Redemption through Sin: Benjamin Stein's <em>Das Alphabet des Rabbi Löw</em> and the Heretical Dynamism of Contemporary German Jewish Literature and Identity

Abstract

This article examines Benjamin Stein's Das Alphabet des Rabbi Löw (2014; first published as Das Alphabet des Juda Liva in 1995) as an intervention in current debates about the emerging pluralism of German Jewish identity. It is argued that esoteric allusions to Jewish mysticism symbolically repair the ruptures in Jewish genealogies and that intertextual references to German (Jewish) literary traditions hint specifically at a revival of German Jewish identity. Above all, however, allusions to the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi suggest the heretical dynamism of this identity and position Juda Liva/Rabbi Löw at the centre of contemporary German Jewish literature.