NaharaimPub Date : 2021-11-15DOI: 10.1515/naha-2021-0014
Yuval Kremnitzer
{"title":"“To Love the Rest of His Thoughts as Myself” – Translating Mendelssohn’s Singular Bildung","authors":"Yuval Kremnitzer","doi":"10.1515/naha-2021-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2021-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The conceptual history of Bildung, the German term for self-formation, encapsulates the ethical revolution of modern German thought, associated with the Kantian moment and its aftermath. Reshaped in modernity to respond to a post-Kantian, critical sensibility, the modern term emphasizes the reflexive, active process of self-formation, in contrast with the medieval theological sensibility which emphasized the receptive imprint of the image of God. In this article, I unpack Moses Mendelsohn’s idiosyncratic notion of Bildung. I show that what is unique, indeed, singular in Mendelssohn’s notion of Bildung is the way it merges the traditional, theological notion with the modern one. For Mendelssohn, to imitate God is to come to value one’s contingent being. The imitation of the ideal, the most perfect, is tantamount to embracing the perfectible, and the process of perfection or self-actualization. Jacobi, Mendelssohn, Bildung, Contingency, Pantheism affair, Moral Perfectionism","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"15 1","pages":"201 - 220"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47666948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-09-17DOI: 10.1515/naha-2020-0001
Eugenio Muinelo Paz
{"title":"Marx and Rosenzweig on Community and Redemption","authors":"Eugenio Muinelo Paz","doi":"10.1515/naha-2020-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2020-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The first and second parts of the paper will deal with the problem of assimilation and the genesis of a kind of cultural hibridity in the context of the German Jewry in the Modern Age. I will try to understand the figures of Karl Marx and Franz Rosenzweig as complementary visions of Jewish identity, the latter from within, and the former from without it. The third and the fourth parts will tackle the question of how that identity may be fully realized in a socio-institutional sense, not necessarily restricted to a narrow political conception of the State. My conclusion will be that both Marx and Rosenzweig affirmed human freedom as an essentialy social phenomenon enacted through redemption, which must take always in account the problem of alterity.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"15 1","pages":"269 - 285"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45499134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-09-15DOI: 10.1515/naharaim-2020-0001
Eugenio Muinelo Paz
{"title":"Marx and Rosenzweig on Community and Redemption","authors":"Eugenio Muinelo Paz","doi":"10.1515/naharaim-2020-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naharaim-2020-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The first and second parts of the paper will deal with the problem of assimilation and the genesis of a kind of cultural hibridity in the context of the German Jewry in the Modern Age. I will try to understand the figures of Karl Marx and Franz Rosenzweig as complementary visions of Jewish identity, the latter from within, and the former from without it. The third and the fourth parts will tackle the question of how that identity may be fully realized in a socio-institutional sense, not necessarily restricted to a narrow political conception of the State. My conclusion will be that both Marx and Rosenzweig affirmed human freedom as an essentialy social phenomenon enacted through redemption, which must take always in account the problem of alterity.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48646993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-09-10DOI: 10.1515/naha-2020-0006
Y. Oren
{"title":"Dogmatism, Criticism, Divine Ideals: Rav A. I. Kook’s Concept of God in Light of H. Cohen","authors":"Y. Oren","doi":"10.1515/naha-2020-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2020-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines the claim that the two final articles of Rav Kook’s book Ikvei Hatzon were written as a response to a lecture given by Hermann Cohen. It first reviews Cohen’s lecture showing that, regarding the concept of God, Cohen argues for the compatibility of Judaism and Kantianism in denying the dogmatic-mythological preoccupation with the existence of God in favor of understanding God as the basis of morality. Second, it analyzes Kook’s articles, demonstrating that he accepts the compatibility of Judaism and Kantianism together with the denial of the dogmatic relation to God as a substance. Nevertheless, Kook is not satisfied with the critical view that denies the dogmatic relation to the substance altogether, since it formulates a merely negative relationship with God. Instead, he develops his concept of the Divine Ideals, which synthesizes the dogmatic preoccupation with substantiality and the critical denial of it. The Divine Ideals are the moral progression of man, through which man gradually becomes identical to God. Within the Divine Ideals, dogmatism becomes an emotional striving to be identical with God as a substance, while criticism is the intellectual negation of the possibility of such identity, which ensures that the process will continue indefinitely.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"15 1","pages":"153 - 177"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49589196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1515/naha-2020-0015
Mariusz Kałczewiak
{"title":"When the “Ostjuden” Returned: Linguistic Continuities in German-Language Writing about Eastern European Jews","authors":"Mariusz Kałczewiak","doi":"10.1515/naha-2020-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2020-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the dynamics that allowed the derogatory term “Ostjuden” to reappear in academic writing in post-Holocaust Germany. This article focuses on the period between 1980’s and 2000’s, complementing earlier studies that focused on the emergence of the term “Ostjuden” and on the complex representations of Eastern European Jews in Imperial and later Weimar Germany. It shows that, despite its well-evidenced discriminatory history, the term “Ostjuden” re-appeared in the scholarly writing in German and has also found its way into German-speaking public history and journalism. This article calls for applying the adjectival term “osteuropäische Juden” (Eastern European Jews), using a term that neither essentializes Eastern European Jews nor presents them in an oversimplified and uniform manner.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"15 1","pages":"287 - 309"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42624781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-09-08DOI: 10.1515/naharaim-2020-0015
Mariusz Kałczewiak
{"title":"When the “Ostjuden” Returned: Linguistic Continuities in German-Language Writing about Eastern European Jews","authors":"Mariusz Kałczewiak","doi":"10.1515/naharaim-2020-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naharaim-2020-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the dynamics that allowed the derogatory term “Ostjuden” to reappear in academic writing in post-Holocaust Germany. This article focuses on the period between 1980’s and 2000’s, complementing earlier studies that focused on the emergence of the term “Ostjuden” and on the complex representations of Eastern European Jews in Imperial and later Weimar Germany. It shows that, despite its well-evidenced discriminatory history, the term “Ostjuden” re-appeared in the scholarly writing in German and has also found its way into German-speaking public history and journalism. This article calls for applying the adjectival term “osteuropäische Juden” (Eastern European Jews), using a term that neither essentializes Eastern European Jews nor presents them in an oversimplified and uniform manner.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45130197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-09-08DOI: 10.1515/naharaim-2020-0006
Y. Oren
{"title":"Dogmatism, Criticism, Divine Ideals: Rav A. I. Kook’s Concept of God in Light of H. Cohen","authors":"Y. Oren","doi":"10.1515/naharaim-2020-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naharaim-2020-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines the claim that the two final articles of Rav Kook’s book Ikvei Hatzon were written as a response to a lecture given by Hermann Cohen. It first reviews Cohen’s lecture showing that, regarding the concept of God, Cohen argues for the compatibility of Judaism and Kantianism in denying the dogmatic-mythological preoccupation with the existence of God in favor of understanding God as the basis of morality. Second, it analyzes Kook’s articles, demonstrating that he accepts the compatibility of Judaism and Kantianism together with the denial of the dogmatic relation to God as a substance. Nevertheless, Kook is not satisfied with the critical view that denies the dogmatic relation to the substance altogether, since it formulates a merely negative relationship with God. Instead, he develops his concept of the Divine Ideals, which synthesizes the dogmatic preoccupation with substantiality and the critical denial of it. The Divine Ideals are the moral progression of man, through which man gradually becomes identical to God. Within the Divine Ideals, dogmatism becomes an emotional striving to be identical with God as a substance, while criticism is the intellectual negation of the possibility of such identity, which ensures that the process will continue indefinitely.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49498714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-08-26DOI: 10.1515/naha-2020-0008
I. Sauter
{"title":"„Ein modernes Verdeutschungs-Unternehmen“. Über die historische Semantik der Buber-Rosenzweig-Bibel","authors":"I. Sauter","doi":"10.1515/naha-2020-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2020-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article traces a debate on Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig’s Germanization of the Bible. The trigger of the debate was Siegfried Kracauer’s infamous critique entitled “Die Bibel auf Deutsch” (“The Bible in German”), published in April 1926 in the Frankfurter Zeitung. In his harsh review of the first volume of the translation, Kracauer regards the use of the German language by Buber and Rosenzweig as an archaization. Relying in part on unpublished letters, this paper presents and explores the different perceptions of the translation, which embody the depths these fault lines penetrated both in general public discourse and, more specifically, in German-Jewish circles. This article also points towards the change of the German language in the 19th century that is embedded in the historical semantics of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"15 1","pages":"243 - 267"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49012116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-06-04DOI: 10.1515/naharaim-2021-0002
Galili Shahar
{"title":"Narrentum and Being-Jewish: Kafka and Benjamin","authors":"Galili Shahar","doi":"10.1515/naharaim-2021-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naharaim-2021-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines the notion of Narrentum (foolishness) in Franz Kafka’s writings, reflecting Walter Benjamin’s engagement with the legacy of Kafka’s fools. The Narr, associated with playfulness, irony, and resistance, provides a comic perspective on the question of being-Jewish. Alongside its Germanic, mostly Baroque, heritage, the Narr incorporates traditional Jewish tropes, primarily rooted in Aggadic traditions. However, in Kafka’s world, the Narr embodies performative skills also linked to Yiddish theatre. In Benjamin’s readings, Kafka’s Narr is associated with the crisis of modern Judaism and with different modes of wisdom. The Narr signifies particular sorts of nihilistic freedom, which Benjamin refers to as redemptive.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"0 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/naharaim-2021-0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41923468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2021-0002
Galili Shahar
{"title":"Narrentum and Being-Jewish: Kafka and Benjamin","authors":"Galili Shahar","doi":"10.1515/naha-2021-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2021-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines the notion of Narrentum (foolishness) in Franz Kafka’s writings, reflecting Walter Benjamin’s engagement with the legacy of Kafka’s fools. The Narr, associated with playfulness, irony, and resistance, provides a comic perspective on the question of being-Jewish. Alongside its Germanic, mostly Baroque, heritage, the Narr incorporates traditional Jewish tropes, primarily rooted in Aggadic traditions. However, in Kafka’s world, the Narr embodies performative skills also linked to Yiddish theatre. In Benjamin’s readings, Kafka’s Narr is associated with the crisis of modern Judaism and with different modes of wisdom. The Narr signifies particular sorts of nihilistic freedom, which Benjamin refers to as redemptive.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"15 1","pages":"57 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/naha-2021-0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41344060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}