Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) was the great historian of Kabbalah and one of the most prominent figure of 20th century Jewish Thought. Toward the end of his life he published two different versions of From Berlin to Jerusalem, the autobiography he composed while he was living in Jerusalem as a professor of Jewish Mysticism. The German version, appeared in 1977, slightly differs from the Hebrew one published 5 years later. Comparing the two versions one notes how Scholem, by changing language and thinking to a new audience, shifted his attention from the description of the Weimarian German-Jewish milieu to the world of Israeli pioneers, concentrating on the effort to create a new community in the land of Israel rather than describing a world (Europe) he had abandoned in 1923 and that could have been totally unknown to an entire new generations of Israeli people. I would like to argue that in its duplicity From Berlin to Jerusalem revealed Scholem’s two complementary souls. Although he left Europe and joined Zionism, and notwithstanding his late critique to the idea of German-Jewish dialogue as a form of «Selbstbetrug» (self-deception), Scholem never felt completely at ease in Palestine always conserving an «European» approach to his scholarship. More generally, I will take Scholem’s autobiography as a historical document as well as a wonderful literary example of German-Jewish double identity. I will then try to show how this was typical of an entire generation belonging to European intellectual and cultural history among which we could mention important figures such as Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno or Leo Strauss.

Writing from Jerusalem - Writing to Berlin : the two souls of Gershom Scholem and German-Jewry / E. Lucca. ((Intervento presentato al 2. convegno IABA Europe : Trajectories of (Be)longing: Europe in Life Writing tenutosi a Tallinn nel 2011.

Writing from Jerusalem - Writing to Berlin : the two souls of Gershom Scholem and German-Jewry

E. Lucca
Primo
2011

Abstract

Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) was the great historian of Kabbalah and one of the most prominent figure of 20th century Jewish Thought. Toward the end of his life he published two different versions of From Berlin to Jerusalem, the autobiography he composed while he was living in Jerusalem as a professor of Jewish Mysticism. The German version, appeared in 1977, slightly differs from the Hebrew one published 5 years later. Comparing the two versions one notes how Scholem, by changing language and thinking to a new audience, shifted his attention from the description of the Weimarian German-Jewish milieu to the world of Israeli pioneers, concentrating on the effort to create a new community in the land of Israel rather than describing a world (Europe) he had abandoned in 1923 and that could have been totally unknown to an entire new generations of Israeli people. I would like to argue that in its duplicity From Berlin to Jerusalem revealed Scholem’s two complementary souls. Although he left Europe and joined Zionism, and notwithstanding his late critique to the idea of German-Jewish dialogue as a form of «Selbstbetrug» (self-deception), Scholem never felt completely at ease in Palestine always conserving an «European» approach to his scholarship. More generally, I will take Scholem’s autobiography as a historical document as well as a wonderful literary example of German-Jewish double identity. I will then try to show how this was typical of an entire generation belonging to European intellectual and cultural history among which we could mention important figures such as Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno or Leo Strauss.
20-mag-2011
Settore M-FIL/06 - Storia della Filosofia
University of Tallinn
International Auto/Biography Association (IABA)
Writing from Jerusalem - Writing to Berlin : the two souls of Gershom Scholem and German-Jewry / E. Lucca. ((Intervento presentato al 2. convegno IABA Europe : Trajectories of (Be)longing: Europe in Life Writing tenutosi a Tallinn nel 2011.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/170815
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