Constantin Brunners Auffassung des Jüdischen

Abstract

Abstract »Jewishness« and »Jewish identity«, two of the most controversial concepts inside and outside the Jewish community, are center stage in Constantin Brunner’s thinking. Although he regarded religion as »superstition«, he himself was deeply rooted in religious traditions and the issue of Jewishness plays an important part in all of his works. Brunner is concerned with all questions traditionally related to Jewishness: the question of race and ethnicity, of religion and the question of Jewishness as historical heritage. In contrast to some of his prominent contemporaries, Martin Buber for instance, Brunner does not link »Jewishness« to race or ethnic heritage, but to cultural tradition. In the »spirit of Judaism« he finds the roots of his own mystical and spiritual thinking. On the political and social level, Brunner rejects the concept of a Jewish nation. A fervent advocate of assimilation, he saw himself not as a »Jewish« but as a »German« citizen of Jewish descent.