Heidegger and His Jewish Reception

Daniel M. Herskowitz

ISBN 10: 110874995X / ISBN 13: 9781108749954

Published by Cambridge University Press, GB, 2023

About this Item

In this book, Daniel Herskowitz examines the rich, intense, and persistent Jewish engagement with one of the most important and controversial modern philosophers, Martin Heidegger. Contextualizing this encounter within wider intellectual, cultural, and political contexts, he outlines the main patterns and the diverse Jewish responses to Heidegger. Herskowitz shows that through a dialectic of attraction and repulsion, Jewish thinkers developed a version of Jewishness that sought to offer the way out of the overall crisis plaguing their world, which was embodied, as they saw it, in Heidegger's life and thought. Neither turning a blind eye to Heidegger's anti-Semitism nor using it as an excuse for ignoring his philosophy, they wrestled with his existential analytic and what they took to be its religious, ethical, and political failings. Ironically, Heidegger's thought proved itself to be fertile ground for re-conceptualizing what it means to be Jewish in the modern world.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781108749954

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Heidegger and His Jewish Reception
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, GB
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 110874995X
• ISBN 13: 9781108749954
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 6W x 0.83H x 9D inches 6 inches width by 0.83 inches height by 9 inches depth
• Weight: 605 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In this book, Daniel Herskowitz examines the rich, intense, and persistent Jewish engagement with one of the most important and controversial modern philosophers, Martin Heidegger. Contextualizing this encounter within wider intellectual, cultural, and political contexts, he outlines the main patterns and the diverse Jewish responses to Heidegger. Herskowitz shows that through a dialectic of attraction and repulsion, Jewish thinkers developed a version of Jewishness that sought to offer the way out of the overall crisis plaguing their world, which was embodied, as they saw it, in Heidegger's life and thought. Neither turning a blind eye to Heidegger's anti-Semitism nor using it as an excuse for ignoring his philosophy, they wrestled with his existential analytic and what they took to be its religious, ethical, and political failings. Ironically, Heidegger's thought proved itself to be fertile ground for re-conceptualizing what it means to be Jewish in the modern world.

About the Author

Daniel Herskowitz is Career Research Fellow in Jewish Studies at Wolfson College, University of Oxford.