Abstract
In 1941 Schoken Books published Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism by Gershom Scholem, which included the lectures he delivered throughout 1938 during his stay at the Jewish Institute in New York. These lectures unveiled some of the most relevant aspects of the evolution of Jewish mysticism. We know, through their correspondence, that Arendt was impressed by this book even though she wrote sparsely about the subject. In this article, we dig into the motives behind these interests and follow the leads to try to draw a wider picture of the problem of assimilation and the history of the Jews in Europe. To accomplish this, we will explain Scholem’s main theses about the evolution of Jewish mysticism and discuss some of the ideas Arendt extracts from them. We will focus specifically on the opportunity, in Arendt’s view, that the Sabbatai Zevi movement represents for rethinking Jewish history and its place in European culture.
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