The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image

Daniel B. Schwartz

Published by Princeton University Press 2012

The First Modern Jew

Spinoza and the History of an Image

Daniel B. Schwartz

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400842261

Overview
Contents

About this book

Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew.

Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into "the first modern Jew," generations of Jewish intellectuals--German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists--have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish cultureand a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.

Author / Editor information

Daniel B. Schwartz is assistant professor of history at George Washington University.

Reviews

[P]assionate arguments, of the kind now richly documented by Schwartz, about Spinoza's Jewishness and his relevance to our times, still enrich and enrage . . . and probably will continue to do so--without end.---Allan Nadler, Forward.com

"In this daring and outstanding book, Schwartz does a superb job of bringing Spinoza back to life in a number of diverse and intriguing historical contexts. A full-bodied cultural history, attentive to the various settings in which Spinoza was rediscovered and revivified, this is the most wide-ranging, historically grounded, and illuminating book that has been written on the subject."—David N. Myers, University of California, Los Angeles

Schwartz has written a superb study that not only presents Spinoza as a thinker who fits uneasily into the modernist categories of ‘religious' and ‘secular': he has also composed a daring challenge to the popular interpretation of the modern age as a purely secular affair that left religion behind over 300 years ago.---Grant Havers, European Legacy

We have long needed a thorough and careful study of the various ways in which Spinoza has been appropriated by Jewish causes and movements. Daniel Schwartz's welcome book takes a close look for the first time at what the author calls 'the rehabilitation of Spinoza in Jewish culture.'---Steven Nadler, Times Literary Supplement

Co-Winner of the 2012 Salo Wittmayer Baron Prize, American Academy for Jewish Research

Whether Baruch Spinoza was 'the first modern Jew,' as the title of this outstanding volume suggests, has been a subject of continuing debate. . . . Schwartz displays admirable versatility in tracing the idolizations, disputes, and ambivalences evoked by Spinoza in Germany (Moses Mendelssohn and Berthold Auerbach) and eastern Europe (Salomon Rubin), within Zionism (Yosef Klausner), and in Yiddish literature (Isaac Bashevis Singer). . . . Essential.---M. A. Meyer, Choice

With extensive and helpful notes, an index and a bibliography, this work is highly recommended for all academic collections that deal with Jews and Judaism in the modern age.---Marion M. Stein, Classical World

This is the first full-scale history of Spinoza's reception among Jews. . . . [I]t clearly demonstrates how this excluded philosopher could be viewed as religious or secular, as more Baruch or more Benedict, but almost necessarily as a touchstone in defining Jewish identity in the modern age.

Finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award in History

"This is a spectacular book, deeply researched and brilliantly written, on a riveting subject—the historical reception of Spinoza from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Schwartz demonstrates his command of European philosophy, modern European Jewish history, Hebrew and Yiddish literature, and Zionist culture. A tour de force."—David Biale, University of California, Davis

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Illustrations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	viii
Preface and Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	x
Note on Translations and Romanization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xvi
Introduction. Spinoza’s Jewish Modernities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1. Ex-Jew, Eternal Jew Early Representations of the Jewish Spinoza Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
Chapter 2. Refining Spinoza Moses Mendelssohn’s Response to the Amsterdam Heretic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
Chapter 3. The First Modern Jew Berthold Auerbach’s Spinoza (1837) and the Beginnings of an Image Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Chapter 4. A Rebel against the Past, A Revealer of Secrets Salomon Rubin and the East European Maskilic Spinoza Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Chapter 5. From the Heights of Mount Scopus Yosef Klausner and the Zionist Rehabilitation of Spinoza Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
Chapter 6. Farewell, Spinoza I. B. Singer and the Tragicomedy of the Jewish Spinozist Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Epilogue. Spinoza Redivivus in the Twenty-First Century Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265

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