Steven E. Aschheim
Revolution, the Jews, and Hitler’s Munich
How did a Jewish Socialist become the revolutionary leader of the People’s State of Bavaria? And did his brief career provoke the rise of Hitler?
Fatal Attraction
Although Martin Heidegger joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and never forthrightly repented of the episode “no other philosopher had more impact on twentieth-century European Jewish thought.”
Moses and Hellenism
In a provocative new work recently published in German, Bernd Witte proposes nothing less than an “alternative history of German culture,” as the subtitle of his finely wrought work of scholarship tells us. Moses and Homer: Greeks, Jews, Germans is a historical and cultural argument animated by powerful indignation. This history, he insists, has yet to be fully confronted.
The Secret Metaphysician
While a new crop of biographies about Gershom Scholem all, in one way or another, seek to account for the great man's fascination, they are themselves evidence of Scholem’s ongoing allure.
Of Memory, History—and Eggplants
Tension between the quotidian on the one hand and an abiding reserve and unease on the other—is palpable throughout Saul Friedländer’s new memoir.
Islamic Jihad, Zionism, and Espionage in the Great War
A century ago, the Holy Land seems to have been full of European adventurers, archaeologists, would-be diplomats, and spies—sometimes all combined in the same person. Take, for instance, Max von Oppenheim . . .
History, Memory, and the Fallen Jew
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi predicted a day when the historian would give his task over to the poet. A retrospective look at his writings show his own struggle between the claims of academic history and Jewish memory.
New Thinkers, Old Stereotypes
Moshe Idel is heavy on melancholy, not to mention surprising claims about the scholars of Western Europe.
Between New York and Jerusalem
For twenty-five years, Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt, two of the most gifted, influential, and opinionated Jewish intellectuals of the 20th century, maintained a remarkable correspondence. Recently published, these illuminating letters provide a rare glimpse into a relationship that has too often been described as adverserial.