opponents alike. Zipperstein explores the tensions of a man continually torn between sublimation and self-revelation, between detachment and deep commitment to his people, between irony and lyricism, between the inspiration of his study and the excitement of the streets. As a Zionist intellectual, Ahad Ha'am rejected both xenophobia and assimilation, seeking for the Jews a usable past and a plausible future.
- Buber
2
On 13 July 1965 more than 2,000 people crammed into the memorial service for Martin Buber.Yet, during his lifetime, some had said his work was esoteric, impossible for most people to understand, and he was branded a dubious interpreter of Jewish values. Who was he then, this gifted man whose studies ranged from philosophy to education, to psychology, to politics, to biblical studies and further? He denied that he was a philosopher or theologian. He refused to accept the feasibility of union with God – the declared aim of the mystic. His role was that of a guide rather than an instructor. 'I demonstrate reality,' he insisted. 'I have no doctrine. I conduct a conversation.' He found it intolerable that religion should be a thing apart, a sacred speciality, and called for the recognition of divine Presence in everyday life. From the Bible and from Hasidism, Buber, an existential interpreter, drew and reformulated truths which Jews and non-Jews alike recognize as necessary to the development and wholeness of the individual. That he was a Zionist there is no doubt though he belonged to a minority which sought a compromise with the Palestinian Arabs. He abhorred bloodshed and sought a peaceful co-existence between the two peoples.
- Herzl
6
Theodor Herzl (1860—1904) was the Paris correspondent of the Austrian Neue Freie Presse when he took a momentous decision in June 1895: he would bring about the creation of a state for the Jews. In his attempt to realise this dream, he became the greatest figure of modern Jewish history and is today seen as the father of the State of Israel. The catalyst for Herzl's 'conversion' is usually seen as the Dreyfus affair, which made him realise the impossibility of Jewish existence in Europe. The truth is more complicated and perhaps more dramatic, involving Herzl's background in the context of central Europe's Jewish bourgeoisie, the explosion of anti-Semitism in fin de siècle Paris and Vienna, and not least Herzl's own personal frustrations and dreams. Once decided, his 'state of the Jews' was to be not only the solution to the physical threat to the Jews, but it would also liberate them from their ghetto existence, and provide them with the 'inner freedom' which, from personal experience, Herzl thought they lacked. Herzl's state was to be a model, liberal society, at the forefront of human progress, integrated and at peace with the world community. A century later, this may look naïve - yet, in his vision, Herzl very much speaks to the present age.
- Arlosoroff
4
Chaim Arlosoroff (1899-1933), socialist Zionist leader and theorist, was born in Russia and educated in Germany. He was one of the leaders of the Labour Zionist Party, Mapai and, following his emigration to Palestine in the 1920s, he became the head of the political department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine – the 'Foreign Minister' of the Jewish state-in-the-making.His reputation grew rapidly and his many articles and speeches were soon treated as blueprints for the socialist ideals of a Jewish state. He was bitterly opposed to the Revisionist principles of Jabotinsky and his movement. At the age of thirty-four, Arlosoroff was assassinated while walking with his wife along the beach in Tel Aviv. His murder marked a turning point in modern Zionist history, polarizing attitudes between left and right-wing Zionists in Palestine and the Diaspora, and creating an ideological rift parallel only to the impact of the Dreyfus Affair on French Politics. After his death, Arlosoroff became a symbol of the socialist Zionist movement. He was an intellectual of the first order and an original social thinker. He had a number of books to his name in such fields as socialist and anarchist thought, economic history, Jewish social studies, financial theory and social analysis. His writings and ideas set the scene for the final struggle towards and independent Jewish state in Palestine and time has proved him to be extraordinarily prophetic.
- Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment
8
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was the premier Jewish thinker of his day and one of the best-known figures of the German Enlightenment, earning the sobriquet 'the Socrates of Berlin'. He was thoroughly involved in the central issue of Enlightenment religious thinking: the inevitable conflict between reason and revelation in an age contending with individual rights and religious toleration. He did not aspire to a comprehensive philosophy of Judaism, since he thought human reason was limited, but he did see Judaism as compatible with toleration and rights. David Sorkin offers a close study of Mendelssohn's complete writings, treating the German, and the often-neglected Hebrew writings, as a single corpus and arguing that Mendelssohn's two spheres of endeavour were entirely consistent.
Shlomo Avineri
Shlomo Avineri is Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. During 1975-77, he was Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His other works include Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge, 1972), The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge, 1968) and the Making of Modern Zionism (Philadelphia,1981). His most recent book is Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution (Yale, 2019).
Related to Jewish Thinkers
Related ebooks
Legend of Isis #10: Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Caboodle of Cat Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRuth & Freddy #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlobo Arte July 2022 Issue Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrimordia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTom Corbett: Space Cadet: Classic Edition #8 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLogan's Run: Aftermath Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOdyssey Presents: Anthology #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStrangers' Voices In My Head: A Journey Through What Made Me Who I Am from My Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhitetail Deer Facts and Strategies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOdyssey Presents: Anthology #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArt of Mouse Guard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrit Book I: The Voices You Form Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hunted and the Haunted Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVincent Price Presents #25 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExtreme Rhyming Poetry: Over 400 Inspirational Poems of Wit, Wisdom, and Humor (Five Books in One) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJourney through Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFAME: Psy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsyellow promises Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGood Jokes Bad Drawings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIs God In Your Yard? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe YaYa Books: A Trilogy, A Tribute In English and Spanish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings10th use: Giant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRock and Roll Comics: Elvis Presley Experience Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Styx & Stone #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelightful Questions for Children Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWords of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom the Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrbit: Mikhail Prokhorov Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRock and Roll Comics: Joan Jett Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Thorns and Roses: A Novel by Sarah J. Maas | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between the World and Me: by Ta-Nehisi Coates | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speed Reading: How to Read a Book a Day - Simple Tricks to Explode Your Reading Speed and Comprehension Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Jewish Thinkers
4 ratings0 reviews