Redemption and Utopia : Jewish libertarian thought in Central Europe : a study in elective affinity

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Redemption and Utopia : Jewish libertarian thought in Central Europe : a study in elective affinity

Michael Löwy ; translated by Hope Heaney

Athlone Press, 1992

Other Title

Redemption & Utopia

Rédemption et Utopie : le judaïsme libertaire en Europe central

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-263) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Towards the end of the 19th century, there appeared in Central Europe a generation of Jewish intellectuals whose work was to mark modern culture. Drawing at once on the traditions of German Romanticism and Jewish messianism, their thought was organized around the cabbalistic idea of the "tikkoun": redemption. "Redemption and Utopia" uses the concept of "elective affinity" to explain the surprising community of spirit that existed between redemptive messianic religious thought and the wide variety of radical secular utopian beliefs held by this important group of intellectuals. The author outlines the circumstances that produced this unusual combination of religious and non-religious thought and illuminates the common assumptions that united such seemingly disparage figures as Martin Buber, Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukacs.

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