Against the Grain

Ezra Mendelsohn (1940-2015) was Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry and in Russian Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was author of Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art (2002).

• AcknowledgementsEditors’ NoteChapter 1. Reading Steven AschheimEzra MendelsohnPart I. Strauss, Scholem, Arendt, BenjaminChapter 2. A Zionist Critique of Jewish Politics: The Early Thought of Leo StraussJerry Z. MullerChapter 3. Leo Strauss Reading Karl Marx during the Cold WarAdi ArmonChapter 4. Gershom Scholem, Einst und Jetzt: Zionist Politics and Kabbalistic HistoriographyDavid BialeChapter 5. Death or Birth? Scholem and SecularizationZohar MaorChapter 6. Fragments from a Correspondence(Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem) – A PoemZvi JagendorfPart II. Political Positioning in Hard TimesChapter 7. In Heidegger’s Shadow: Ernst Cassirer, Emmanuel Levinas, and the Question of the PoliticalJeffrey Andrew BarashChapter 8. Walter Rathenau’s Dilemma: Modernity and the Human SoulShulamit VolkovChapter 9. “Nothing but a Disillusioned Love”?: Hans Kohn’s Break with the Zionist MovementAdi GordonChapter 10. Historicism and the EventMartin JayPart III. Brothers and Strangers: The Issue of IdentityChapter 11. Asiatic Brothers, European Strangers: Eugen Hoeflich and Pan-Asian Zionism in ViennaHanan HarifChapter 12. “Brothers and Strangers”: The American ExamplePierre BirnbaumChapter 13. “Mann Kann Verjuden”: Paradoxes of ExemplarityVivian LiskaPart IV. In the Shadow of the HolocaustChapter 14. A “Usable Past” and the Crisis of European Jews: Popular Jewish Historiography in Germany, France, and Hungary in the 1930sGuy MironChapter 15. Three Jewish Émigrés at Nuremberg: Jacob Robinson, Hersch Lauterpacht, and Raphael LemkinMichael R. MarrusChapter 16. The Frankfurt School and the ‘Jewish Question,’ 1940-1970Anson RabinbachChapter 17. Holocaust History and Survivor Testimony: Challenges, Limitations, and OpportunitiesChristopher R. BrowningSelect BibliographyList of ContributorsIndex

“…a stellar anthology that belongs not only in every university library but also in the libraries of Jewish institutions serving serious readers.”  ·  Jewish Book World“[T]he essays are well-written, clear, and interesting…the collection reads well and is informed by a high level of scholarship and expertise and has a diversity that should appeal to many readers.”  ·  Michael L. Morgan, Chancellor’s Professor, Emeritus, Indiana University