This article's lead section may be too long. Please read the length guidelines and help move details into the article's body.(April 2024)
Gershom Scholem
גרשום שלום
Scholem, 1935
Born
Gerhard Scholem
(1897-12-05)5 December 1897
Berlin, German Empire
Died
21 February 1982(1982-02-21) (aged 84)
Jerusalem, Israel
Nationality
German Israel
Alma mater
Frederick William University
Notable work
Sabbatai Zevi, the Mystical Messiah Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
Spouse
Fania Freud Scholem
Awards
Israel Prize Bialik Prize
Era
20th-century philosophy
Region
German philosophy Jewish philosophy
School
Continental philosophy Kabbalah Wissenschaft des Judentums
Institutions
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Main interests
Philosophy of religion Philosophy of history Mysticism Messianism
Gershom Scholem (Hebrew: גֵרְשׁׂם שָׁלוֹם) (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982) was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kabbalah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[1]
Scholem is acknowledged as the single most significant figure in the recovery, collection, annotation, and registration into rigorous Jewish scholarship of the canonical bibliography of mysticism and scriptural commentary that runs through its primordial phase in the Sefer Yetzirah, its inauguration in the Bahir, its exegesis in the Pardes and the Zohar to its cosmogonic, apocalyptic climax in Isaac Luria's Ein Sof that is known collectively as Kabbalah.[2][3]
After generations of demoralization and assimilation in the European enlightenment,[4] the disappointment of messianic hopes,[4] the famine of 1916 in Palestine,[5] and the catastrophe of the Final Solution in Europe[6] Scholem gathered and reassembled these sacred texts from many of the archives that had been disarranged, orphaned, confiscated under Nazi rule or otherwise washed up in Genizah cataloging the flood of fragments and disordered, decontextualized manuscripts into an annotated and relatively organized sequence of texts available to scholars and seekers within the reception of this tradition. Many other Jewish scholars assisted in this process of recovery once it was underway, but it is broadly recognized that Scholem initiated this process of textual and archival recovery and rebirth.
As Scholem points out in his memoirs, the canon of sacred Jewish writings from the diaspora and the Middle Ages (re: "Kabbalah") had fallen into such a state of disrepair and oblivion—fragmented and effaced by persecutions from without as well as contortions, conversions and schisms from within Judaism—that many of the "finest writings..."[7] from the major currents of Jewish mysticism could only be found in long block quotations in antisemitic texts, where some "nincompoop who had quoted and translated the most wonderful, the most profound things,"[7] had assembled them "in order to decry them as blasphemies."[7] (This was a strong, somewhat exaggerated statement for expressive effect that Scholem attributes to Ernst Bloch in his memoirs—but there he co-signs the sentiment and appropriates it as his own description of the state of affairs in other places.)[8][2][3]
Thanks to Scholem's efforts, and those of his students and colleagues, the confused and inscrutable condition of Kabbalistic bibliography and provenance would be significantly remedied after the end of the World Wars and the foundation of the modern state of Israel where Scholem worked as head librarian of the National Library in Jerusalem.
^Magid, Shaul. Edward N. Zalta (ed.). "Gershom Scholem". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition).
^ abScholem, Gershom (1987). Origins of the Kabbalah. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky. [Philadelphia]: Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 0-691-07314-7. OCLC 13456988.
^ abScholem, Gershom (1961). Major trends in Jewish mysticism. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 0-8052-0005-3. OCLC 670936.
^PROCHNIK, GEORGE (2018). STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND : searching for gershom scholem and jerusalem. [Place of publication not identified]: GRANTA Books. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-78378-180-5. OCLC 992451184.
^Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ abcScholem, Gershom (1982). Walter Benjamin : the story of a friendship. London: Faber and Faber. pp. 80, 105. ISBN 0-571-11970-0. OCLC 9983412.
^Scholem, Gershom (2006). Alchemy and kabbalah. Klaus Ottmann. Putnam, Conn.: Spring Publications. ISBN 0-88214-566-5. OCLC 63245451.
GershomScholem (Hebrew: גֵרְשׁׂם שָׁלוֹם) (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982) was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as...
with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar GershomScholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah...
Hebrew language, it is given as מטיטור (mṭyṭwr) or מיטטור (myṭṭwr). GershomScholem argues that there is no data to justify the conversion of metator to...
interest in Kabbalistic texts led primarily by the Jewish historian GershomScholem has inspired the development of historical research on Kabbalah in...
Scholem, derived from the Hebrew word shalom, meaning "peace", is a surname, and may refer to: GershomScholem (1897–1982), also known as Gerhard Scholem...
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since GershomScholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941), draws distinctions between different forms...
was a print shop owner. His brother was GershomScholem. In their youth,, Werner and Gerhard (later Gershom) were members of the Zionist youth-movement...
Retrieved 2024-04-29. Scholem, Gershom. The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and GershomScholem. Schocken. Scholem, Gershom. "Letter to Shalom Spiegel...
Schocken Books is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that specializes in Jewish literary works. Originally established in 1931 by Salman...
Puritanism, radical Anabaptism, Jacobinism, and lastly Salafi-Jihadism). GershomScholem (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher...
of the Jewish Kabbalah by GershomScholem, published in 1941. In his introduction to Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Scholem blames Jewish scholars of...
traditions for the birth of the Messiah. Rifa N. Bali (2008), pp. 91-92 GershomScholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah: 1626-1676, Routledge Kegan Paul...
by Walter Benjamin, in response to a series of questions raised by GershomScholem in a conversation that began at a villa in the German countryside at...
4th-century synagogues and Christian churches in the Galilee region. GershomScholem writes that the term "seal of Solomon" was adopted by Jews from Islamic...
here. Beginning with the correspondence between Walter Benjamin and GershomScholem (or possibly before that, when Martin Buber became one of Franz Kafka's...
settled in Smyrna” Rifa N. Bali (2008), pp. 91-92 Scholem, op cit., pp. 678–681; Scholem, Gershom. "Shabbetai Zevi." Encyclopaedia Judaica, pp. 348–350...
ISBN 978-0838636602. "Dybbuk", Encyclopædia Britannica, retrieved 10 June 2009 GershomScholem. "Dibbuk". Encyclopaedia Judaica. See A. Sáenz-Badillos & J. Elwolde...
this is impossible in connection with the "Ein Sof". According to GershomScholem, the Ein Sof is the emanator of the ten sefirot. Sefirot are energy...
Ra'ya Meheimna, were composed by a 14th century imitator. According to GershomScholem and other modern scholars, Zoharic Aramaic is an artificial dialect...
Rosenzweig (to whom Strauss dedicated his first book), as well as GershomScholem, Alexander Altmann, and the Arabist Paul Kraus, who married Strauss's...
of Solomon's Seal later made its way into Islamic Arab sources, as GershomScholem (the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah) attests "It...
יהודה ליבס; born 1947) is an Israeli academic and scholar. He is the GershomScholem Professor Emeritus of Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the first incumbent of the GershomScholem Chair in Jewish Mysticism at The Hebrew University. Dan was born in...
former residents of Safed returned to the town after the destruction. GershomScholem considers the 1662 reports about the destruction of Safed as "exaggerated"...
original on 2024-01-19. Scholem, Gershom G. Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. Scholem, Gershom G. (1987). Werblowsky, R...
Benjamin, Walter; Benjamin, Walter (2012). "Letter to GershomScholem January 30th, 1928". In Scholem, Gershom (ed.). The correspondence of Walter Benjamin: 1910...
an important role in the history of Jewish mysticism: the scholar GershomScholem wrote, "The main subjects of the later Merkabah mysticism already occupy...
mysticism and the Hekhalot literature. The text was first edited by GershomScholem (1965). An English translation by Janowitz can be found in her Poetics...
both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. The research conducted by GershomScholem on the ancient sources of Kabbalah led him to propose a similar hypothesis...
of the existence of a distinctive Frankist doctrine. According to GershomScholem, a 20th century authority on Sabbateanism and Kabbalah, Kraushar had...
Global Information
