Moses Mendelssohn Research Articles

Mendelssohn on the Edge: Memory, Agency, and National Belonging in Weimar Germany

Abstract In times of great political unrest and disorientation, societies generally invent and reinvent myths. As unrest and disorientation were among the most striking characteristics of the Weimar era, it is not surprising that the bicentenary celebrations of Moses Mendelssohn’s birth, held in 1929, constituted the peak of the Enlightenment philosopher’s popularity as a German-Jewish patron saint. This article argues that the commemoration of Mendelssohn on the eve of catastrophe, four years before the Weimar Republic’s collapse, serves as a particularly precise indicator of ambivalent German-Jewish agency at the time, due to its political, social, and cultural implications. Whereas the bicentenary celebrations—featuring the Republic’s most prominent representatives, state-of-the-art exhibitions, cultural events in prestigious locations, and extensive media coverage—attest to the considerable leeway German Jewry had in shaping social reality, the continuing absence of Mendelssohn in the canon of German poets and thinkers illustrates the limits of German-Jewish agency in the cultural imaginary of the German nation.

German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism by Marc Volovici (review)

Reviewed by: German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism by Marc Volovici Michael Brenner Marc Volovici. German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 352 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000301 When I was a student at the Hebrew University in the 1980s, I often heard older professors ask half-jokingly: "So, what is the second most important language for Jewish studies?" The answer was Hebrew. The most important one, of course, was German—as most of the significant nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature of Wissenschaft des Judentums was written in German. Marc Volovici's important study could have been entitled "German as a Jewish Language"—but as he makes clear, after the 1930s, this language which once had been identified with so many Jewish endeavors had become a Jewish problem. The language of Goethe was now branded as the language of Goebbels. The language was identified with hashmadah rather than with haskalah. As time passed, the attempts to reclaim German as a Jewish language could be heard again. When Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke in German in the Knesset in 2008, right-wing Israeli politician Arieh Eldad objected by pointing to the fact that this was the language "in which my grandfather and grandmother were murdered." He was countered by former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, who claimed it was also "the language in which Herzl wrote." He concluded: "Languages are not guilty, only those speaking them." Volovici begins his thorough analysis of the love-and-hate affair between the Jews and the German language with the Enlightenment. It was the Maskilim's resistance to the Jargon (as they denounced Yiddish), and their followers' inability to read Hebrew well enough, which opened the door to the use of German as the new language of educated Jews. Moses Mendelssohn's Bible translation initially still had to be printed in Hebrew letters, as most German Jews were not able to read other characters. Not only the early Haskalah but also the Reform movement was initially largely a German-speaking project. German was used as the language of religious reform not only in Germany itself but also in nineteenth-century America, where many synagogue sermons were delivered in German and Jewish periodicals appeared in German. Soon, German was vilified by some Yiddish-speaking east European Jews as the language of assimilation. What an irony that it would also become the language identified with the new Jewish national movement, Zionism. Not only German Jews like Moses Hess wrote their early Zionist writings in German, but the most important Zionist pamphlet before Herzl's Judenstaat, Leon Pinsker's Selbstemanzipation, was written in German despite the Russian Jewish identity of its author. With the emergence of Herzl on the political stage, official Zionist leadership was firmly in the hand of German speakers. The new movement's journal appeared in German, and the lingua franca at the Zionist congresses was, if not pure German, then Kongressdeutsch. Instead of trying to define what Kongressdeutsch is, Volovici is absolutely right in telling his readers why he would rather not define it: "The fact that Kongressdeutsch could not be easily defined was one of its main sources of practicality, allowing participants of the congress to transcend some of the political sensitivities involved in making language choice" (199). One of the most fascinating chapters in the book deals with the gap between theoretical and practical usage of Hebrew by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig. While both translated the Hebrew Bible [End Page 476] into German, they struggled with spoken Hebrew. This was a greater dilemma for the Zionist Buber, who confessed to Gershom Scholem: "I believe I have a right to say that 'I know' Hebrew, but as soon as I want to express a thought, it crumbles in my mouth" (160). For the non-Zionist Rosenzweig, Hebrew remained a holy tongue. Both Buber and Rosenzweig continued to express themselves in German—and the Hebraized German of their Bible translation. It was a long way from Kongressdeutsch and Bibeldeutsch to the role of German in postwar Israel. The country that issued passports valid for all countries with the exception...

Exegesis and Politics Between East and West: Nachman Krochmal, Moses Mendelssohn, and Modern Jewish Thought

AbstractRecent scholarship on modern Jewish thought has sought to overcome the field’s Germanocentrism by recovering diverse visions of Jewish life across eastern and western Europe. While studies typically emphasize either striking differences or surprising affinities between these settings, I use the neglected eastern European philosopher Nachman Krochmal to highlight a strategy of creative appropriation and redirection—an eastern European strategy of breaking with German-Jewish philosophy precisely by deploying that tradition’s own resources. One of modern Jewish philosophy’s early episodes, I argue, is a politically charged engagement with biblical exegesis involving Krochmal and the German-Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn. Implicitly drawing on yet revising the treatment of biblical interpretation in Mendelssohn’s Hebrew writings, Krochmal seeks to retrieve what he sees as a vital element of Jewish politics: possessing neither a shared land nor military strength, he insists, Jews have long sustained their diasporic collective through hermeneutical endeavors such as rabbinic midrash, and they should continue to do so by launching a transnational project of historically sensitive exegesis. The resulting image of a transnational Jewish collective whose fate is separate from that of non-Jewish polities breaks with Mendelssohn’s political vision, pointing to an east-west dynamic of creative repurposing—an instance of an eastern European thinker drawing on a German-Jewish predecessor to develop a sharply contrasting philosophical vision.

Spinozism, Kabbalism, and Idealism from Johann Georg Wachter to Moses Mendelssohn

The paper studies the historical background for the ‘idealist’ reading of Spinoza usually traced back to British and German Idealism. Here, I follow this history further back than and focus on one earlier idealist reading, indeed perhaps the mother of them all. It can be found in the <em>Elucidarius cabalisticus, sive reconditae Hebraeorum philosophiae brevis et succincta recensio</em> by Johann Georg Wachter, a kabbalist interpretation of Spinoza published in 1706. I am principally interested in the importance that Wachter’s book may have had for German philosophy in the second half of the eighteenth century. Focusing on Moses Mendelssohn’s <em>Philosophische Gespräche</em> of 1755, I argue that, via Mendelssohn, the Elucidarius cabalisticus is perhaps the earliest possible source of the idealist reading of Spinoza that dominated the German <em>Spinozabild</em> from throughout the <em>Pantheismusstreit</em> up to the second edition of Herder’s 1800 <em>Gott: Einige Gespräche</em>, culminating with Hegel’s ‘acosmist’ reading of Spinoza in the 1825–26 lectures on the history of philosophy.

Judaism and Temporary Community: Moses Mendelssohn on imperfection and truth

Abstract Moses Mendelssohn’s work on imperfection might cause us to rethink the concepts of truth which follow from the Kantian tradition; he offers an alternative, if repressed, way of thinking about truth—one oriented by imperfection, rather than the structure of appearance. Understanding Mendelssohn as a philosopher of imperfection should affect how we read the word ‘truth’ in Modern Jewish philosophy: if imperfection is a fundamental ingredient of human life, then it is not something we must do away with, or annihilate, in order to find truth; it is not an obstacle. Rather—if we, like Mendelssohn, assume that we are incomplete and compromised—any relationship to truth must not seek to overcome imperfection and compromise, but proceed through them.

Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant

Although scholars such as Norbert Hinske and Daniel Dahlstrom have produced chapters and articles dealing with various points of confluence between Moses Mendelssohn and Kant, Paul Guyer’s Reason a...

1 Introduction: What Is Studying?

“Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own reason! is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.” With these words, Kant draws the opening paragraph of his famous text An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? to a close.1 The essay was an intervention in an ongoing debate about the precise meaning of enlightenment, at a moment when the notion began to pick up speed in intellectual discourses of the time. The debate was initially sparked by the theologian and educational reformer Johann Friedrich Zöllner who in the December 1783 edition of the Berlinische Monatschrift critically observed that “under the name of enlightenment the hearts and minds of men are bewildered,” while raising the very question “What is enlightenment?” in a footnote to the text.2 Within a year the journal had published the responses by Kant and Moses Mendelssohn and soon after many other writers started to contribute to the discussion. The author of an anonymous article published in 1790 remarked that the debate had turned into “a war of all against all” in which several intellectuals tried to lay claim on the precise meaning of enlightenment, and the author went on to distinguish twenty-one interpretations that the concept had already received.3 Even today, philosophers continue to reinterpret the notion of enlightenment, imbuing it with a new meaning every time.4

Commemoration and Jewish National Identity: Lviv in the Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century

Commemoration and Jewish National Identity:Lviv in the Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century Ela Bauer (bio) In January 1886, the Jewish world commemorated one hundred years since the death of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786). In Dessau, Mendelssohn's birth place, Berlin, New York, and other places, Jews and non-Jews gathered together to honor him.1 Not everyone in the Jewish world at that time believed that Mendelssohn and his legacy deserved commemoration.2 In the Jewish community of Lviv (Lemberg, Lwów), the administrative capital of the province of Galicia, Jews and non-Jews came together to honor Mendelssohn in the local progressive synagogue (temple).3 Those who attended this ceremony listened to a lecture delivered by Rabbi Bernard Levehstien (1821–1889), the temple's preacher, and to the singing of temple's choir. At the club of Shomer Yisra'el (Guardian of Israel), a lecture dedicated to Mendelssohn was delivered by the president, Dr. Emil Bik (1845–1906).4 While Agudat Akhim (Association of Brothers) did not organize a ceremony,5 its bilingual (Polish and Hebrew) periodical, Ojczyzna-HaMazkir, reported on several commemoration events in different parts of Galicia.6 At the club of Mikra Kodesh (Holy Assembly), this date got no attention. The official explanation for ignoring the event was the illness of the head of the association, Rabbi Josef Kobak (1835–1913). During the weeks that Kobak was ill, many of the association's planned activities were cancelled. After his recovery, there was no point in retroactively commemorating events, including the hundred-year anniversary of the death of Mendelssohn.7 Several members of the association did not accept this official explanation, including Mordecai Ehrenpreis (1869–1951), who argued that Mikra Kodesh did not commemorate the anniversary of Mendelssohn's passing because the founders of the association did not agree with his agenda and ideology.8 We know that the founders and members of Mikra Kodesh appreciated and admired the Hebrew writer Peretz Smolenskin (1842–1885), who, among other things, was known for his criticism of Mendelssohn.9 It might be that the admiration and appreciation that the founders and members of Mikra Kodesh felt for Smolenskin led to the decision not to commemorate Mendelssohn.10 After all, the events chosen to be commemorated by Mikra Kodesh were [End Page 1] related to specific dates and people that supported the ideological agenda of the association. These types of events mirrored the multifaceted components of their identity.11 This article examines the different events that the associations Mikra Kodesh and Zion choose to commemorate in Lviv in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the ways that various components of the personal and collective identities of the association's members were articulated in these events, and how these commemorations were affiliated with the formation of Jewish national collective memory. ________ The province of Galicia (officially, Galizien and Lodomerien) appeared on the map for the first time when it became crown land of the Habsburg Empire, after the first partition of Poland in 1772. Although the name of the province is linked to the medieval Ukrainian principality of Halych, from 1772 until 1918, i.e., the time in which the region was under Austrian authority, the territory of Galicia included additional lands that were not part of the medieval Ukrainian principality of Halych. The population of Austrian Galician was multiethnic, including Poles, Ruthenians (Ukrainians), and Jews. There were also small German and Armenian minorities that during the nineteenth century integrated into the Polish nationality. Poles and Ukrainians each accounted for over 40 percent of the population and Jews for over 10 percent. In Western Galicia, Poles were the majority. In Eastern Galicia, the Ruthenians comprised the largest part of the population. In 1867, the Jewish residents of Galicia became citizens of the empire.12 In the same year, as part of the Austrian Ausgleich (dual monarchy, with Hungary), the Polish minority in Galicia received the right of self-governance. Until World War I, Polish was the language of government and local bureaucracy, as well as the language of instruction, first in elementary- and middle-school systems and later at the universities in Kraków and Lviv. From 1867...

Poetica: Schriften zur Literatur, Übersetzungen und Gedichte by Gershom ScholemHerbert Kopp-Oberstebrink Hannah Markus Martin Tremel Sigrid Weigel

 Reviews spaces. e watershed election of Hugo Chávez in —which serves as Schiller’s point of departure—initiated the process known as the Bolivarian Revolution, creating new opportunities for grass-roots media. A suite of constitutional reforms provided the legal and infrastructural frameworks that allowed for the formalization of CatiaTVe. e community channel, like dozens across the nation, acquired permission to broadcast on the television network. In many respects, the Manicomio Film Club anticipated the Bolivarian tenor of local autonomy, although it received more governmental funding once CatiaTVe expanded its operations. Did this new proximity between state and people entail the co-optation of grass-roots labour? No, is Schiller’s unwavering answer, because the state is neither ‘a coherent thing to be seized’ (p. ) nor a ‘collection of institutions always already predisposed to enacting a particular kind of politics’ (p. ), but, instead, the ‘ever-unfolding result of daily power-laden interactions between poor and elite social actors’ (p. ). Participating in debates over agency, power, and representation in the Bolivarian Revolution, she argues that the creators of CatiaTVe ‘experienced, understood, and created the state through the process of making media’ (p. ). us Channeling the State rehearses its argument not by analysing content or ratings. Rather, Schiller claims, much along the lines of New Latin American Cinema, it is the creation of new world-views, and all the messiness that this entails, that engenders revolutionary praxis. e result is a fascinating behind-the-scenes account that draws on months of ethnographic fieldwork. We are offered intimate access to workshops, production sets, editorial meetings, press conferences, and on-location shootings. e author is sympathetic to the core values of CatiaTVe and, by extension, to the egalitarian drive that for some underpinned the Bolivarian Revolution. It is much to her credit, then, that her analysis foregrounds tensions within the collective and carefully examines contradictions in their strategies. e book’s framing of CatiaTVe as a legacy of New Latin American Cinema makes it an essential reference for researchers of film and participatory film-making. e mediascape in Venezuela has seen a dramatic decline in diversity since the research was conducted. As such, Channeling the State also constitutes an important, if lamentable, historical artefact. U  L R J Poetica: Schrien zur Literatur, Übersetzungen und Gedichte. By G S. Ed. by H K-O, H M, M-  T, and S W in collaboration with T H. Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag im Suhrkamp Verlag. .  pp. € ISBN – –––. is magnificent collection contains a cornucopia of texts by the doyen of twentiethcentury Jewish Studies, who was also a master of German literature. It collects essays, translations, reviews, poems, and letters; and its subjects range from the Song of Songs to the Book of Job, from the Talmud to the Zohar, and from Bialek MLR, .,   and Agnon to Martin Buber. Indeed, this volume places Scholem on a par with the finest German Jewish thinkers, alongside Moses Mendelssohn and Hermann Cohen, inasmuch as he raises his philological commentary to the level of philosophy . e essays illuminate topics such as translation, the Talmudic style, Aramaic, or the nature of language with its ‘heavenly alphabet’. Scholem’s insights into areas far beyond his specialism such as the Halakhah and the Aggadah are as incisive as they are definitive. roughout we follow a scintillating intelligence in pursuit of truth. e dialogue between religion and politics which sustains Scholem’s endeavours is manifest from the start, as he enters the polemical fray: whether taking issue with Buber or performing a hatchet job on Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, he battles against mediocrity and cant with the ferocity of a prophet. When his contemporaries were celebrating the First World War, he assailed the hostilities in a poem that attacks the ‘Mythos der Völkermord’. Yet he can be conciliatory, too, as in his poem to Ingeborg Bachmann with its typical scepticism: ‘Die Stunde der Erlösung ist vorüber’. In ditching Messianism he had the courage to discard one of the central tenets of Judaism. Ironically, nothing better shows the depth and intensity of the German–Jewish symbiosis, the existence of which he denied, than Scholem’s commentary on Luther...

Immanuel Kant and Herman Cohen’s philosophy of religion

The article analyzes the main characteristic features of the philosophy of religion of the founder of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism Hermann Cohen. Special attention is paid to Cohen’s criticism and reinterpretation of Kant’s “practical philosophy” from the point of view of the philosophy of religion: Cohen supplements and expands Kant’s provisions on moral law and moral duty, interpreting them as divine commandments. The authors emphasize the fundamental importance for Cohen of the “internal similarity” between Kant’s ethical teaching and the main provisions of Judaism. The sources of Kant’s own ideas about the Jewish tradition are shown, which include the work of Moses Mendelssohn “Jerusalem” and the “Theologicalpolitical treatise” by Baruch Spinoza. Cohen’s criticism of these works is analyzed an much attention is paid to the consideration of Cohen’s attitude to Spinoza’s philosophical legacy in general. The interpretation of the postulates of Judaism by Cohen (and their “inner kinship” with Kant’s moral philosophy) in ethical, logical, and political contexts is presented. Cohen’s understanding of such religious-philosophical and doctrinal phenomena as law, grace, Revelation, teaching, the Torah, messianism, freedom, the Old Testament and the New Testament, etc. is provided and analyzed. The main points of Cohen’s religious teaching as “ethical monotheism” are considered; in particular, the authors analyze his understanding of the idea of God as “the only one”, which is highlighted in the works of Paul Natorp. It is concluded that Cohen’s philosophy of religion, which is based on the postulates of Judaism as well as Kant’s “practical philosophy”, could be characterized by the terms “ethical monotheism”, “universalism” and “humanism”.

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and Kant’s Critical Method: Comments on Stephen R. Palmquist’s Kant and Mysticism

AbstractIn his new book, Kant and Mysticism, Stephen Palmquist argues that Kant had already formulated his critical method by the mid-1760s and that it emerged from his reflections on Swedenborg’s mystical visions. In order to evaluate these claims, I consider Kant’s correspondence with Charlotte von Knobloch and Moses Mendelssohn before and after the publication of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer; the context in which Kant published Dreams; and the method he employs when he discusses Swedenborg’s visions in that work. I conclude that Kant’s critical method was not well-formed during the 1760s and did not emerge from Kant’s reflections on Swedenborg.

The many shades of light: Isaiah Berlin, the Counter-Enlightenment, and the Haskalah

ABSTRACT Intellectual historian Isaiah Berlin saw a totalitarian and dogmatic tendency within the Enlightenment tradition which he called “optimistic monism,” that is, the idea that personal freedom and cultural differences have to be sacrificed for universal goals and the progress of human perfection. Thus, he turned to the proponents of the “Counter-Enlightenment” in order to render the negative traits of enlightened universalism visible. Although the Haskalah would have served well as an example of a pluralistic critique of enlightened monism, it is quite surprising that Berlin hardly wrote anything about the Jewish Enlightenment or its contemporary critics. This paper argues that this is due to a misinterpretation of Moses Mendelssohn as well as to a specific Jewish version of Berlin’s own Counter-Enlightenment, which connects to his Zionism as an answer to the failure of assimilation.

In Focus: Moses Mendelssohn – Enlightenment as Process

In Focus: Moses Mendelssohn – Enlightenment as Process

Mendelssohn, Kant, and Religious Pluralism

Abstract Two foremost spokesmen for the German Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant, continued the defence of the separation of church and state that was at the heart of the Enlightenment in general and advocated by such great predecessors as Roger Williams and John Locke and contemporaries such as James Madison. The difference between Mendelssohn and Kant on which I focus here is that while Mendelssohn argues against his critics that Judaism is the appropriate religion for a specific people without being appropriate for all, thus implying more generally that different religions are appropriate for groups with different histories, Kant argues first that Judaism is not a genuine religion at all, second that Christianity provides the most suitable symbols or aesthetic representations of the core truths of the religion of reason, and finally that in any case all historical religion will ultimately fade away in favour of the pure religion of reason. Kant’s assumptions are tendentious and his conclusion implausible; Mendelssohn’s view that religion and differences of religion are here to stay provides a far stronger basis for genuine toleration and a strict separation of church and state.

Did Moses Mendelssohn Lack Historical Thinking?

Abstract There is widespread agreement in scholarship that Moses Mendelssohn lacked historical thinking, an opinion accepted even among Mendelssohn experts. This misjudgment is based on a remark in his Jerusalem against Lessing’s Education of Humankind and surely ignores Mendelssohn’s historical work. I will question the misjudgment by a detour: first, I will ask for whom Lessing wrote his Education of Humankind. Then I will turn to the usually celebrated origin of historical thinking in Semler and Herder and question the historicity of their views. It is only in the 3rd section that I will focus directly on Mendelssohn’s historical work and his truly historical understanding of religion, in agreement with Lessing.

Moses Mendelssohn's Hebrew Writings by Edward Breuer (review)

Moses Mendelssohn's Hebrew Writings by Edward Breuer (review)

A Polynesian, a Jew, and a Hindu Walk into Jerusalem: On Mendelssohn’s Religious Universalism

Abstract In his Jerusalem, Moses Mendelssohn describes a Polynesian visitor to Dessau before traveling to India by way of ancient Jerusalem. In two pages, Mendelssohn has crossed the world, doing so to argue that in spite of their cultural differences, most human beings ultimately share basic salvific religious truths. This paper explores the religious universalism reflected in this striking passage, analyzes Mendelssohn’s cultural sensitivity and pluralism, and offers a characterization of the particularities of Mendelssohn’s Jewish universalism as well as concluding thoughts on the varieties of universalism more generally.

Writing Lives: A Female German Jewish Perspective on the Early Twentieth Century by Corinne Painter

Reviewed by: Writing Lives: A Female German Jewish Perspective on the Early Twentieth Century by Corinne Painter Carola Daffner Corinne Painter. Writing Lives: A Female German Jewish Perspective on the Early Twentieth Century. Peter Lang, 2019. 168 pp. Paper, $63.95. In Writing Lives: A Female German Jewish Perspective on the Early Twentieth Century, Corinne Painter provides a thorough overview of the life and work of German Jewish writer, community leader, and Holocaust victim Clementine Krämer (1873–1942). The author hereby joins several voices from the recent past who have criticized the traditional focus on experiences [End Page 128] of German Jewish men before and during the Third Reich. Studies on the German women’s movement, as Painter further argues, have also struggled to address the specific situation of Jewish women. Writing Lives makes a convincing case for revisiting largely forgotten contributions by women such as Krämer and the nuances gained by doing so, not just for our understanding of the German Jewish community between the two world wars but also for women’s history as a whole. In seven chapters, Painter analyzes examples of Krämer’s expansive oeuvre (which spans over one hundred short stories, articles, poems, and letters) and repeatedly highlights Krämer’s deep understanding of the complex times she lived in. Among the topics Krämer frequently explored are ambivalences of German Jewish identity, social expectations for and discrimination against women, and experiences of anti-Semitism between the two world wars. Painter initially identifies the German women’s movement, the German tradition of Bildung, and Moses Mendelssohn’s philosophy as major influences in Krämer’s works. As an activist in her community in Munich, Krämer was also involved in different social projects, from education to anti-prostitution campaigns. The second chapter consequently focuses on Krämer’s engagement with the Jewish community and with Eastern European Jewish women in particular. In her insightful analysis of Krämer’s descriptions of these encounters, Painter concludes that Krämer’s writings repeat cultural stereotypes yet also include important moments of self-reflection. The third chapter dives deeper into Krämer’s double marginalization as a German Jewish woman. Painter emphasizes here that Krämer’s courageous participation in public life and her fight for gender equality also forced her to deal with criticism from within the German Jewish community. Krämer’s writings often confirm the traditional roles of women as wives, mothers, and educators. Painter uses two of Krämer’s short stories to showcase in the fourth chapter how and why Krämer repeatedly chose to write about these topics. According to Painter, writing about women and education allowed Krämer to position herself as an unquestioned authority and, in the process, create a space in which she could imagine new possibilities for women in society. In the fift h chapter, Writing Lives continues the idea of Krämer’s parallel exploration of traditional and progressive perspectives by tracing her long engagement with war work. Painter’s close readings of both stories and private letters reveal that Krämer infused her writings during World War I with antiwar stances and ideas of pacifism. [End Page 129] Krämer’s Die Rauferei (1927; The brawl), a novella about the divisions of the Weimar Republic, is the main focus of chapter 6. As Painter shows, the continuous sense of chaos in the story exposes any belief in single ideologies as unsustainable. The last chapter discusses Krämer’s experiences of living as a Jewish woman in Nazi Germany, the difficulties of emigration, and the consequent fragmentation of the German Jewish community. Especially noteworthy is the fact that during the Third Reich, Krämer continued organizing social events for Jewish women, which provided chances for socializing and mutual support. Painter selects a manuscript of one of Krämer’s speeches about fashion from one of these events to demonstrate how Krämer used her seemingly mundane speech for a veiled commentary on the impermanence of everything, including National Socialism. Painter’s study of Krämer’s largely forgotten oeuvre adds an important nuance to our understanding of Germany’s early twentieth century. Krämer...

Marginalization and Reform of Religion: A Comparative Study of Moses Mendelssohn and Syed Ahmad Khan

The term marginalization is often used for a community or group which is pushed to the edges of the society through certain social, political, and/or religious restrictions. The history of German Jews and Muslims of the Indian subcontinent stands witness that, to varying degrees over time, they were bound to live on the edges of their respective societies. This discrimination was not just because of their different social, cultural, and political status but religion was also a major factor behind it. In such conditions, Moses Mendelssohn and Syed Ahmad Khan worked for the betterment of their respective Jewish and Muslim communities. Although the work of both scholars is a recurring theme of discussion in the academic world, still there is no study available in which their efforts have been compared. By presenting a feature by feature comparison of the works of both scholars, the current paper first figures out their methodology and then explores their motive behind using pure reason to interpret sacred scriptures. It is also argued that there are fewer differences and more commonalities in their works. Their primary aim was to equip their people with modern education, since they thought that through educational reform they would be able to improve the social, political, and economic conditions of their people. Although they achieved noteworthy success, their efforts changed the religious direction of their people. Especially after the reform of Mendelssohn, a significant number of Jews distanced themselves from their ancestral religion.

Philo of Stockholm. The ecumenical heresies of Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; This paper was presented at the conference ‘The Marrano Phenomenon: Jewish Hidden Tradition and Modernity’, Warsaw, 16–19 September 2019. It considers the case of Marcus Ehrenpreis, chief rabbi of Stockholm (1914–48). Ehrenpreis followed in the tradition from Antiquity of Philo of Alexandria, who expressed his Jewish philosophy in Greek, and Moses Mendelssohn, who attempted to bring the principles of the Englightenment to German Jews and to promote an understanding of Judaism among non­Jews. Ehrenpreis sought to follow a similar path among the Swedes, not least in making Swedish his preferred language of writing. Although the Marrano phenomenon relates primarily to the concept of ‘borderline’ Jewishness, of which Ehrenpreis was not an exponent, it nonetheless proves fruitful to consider him from a Marrano perspective in order to extend our understanding of him as an innovative figure who sought to achieve greater understanding across the religious and cultural boundaries between Judaism and non­-Judaism.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;