Paul Mendes-Flohr

A brilliant and engaging biography of one of the great modern Jewish thinkers. Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) was one of the central figures of the Jewish cultural and intellectual renaissance in Weimar Germany. His masterwork, The Star of Redemption (1921), is a classic of existential thought and Jewish philosophy, and his considerable legacy also includes his collaboration with Martin Buber on a key translation of the Hebrew Bible into German and the establishment of an education center in Frankfurt that brought together the most important young German-Jewish intellectuals of its time. Rosenzweig’s personal biography is no less fascinating than his ideas and accomplishments. Drawing on unprecedented access to Rosenzweig’s unpublished personal correspondence, Paul Mendes-Flohr skillfully weaves together the threads of Rosenzweig’s life to give us a moving portrait of this towering figure—from his near-conversion to Christianity to his tragic diagnosis with ALS. Mendes-Flohr also closely explores Rosenzweig’s relationship with Margrit Huessy, who was a vital intellectual partner for Rosenzweig, as well as a muse and lover. He worked out many of his ideas about love both in conversation and consort with her, and Mendes-Flohr shows the importance of intimacy—both romantic and platonic—in the development of Rosenzweig’s thought. Love Is Strong as Death provides a unique and insightful look at one of the most important modern Jewish thinkers.

A new edition of Martin Buber’s many writings on Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine, with updated forewords by two preeminent Palestinian and Jewish scholars. The theologian and philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965) was committed to radical socioeconomic reconstruction in pursuit of international peace. His voluminous writings on Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine interweave his religious and philosophical teachings with his politics, each essential to Buber’s vision of democratic and religious life.A Land of Two Peoples collects the letters, talks, and essays in which Buber advocated for a binationalism that reconciled Arabs and Jews as a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. As relevant today as when it was first published nearly fifty years ago, this edition of A Land of Two Peoples includes two forewords from the preeminent Jewish and Palestinian scholars Paul Mendes-Flohr and Raef Zreik.

The identity of contemporary Jews is multifaceted, no longer necessarily defined by an observance of the Torah and God’s commandments. Indeed, the Jews of modernity are no longer exclusively Jewish. They are affiliated with a host of complementary and sometimes clashing communities—vocational, professional, political, and cultural—whose interests may not coincide with that of the community of their birth and inherited culture. In Cultural Disjunctions, Paul Mendes-Flohr explores the possibility of a spiritually and intellectually engaged cosmopolitan Jewish identity for our time. Reflecting on the need to participate in the spiritual life of Judaism so that it enables multiple relations beyond its borders and allows one to balance Jewish commitment with a genuine obligation to the universal, Mendes-Flohr lays out what this delicate balance can look like for contemporary Jews, both in Israel and in diasporic communities worldwide. Cultural Disjunctions walks us through the labyrinth of twentieth-century Jewish cultural identities and commitments. Ultimately, Mendes-Flohr calls for Jews to remain “discontent,” not just with themselves but also and especially with the reigning social and political order, and to fight for its betterment.

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, the first major biography in English in over thirty years of the seminal modern Jewish thinker Martin Buber"A scrupulously researched, perceptive biography."—Robert Alter, New York Times Book Review An authority on the twentieth-century philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965), Paul Mendes-Flohr offers the first major biography in English in thirty years of this seminal modern Jewish thinker. The book is organized around several key moments, such as his sudden abandonment by his mother when he was a child of three, a foundational trauma that, Mendes-Flohr shows, left an enduring mark on Buber’s inner life, attuning him to the fragility of human relations and the need to nurture them with what he would call a “dialogical attentiveness.” Buber’s philosophical and theological writings, most famously I and Thou, made significant contributions to religious and Jewish thought, philosophical anthropology, biblical studies, political theory, and Zionism. In this accessible new biography, Mendes-Flohr situates Buber’s life and legacy in the intellectual and cultural life of German Jewry as well as in the broader European intellectual life of the first half of the twentieth century.About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." –New York Times "Exemplary." –Wall Street Journal "Distinguished." –New Yorker "Superb." –The Guardian

Though well known to many scholars and critics in the field of Judaic studies, Hayim Greenberg remains unknown to many. Since his death in 1953, Greenberg’s contributions to modern Jewish thought have largely fallen from view. In The Essential Hayim Greenberg: Essays and Addresses on Jewish Culture, Socialism, and Zionism, the first collection of Greenberg’s writings since 1968, Mark A. Raider reestablishes Greenberg as a prominent Jewish thinker and Zionist activist who challenged the prevailing orthodoxies of American Jewry and the Zionist movement. This collection of thoroughly annotated essays, spanning the 1920s to the early 1950s, includes Greenberg’s meditations on socialism and ethics, profiles of polarizing twentieth-century figures (among them Trotsky, Lenin, and Gandhi), and several essays investigating the compatibility of socialism and Communism. Greenberg always circles back, however, to the recurring question of how Jews might situate themselves in modernity, both before and after the Holocaust, and how Labor Zionist ideology might reshape the imbalances of Jewish economic life. Alongside his role as an American Zionist leader, Greenberg maintained a lifelong commitment to the vitality of the Jewish diaspora. Rather than promoting Jewish autonomy and statehood, he argued for fidelity to the Jewish spirit. This collection not only means to restore Greenberg to his previous stature in the field of Judaic Studies but also to return a vital and authentic voice, long quieted, to the continuing debate over what it means to be Jewish.The Essential Hayim Greenberg provides an accessible text for scholars, historians, and students of Jewish Studies, religion, and theology.

This short and remarkable book presents the essential teachings of Hasidism, the mystical Jewish movement which swept through Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their relevance to our lives. Told through legendary tales of the Hasidic masters, together with Buber s own unique insights, The Way of Man offers us a way of understanding ourselves and our place in a spiritual world."

This short and remarkable book presents the essential teachings of Hasidism, the mystical Jewish movement which swept through Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their relevance to our lives. Told through legendary tales of the Hasidic masters, together with Buber's own unique insights, The Way of Man offers us a way of understanding ourselves and our place in a spiritual world.

Before they were both internationally renowned philosophers, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig were young German soldiers fighting in World War I, corresponding by letter and forming the foundation of their deep intellectual friendship. Collected here, this correspondence provides an intimate portrait of their views on history, philosophy, rhetoric, and religion as well as on their writings and professors. Most centrally, Rosenstock-Huessy and Rosenzweig discuss, frankly but respectfully, the differences between Judaism and Christianity and the reasons they have chosen their respective faiths. This edition includes a new foreword by Paul Mendes-Flohr, a new preface by Harold Stahmer along with his original introduction, and essays by Dorothy Emmet and Alexander Altmann, who calls this correspondence "one of the most important religious documents of our age" and "the most perfect example of a human approach to the Jewish-Christian problem."

The last two centuries have witnessed a radical transformation of Jewish life. Marked by such profound events as the emancipation from the ghettoes of Europe, the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, Judaism's long journey through the modern age has been a complex and tumultuous one, leading many Jews to ask themselves not only where they have been and where they are going, but what it means to be a Jew in today's world. Tracing the dramatic changes in Jewish religion, culture, and identity from the seventeenth century to 1948, The Jew in the Modern World, Third Edition, remains the most complete sourcebook on modern Jewish history available. Now thoroughly expanded and updated, this critically acclaimed volume of primary materials features previously unpublished and inaccessible sources concerning the Jewish experience in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa; women in Jewish history; American Jewish life; the Holocaust; and Zionism and the nascent Jewish community in Palestine on the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel. The documents are arranged chronologically in each chapter and are meticulously and extensively annotated and cross-referenced. Providing useful tables detailing Jewish demographic trends, this unique text is ideal for courses in modern Jewish history, Zionism and Israel, the Holocaust, or modern European history.

In this probing and original lecture, Paul Mendes-Flohr examines classical and modern Jewish commentaries on the biblical commandment, ""Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord"" (Leviticus 19:18). The lecture concludes by addressing a question that vexed commentators throughout the generations: Can love be commanded?

This volume seeks to honour the memory and legacy of Martin Buber, one of the most illustrious members of the faculty of the Hebrew University and of the world of philosophy. The book is based on the proceedings of a conference held at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, of which Buber was a founding president, in recognition of the man's contribution to the renaissance of Jewish studies.