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Religions
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Jewish Theological Ideologies
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Jewish Theological Ideologies

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Theologies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 February 2022) | Viewed by 6113

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Paul Mendes-Flohr

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Dorothy Grant Professor Emeritus of Modern Jewish Intellectual History and Religious Thought; Associate Faculty in the Department of History, Divinity School, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
2. Professor Emeritus, Department of Jewish Thought, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel
Interests: modern Jewish intellectual history; modern Jewish philosophy and religious thought; philosophy of religion; German intellectual history; the history and sociology of intellectuals
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This symposium seeks critical essays on “Jewish Theological Ideologies.”

In promoting a particular perspective of a given religious tradition theology, as well as philosophy, are often inflected with political ideologies—the impulse, to cite Robert Musil, “to carry ideas into the spheres of power” (Man Without Qualities). This is particularly pronounced in contemporary Judaism where one speaks of Religious Zionism, Religious identity, indeed, of political theology, and even of theo-politics. This issue of Religion seeks to gather critical reflections on the dialectic of theology and ideology in Jewish thought.

Prof. Dr. Paul Mendes-Flohr
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • ideology
  • theology
  • political theology
  • politics of identity
  • political messianism

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 325 KiB  
Article
The Dialectics of Feeling: Hugo Bergman’s and Gershom Scholem’s Political Theologies of Zionism
by Orr Scharf
Religions 2022, 13(7), 601; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13070601 - 28 Jun 2022
Viewed by 1354
Abstract
The current article has several aims. First, it seeks to underscore the importance of Hugo Bergman’s and Gershom Scholem’s late critiques of Zionism, and to argue that they should be understood as politico-theological commentaries on the Israeli political reality in which they lived. [...] Read more.
The current article has several aims. First, it seeks to underscore the importance of Hugo Bergman’s and Gershom Scholem’s late critiques of Zionism, and to argue that they should be understood as politico-theological commentaries on the Israeli political reality in which they lived. Second, it argues for the relevance of approaching these critiques through the theoretical prism of political theology. Third, it aims to chart the overlaps and differences between the Bergmanesque and Scholemian theological interpretations of Zionism by charting their common premises and differences. I argue that the former derive from their shared view of Zionism as a religious project, and the latter derive from their arrival at polar conclusions: Bergman seeking a positive potential; Scholem identifying a destructive potential. Hence, their political theologies of Zionism are understood as a “dialectic of feeling”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jewish Theological Ideologies)
16 pages, 318 KiB  
Article
Politics and Theology in the Historical Works of Yitzhak Baer
by Yiftach Ofek
Religions 2022, 13(6), 537; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13060537 - 11 Jun 2022
Viewed by 1894
Abstract
Of the individuals most commonly associated with the so-called “Jerusalem School” of historiography—the first- and second-generation of scholars of Jewish history that coalesced around the Hebrew University in the first years of its existence—Yitzhak (Fritz) Baer (1888–1980) was probably the least overtly political. [...] Read more.
Of the individuals most commonly associated with the so-called “Jerusalem School” of historiography—the first- and second-generation of scholars of Jewish history that coalesced around the Hebrew University in the first years of its existence—Yitzhak (Fritz) Baer (1888–1980) was probably the least overtly political. Yet, a careful reading of his writings reveals a mind that was heavily engaged with the social and political affairs of the day. Like most members of the Jerusalem School, Baer saw his scholarship as a contribution to the Zionist project—an attempt to influence the character of the renascent Jewish society. Although he did not proclaim or publicize his views as loudly as others, he nonetheless weaved his political views into the fabric of his historical research. By reading his historical works against their immediate political context, we can therefore begin to piece together what amounts to an original and comprehensive worldview. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jewish Theological Ideologies)
26 pages, 446 KiB  
Article
Contempt for the Whos? or: How to Read Nietzsche Autobiographically after the Death of the Bios
by Joel Swanson
Religions 2022, 13(3), 205; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13030205 - 28 Feb 2022
Viewed by 1951
Abstract
This paper examines French philosopher Sarah Kofman’s fractured relationships to her identities as Jew and woman. Active participant in postwar debates surrounding deconstruction and psychoanalysis, acclaimed reader of Freud and Nietzsche, and interlocutor of Derrida, Kofman is today most widely remembered for her [...] Read more.
This paper examines French philosopher Sarah Kofman’s fractured relationships to her identities as Jew and woman. Active participant in postwar debates surrounding deconstruction and psychoanalysis, acclaimed reader of Freud and Nietzsche, and interlocutor of Derrida, Kofman is today most widely remembered for her autobiographical writings about her childhood as a young Orthodox Jewish girl during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Kofman’s mother sent her to pretend to be the daughter of a Christian woman, which both ensured Kofman’s physical survival and led to an uncanny Freudian doubling of the maternal figure, such that both “Jew” and “Christian” became unstable, mimetic identity categories which Kofman could never again fully inhabit. The paper examines Kofman’s writings on Nietzsche, suggesting that her attempt to absolve the German philosopher of the charges of antisemitism oft leveled against him functioned as a similarly failed and incomplete means of asserting control over her personal identity. If Kofman could demonstrate that Nietzsche was not in fact an antisemite, then she could write herself into the lineage of Continental philosophy and reclaim the stable ancestry she lost during the war. Yet the paper concludes that a counter-narrative running throughout Kofman’s writings suggests an awareness that she could never fully absolve Nietzsche, and therefore that her attempt to claim Nietzsche as a father figure would always fail. The paper thus suggests that the illusion of control and stability epitomized by Kofman’s reading of Nietzsche provides an interpretive thematic to understand the unstable figure of the post-Holocaust Jewish philosopher. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jewish Theological Ideologies)
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