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Summary
This is an original, philosophical discussion in which Andrea Neher relates the lives of prominent nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jews to traditional Jewish thought on issues of assimilation, the Holocaust, and liberal intellectualism.
"The book is an imaginative...brilliant discussion of the moral and religious plight of Jewish intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The theme is that of Teshuvah or return. This is probably one of the best books written on this theme since Martin Buber's. The author is something of a poet, a biographer, a historian of ideas, even a sage. Few people are able to write in so profound and comprehensive a way. They Made Their Souls Anew is in a class by itself and is going to be talked about for a long time." -- Kenneth R. Seeskin, Northwestern University
"Neher thinks, in these pages, with learning, imagination, and with great honesty. He brings the past into contact with the present by focussing on a number of contemporary or near-contemporary figures (e.g., Lazare, Heine, Fondane) through whom the past and issues of Jewish identity in general are to be grasped. This gives both a sense of immediacy and a historical basis to the work. It is an interesting and valuable book." -- Berel Lang, State University of New York at Albany Andrea Neher was a Professor at the University of Strasbourg and the author of more than twenty works translated worldwide.
Table of Contents
Opening Chords
Prodigal Sons of Assimilation
Heinrich Heine
Bernard Lazare
The Vertical Irruption
Franz Rosenzweig
Arnold Schönberg
The Challenge of the Holocaust
Karl Wolfskehl
Benjamin Fondane
The Challenge of Eretz Israel
Aaron Abraham Kabak
The Nazir of Jerusalem
Part One: Dialectic of the Jewish Condition
1. The Knots and the Tensions
The Jewish Statement: An Essential Contradiction
The Dialectics of "Being for Oneself" and "Being With the Others"
Taking the Same Path as Everyone Else
The Danger: Moving From Participation to Alienation
The Dissymmetrical Character of the Nineteenth Century
2. The "Anti" and Its Masks
From the Witness Stand to the Box of the Accused
The Crime of Existing
The Fruitless Escape
Did the "Anti" Have its Roots in Germany?
The "Anti" Has Roots in France
The "Anti" Has its Roots Everywhere
The Incarnation of the Absurd in History
3. The "Meta" and its Morphoses
And Yet, Perhaps
Some Foul Blows Are Strokes From the Heavens
The Fascination of the Shema
The Search for an Additional Soul
Living a Question
The "Meta" in Its Human Relationship:Thou Art My People
Being Taken Hold of by the "Meta": Yom Kippur
Next Year in Jerusalem . . . (We Have so Willed, and It Is not a Dream)
The Dialectics of the "Anti" and the "Meta"
Yes, Perhaps
Maybe the Messiah
Part Two: The Situation of Biblical Man
4. The Ontological Psychodrama
Rupture and Continuity
The Dialogue of the Covenant
The Ontology of the Mask
Comedy, Tragedy . . .
The Exit
The False Legend of the Wandering Jew
The True Story of the Wandering: A Return
The Secret of Teshuva
5. The Typological Sociodrama
Where Art Thou, God?
Where Art thou, Moses?
The Exodus of the Jew Toward Himself
He Who Had Called Others Gets His Call
The Typology of the Desert
Israel, A Company of Unlimited Liability
6. The Prophetical Metadrama
The Forced Return
The Kingdom of a God Whose Throne Is Down Here
The Morphology of Rhythm
Phantasms of the Curvature
The Jewish Mystery
The Conjugal Memory
Part Three: From Denial to Reaffirmation
7. The Variants of Dis-assimilation
The Absolute Impasse
Too Late: Heinrich Heine
A Road Without a Landscape: Bernard Lazare
Dis-assimilation by Transference
The Frustration of an Elusive Figure: Franz Kafka
8. The Challenge Accepted
Benjamin Fondane
Turning Around Judaism Like a Moth
From the Exodus to the Burning Bush
In Thy Fearful Nights of Wrath
Karl Wolfskehl
The Germanic Fiefdom
The Flight to the Antipodes
The Irruption of the Voice: The Fiefdom of God
The Four Mirrors of Job
The Voice Speaks
The "Old-new Gales"
9. The Returners from Marxism
The Jews of the Awakening
Rutenberg, Steinberg: The Fighters of the October Revolution
The Piotr-Pinhas Adventure
Son of Mother Russia
Son of My People Israel
Embarked Upon the Phantom Ship of Liberty
Jewish Prayer at the Heart of the Supreme Soviet
Liberty Graven in the Law . . .
. . . And Justice as Well
The Non-promised Land of Utopia
10. The Pilgrim of Hope: Ernst Bloch
Genesis Is at the End
The Counterpoint of a Jewish Melody
The Exodus Principle
The Principle of Hope
The Jewish Response of Liberty
I Command You To Hope
Princess Sabbath
11. From the Temptation of the Cross to the Star of Redemption: Franz Rosenzweig
A Duel With Death
The Patience of Rediscovery
On the Threshold, in Search of the Key
Rediscovering the Language
The "Personalism" of Teshuva: The Return to Observance
Returning to the Absolute
12. From Baptism to Kol Nidre—Arnold Schönberg
The Written Document of a Teshuva
Conversations With (and About) God
Jacob's Ladder
Vicissitudes of Teshuva—the "Meta" and the "Anti"
Surviving in Exile Until the Hour of Deliverance
A Militant Exile—a Zionist Political Doctrine
The Presence of Events: The Shoa and the State of Israel
