Language:
English
Year of publication:
2024
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Studies Quarterly
Angaben zur Quelle:
31,2 (2024) 187-211
Keywords:
Lévinas, Emmanuel Criticism and interpretation
;
Scholem, Gershom, Criticism and interpretation
;
Jewish philosophy 20th century
;
Messiah Judaism
;
Israel History
;
Philosophy
Abstract:
This study aims to reveal a forgotten polemic between the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) and the historian of Kabbalah Gershom Scholem (1897-1982). While this years-long polemic culminated in the 1960s in a well-developed criticism by Levinas of Scholem's study of Jewish messianism, it began with a newly discovered encounter that took place years earlier. That tense encounter gives us an opportunity to rethink the connection between Levinas and Scholem and to reconstruct the polemic between them. This study traces the development of their polemic backward from the early 1960s, through the 1950s, to its post- Holocaust roots in France and in Israel-Palestine. On the surface the polemic circles around some issues of methodological disagreement. But in reality, it reveals some essential differences not only between these two Jewish intellectuals, but between two major trends in Jewish thought in the 20th century.
DOI:
10.1628/jsq-2024-0010
URL:
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