A Life in Letters, 1914-1982 »

The noted scholar Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) was a close friend of Walter Benjamin and was Professor of Jewish Mysticism at Hebrew University.

Anthony David Skinner is the author of The Patron: A Life of Salman Schocken.

Perhaps the greatest scholar of Jewish mysticism in the twentieth century, Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) once said of himself, "I have no biography, only a bibliography." Yet, in thousands of letters written over his lifetime, his biography does unfold, inscribing a life that epitomized the intellectual ferment and political drama of an era. This selection of the best and most representative letters—drawn from the 3000 page German edition—gives readers an intimate view of this remarkable man, from his troubled family life in Germany to his emergence as one of the leading lights of Israel during its founding and formative years.

In the letters, we witness the travails and vicissitudes of the Scholem family, a drama in which Gershom is banished by his father for his anti-kaiser Zionist sentiments; his antiwar, socialist brother is hounded and murdered; and his mother and remaining brothers are forced to emigrate. We see Scholem's friendships with some of the most intriguing intellectuals of the twentieth century—such as Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno—blossom and, on occasion, wither. And we learn firsthand about his Zionist commitment and his scholarly career, from his move to Palestine in the 1920s to his work as Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University. Over the course of seven decades that comprised the most significant events of the twentieth century, these letters reveal how Scholem's scholarship is informed by the experiences he so eloquently described.

Publishers Weekly

David, a research fellow at Hebrew University in Israel, has ably translated and edited a wide-ranging selection of letters from the life of this master scholar of Jewish mysticism. Most of the letters (only a fraction of those extant) appear here in English for the first time. David's selection illuminates a question that has always haunted readers of Scholem (1897-1982): How did the personality of this overly dignified and self-confident academic relate to the unbridled otherworldliness in the texts he analyzed with such seeming detachment? Several answers hover between the lines of the letters, among them that kabbalah, like Scholem's other lifelong commitment, Zionism, was a Jewish focus uncorrupted by assimilationist self-delusions. The play of answers only further heightens the enjoyment of these letters, whose topics and moods vary so entertainingly. We watch Scholem: feign mental imbalance to escape military service in Germany, worry his mother with his imperious requests from Palestine for books and specialty foods, argue politics and Judaism with the likes of Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Cynthia Ozick. Though an early assessment of Scholem given by two of his correspondents, that he was "somewhat immodest" and of "irritable tempest," never lose their relevance, a sweet, sad indulgence suspends those traits whenever he speaks of or to that incarnation of (in Scholem's words) "sterling purity," Walter Benjamin. One may imagine this man of contradictions smiling down at a reader's presumption that there is a real Scholem to discover at all, and laugh over the posthumous perdurance of his self-confessed "ability to deceive the world." (Mar. 26) Forecast: This will be a backlist staple for serious readers of intellectual history and Jewish studies. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Introduction

I. A Jewish Zarathustra, 1914-1918

II. Unlocking the Gates, 1919-1932

III. Redemption through Sin, 1933-1947

IV. Master Magician Emeritus, 1948-1982

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Chronology

Index