The Resort to Geistpolitik: Two of Buber’s Early Theological-Political Debates

This essay aims to shed new light on major features of the early Zionist construction of a Jewish political space. Revisiting two early debates of Martin Buber (1878–1965) with Max Nordau (1849–1923) and Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), the essay points at the limitation of the Zionist political construct...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cohen-Skalli, Cedric (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Pennsylvania Press 2022
In: Journal of ecumenical studies
Year: 2022, Volume: 57, Issue: 1, Pages: 4-15
RelBib Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
BH Judaism
TK Recent history
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Summary:This essay aims to shed new light on major features of the early Zionist construction of a Jewish political space. Revisiting two early debates of Martin Buber (1878–1965) with Max Nordau (1849–1923) and Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), the essay points at the limitation of the Zionist political construction for a later articulation of the Jewish and Palestinian complexity in a shared or divided land. Theodor Herzl’s understanding of Zionism as a strictly political and economic apparatus was brought to a historical and ideological debate at the Fifth Zionist Congress in 1901 between the young Buber and the faithful associate of Herzl, Nordau. Against Nordau’s prioritization of the productivization of Jews, Buber developed in his famous speech on “Jewish Art” the necessity of a cultural and spiritual elevation of Jews. In 1916, in the middle of World War I, Buber’s cultural notion of Jewish national regeneration in Eretz Israel set the backdrop for another debate and clash, this time with the German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen.
ISSN:2162-3937
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of ecumenical studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1353/ecu.2022.0001