Norbert M. Samuelson. A User's Guide to Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption. Curzon Jewish Philosophy Series. Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1999. xxv, 386 pp.; Ernest Rubinstein. An Episode of Jewish Romanticism: Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption. SUNY Series in Judaica: Hermeneutics, Mysticism, and Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. xiii, 306 pp.
While The Star of Redemption is widely recognized as a great work, if not the single greatest work of modern Jewish thought, it has persistently had difficulty finding its readers. Written in an almost private language for a circle of friends and relations, it has taken almost a century to gain an a...
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Pennsylvania Press
2002
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| In: |
AJS review
Year: 2002, Volume: 26, Issue: 1, Pages: 206-209 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | While The Star of Redemption is widely recognized as a great work, if not the single greatest work of modern Jewish thought, it has persistently had difficulty finding its readers. Written in an almost private language for a circle of friends and relations, it has taken almost a century to gain an audience that can find a way into its imposing architecture. The situation began to change in 1982 with Stéphane Mosès' System and Revelation, which offered a detailed reading of the whole text. I, for my part, tried to offer a philosophical interpretation of the methodology of each of the three parts in 1992, in Correlations in Rosenzweig and Levinas; Richard Cohen's Elevations offered a set of readings that linked Levinas and Rosenzweig in 1994. Yudit Kornberg Greenberg contributed a reading that emphasized the relation to the Kabbalah in her Better Than Wine, in 1996. The decade ended, however, with the two books under review here—both impressive, novel, and complex readings of The Star. Norbert Samuelson has given us a paragraph-by-paragraph paraphrase—or perhaps we need a new term, for Samuelson's book is a real commentary, leading us through the text and offering insight continuously, as well as pausing at key moments to guide us into richer connections. Ernest Rubinstein, for his part, has offered a demanding and challenging book that interrogates The Star, reading it not once but twice, and each time not only introducing the various key concepts and developments, but also measuring Rosenzweig against a rich theoretical framework. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4541 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0364009402600042 |