Abstract
The article focuses on the relation between Gershom Scholem and Franz Rosenzweig, providing the historical and philosophical context of their debate. Although from a similar background, the two thinkers developed radically different views concerning Zionism, German Judaism and the future of the Hebrew language. The author sees the letter Scholem sent to Rosenzweig in December 1926 as emblematic of Scholem’s complex standpoint toward Zionism and secularization in Judaism. Scholem’s early Zionism was animated by a variety of influences, in which messianic and revolutionary impulses can be detected. Once settled in Palestine, due to the crude reality of the political situation, Scholem’s existential disenchantment took the form of a confession in which, by using an apocalyptical tone and focusing on the risks involved in the revival of Hebrew, the scholar predicted the terrible consequences of a Jewish secularization unable to maintain the link with tradition and the religious past.
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