oa De uitstraling van Hermann Cohen in het interbellum: Cassirer, Rosenzweig, Scholem

*Lezing, gehouden op een studiedag over ‘Deutschtum en jodendom’ op 17 mei 1990 te Amsterdam. De veel voorkomende term ‘Deutschtum’ vertaal ik met het neologisme ‘duitsheid’.

The article deals with an episode in the history of German Jewry. The Neokantian philosopher Hermann Cohen pleaded for an almost complete fusion between German culture and Judaism. The article concentrates on the reactions of the interbellum generation to this view. It is an attempt to address the question which of these reactions stand up in the light of presentday, post-holocaust experience. It is suggested that Franz Rosenzweig’s account of the famous 1929 disputation in Davos is mistaken. There are two alternatives: either the uncompromising Zionism of Gerhard Scholem or the universalist humanism of Ernst Cassirer.