Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence

Daniel H. Weiss is Polonsky-Coexist Senior Lecturer in Jewish Studies, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. He is author of Paradox and the Prophets: Hermann Cohen and the Indirect Communication of Religion (2012), among other publications, and co-editor of multiple books, including Scripture and Violence (2020). Actively involved in the Cambridge Interfaith Programme, he is a recent recipient of a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers.

• Introduction; 1. Moses Mendelssohn and the rabbinic suspending of coercive punishment; 2. Who can command violence, and who should obey? Mendelssohn on divine sovereignty and the limits of modern Jewish integration; 3. Jewishness and the prophetic anarchism of Hermann Cohen; 4. Franz Rosenzweig and the Jewish alternative to militarism; 5. Walter Benjamin and the antinomianism of classical rabbinic Judaism; Conclusion: no other gods, no other masters.

'Bridging modern Jewish philosophy and classical rabbinic sources, Daniel Weiss argues that a commitment to divine sovereignty does not produce but rather mitigates human violence. Weiss offers new and compelling readings of a number of seminal modern Jewish philosophers, while also setting forth a provocatively fruitful vision of modern Jewish philosophy as not merely the product of modern Europe but rather as the rightful inheritor of classical Jewish thought. Anyone interested in Judaism, modern philosophy and indeed the relationship between religion and politics will have much to gain from this timely and important book.' Leora Batnitzky, Princeton University