Von Berlin nach Jerusalem: Jugenderinnerungen

by Gershom Scholem

Among the great innovators in Jewish thought in the twentieth century, Gershom Scholem stands on the highest level.  After fifty years of scholarship, he offers a memoir that is at once a portrait of his life and the story of an intellectual odyssey.

From Berlin to Jerusalem describes the life that begins in an assimilated German-Jewish family before the First World War.  It is a book peopled with such notable figures as S. D. Goitein, S. Y. Agnon, Franz Rosenzweig, Hermann Cohen, S. H. Bergman, Zalman Shazar, and Walter Benjamin.  Scholem carries his memoir from his student days in Germany and his rediscovery of Jewish mysticism, through his decision to emigrate to Palestine and his career as one of the greatest modern Hebrew scholars.

Genres: Memoir, History, Judaism, Jewish, Judaica, Religion, German Literature

Paperback

First published March 1, 1984

About the author

Gerhard Scholem, who, after his immigration from Germany to Israel, changed his name to Gershom Scholem (Hebrew: גרשם שלום), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. He is widely regarded as the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah, becoming the first Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His close friends included Walter Benjamin and Leo Strauss, and selected letters from his correspondence with those philosophers have been published.

Scholem is best known for his collection of lectures, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) and for his biography Sabbatai Zevi, the Mystical Messiah (1973). His collected speeches and essays, published as On Kabbalah and its Symbolism (1965), helped to spread knowledge of Jewish mysticism among non-Jews.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here an older man, one possessing a prodigious memory—for names, faces, arguments, publishers of books, and even addresses—looks back at his younger self and describes how he came to be a renowned man, living in a place that was conceptually as far from home as can be traced on a map. It was a place, appropriately enough, that was as much an idea as a fact of geography. Such a place would be the ideal home for a philosopher.

Gershom Scholem's mode of transportation was repudiation. The young man rejected the expectations of his family and caste. Not yet in his 20s, he reinvented himself a philosopher and a scholar and a Zionist. In the best sense of the word, his repudiation of Deutschjudentum—the practice of subordinating one's ancestral faith and adopting a German identity—became an act of personal liberation. (One can read his defiance in Oedipal terms or, as I prefer, as an act of self-preservation. Scholem anticipated that the endgame of Deutschjudentum would be the annihilation of Jewish identity, which, in practical terms, could have accomplished what Shoah could not.)

Teenagers rebel. It is a necessary and often admirable act to reject an identity imposed by others. What is remarkable about Scholem's break was that it was complete. (Yes, he still wrote home for money, and, one could say, he remained something of a Mama's Boy, but the fact is, he never returned home.) It is also worth noting that the circumstances that drove young Scholem from his comfortable home was not unique to his particular experience, or to that of German Jews in general. The depth of his intellectual competitiveness and his unusual academic pursuits aside, what drove Scholem out of his house continues to animate rebellious teenagers today—a desire for the authentic. Scholem slammed the door behind him in order to discover an authentic Jewish identity, which he found in his study of Hebrew, which led to the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism.

Had Scholem been born a Catholic and subjected by his family to the same pressures, he might have become an atheist. Had his parents been observant Jews, he might have become a Marxist or a Freudian. Had he been Huckleberry Finn, he would have "light out for the territory."

Scholem's rejection of an elastic or compliant Judaism led not only to a life of scholarship but also, inevitably, to Zionism. The book reveals a young man who embraced a philosophical and not a political Zionism. As such and approaching the question from the soul, rather than a political stance, its ultimate rightness could not be questioned—remove its necessity and the entire equation comes undone.

Whether or not Zionism was an unqualified good or merely the lesser of many evils was a moot point. Scholem's Zionism was as necessary as a blood transfusion, if for no other reason than he required a home more substantial than his substantial library, big brain and hungry soul could house. Eretz Yisrael was that thing: not just home, but the "Holy Land," in both the figurative and literal sense.

[Agnes Kelemen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for everyone who is interested in 20th century Jewish intellectual history, in German Jewish history, or in the life of Zionist intellectuals in the early 20th century, who later became the leading intellectuals of Israel, just like Scholem himself. This autobiographical account by Scholem is an exciting account on Jewish dissimilation, the story of a German Jew who foresaw that Nazism would prevail over Deutschjudentum much better than his contemporaries. This book narrates super interesting details on the relationship of Scholem and such well-known personalities, as Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Agnon. Scholem also turns out to be much less arrogant than I imagined him.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimo libro dato alle stampe da Scholem in cui, sotto forma di autobiografia, egli racconta del suo viaggio fisico da Berlino, dove ha trascorso l'infanzia, a Gerusalemme, dove è approdato perché fortemente lo desiderava. Il viaggio è, però, per lo scrittore (e per il lettore) soprattutto di consapevolezza e conoscenza della cultura e religione ebraica.
Interessante.

Da Berlino a Gerusalemme
Gershom Scholem
Traduzione: S. Campanini
Editore: Einaudi
Pag: 290
Voto: 4/5

[Local Historian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked reading this a lot. Lots of great details about daily life, conventions, how much things cost, the settings in which people share and come by the ideas that affect them, etc. that aren’t always easy to come by. He has a funny way of rendering character sketches that allows them to be withering without really damning. Kind of a sense of “I hated this guy but he was fascinating and who knows what this all might mean in the scheme of things.” It might have something to do with how most of the characters represent differing responses to political questions that are by no means finally answered. I might have liked to hear a little more about how his research interests developed alongside everything that happens but I guess that’s what he wrote all the other books for. Similarly light on details about the texture of life after his arrival in Palestine, but I’m a little ways into his Walter Benjamin book and it seems like there might be more there in that regard.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sort of cross between a "Books in My Life" and "Encounters," Herr Scholem's book deals with the intellectual development of a young German-Jew and his studies of all branches of Judaica, as well as his own burgeoning Zionism. There are autobiographical moments within the book, that describe typical coming-of-age moments, rebellious outbursts at school and young love, but for the most part there is something interior (and a bit solipsistic) about the book. It may be churlish to complain that someone shaped by the interwar Milieu of Germany seemed to write and think about nothing but being Jewish (plenty of anti-semites honestly didn't write or think much about anything else, either), but I found myself growing weary as the book progressed and Sholem didn't bother to leaven his tale with any of his secular interests, or enough personal anecdotes. When a book this short feels tedious, something is amiss.

This is not to say "From Berlin to Jerusalem" is not without merit. It is more than a bibliography or a laundry list of meetings with intellectual heavyweights like Walter Benjamin. It is, in some ways and in some passages, an exemplary demonstration of one man's effort to learn about his own occluded and esoteric roots, and shows how such disciplined searching can be rewarding in and of itself, how one's quest for knowledge is never complete. But again, to return to the book's subtitle, "Memories of my Youth": the ultimate impression I came away with was that there was too much pulp, not enough flesh and bone.

Accessible, but also somewhat slight. Tepid recommendation

[Alessandro Fasanaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storico, filosofo, filologo, in generale erudito, Gershom Scholem è stato uno dei maggiori rappresentanti della cultura ebraica nel XX secolo. Soprattutto, uno dei promotori della sua ri-attualizzazione durante l’epoca più difficile della storia contemporanea. Il suo percorso di vita è di per sé esemplare di quello compiuto più in generale da una fetta di umanità: nato e cresciuto a Berlino, assisterà all’ascesa della follia nazionalista in Germania e abbraccerà l’identità religiosa dei padri, aderendo alla dottrina sionista che condurrà alla nascita di Israele.

‘Da Berlino a Gerusalemme‘ n’è il racconto appassionato, spesso insolitamente intimo per gli standards del personaggio in questione. L’infanzia in una capitale tedesca inedita per l’immaginario collettivo, gli studi, le amicizie – spesso eccellenti, da Walter Benjamin a Shmuel Y. Agnon – e soprattutto le battaglie intellettuali definiscono il percorso della nascita di una coscienza politica, figlia e partecipe del suo tempo.

Una lettura senz’altro importante per conoscere meglio la figura di un intellettuale molto influente nel suo ambito di studi, ma che si rivela interessante anche di fuori di quest’ultimo. Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1977, il libro ci si presenta nell’edizione ampliata nel 1982 col racconto del trasferimento nella Terra santa coltivata nel cuore prima che sui libri.

“Mi viene da ridere e da piangere allo stesso tempo: da ridere per i progressi che ha fatto la nostra lingua, e da piangere per il prezzo che abbiamo pagato”

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It may surprise you to learn that the pop Kabbalah of celebrities like Madonna was made possible by a German Jewish scholar born more than a century ago. Through his writings, Gershom Scholem turned Jewish mysticism from a topic that embarrassed most Western Jews to a serious research subject and source of popular interest. This memoir details his coming of age, personal and intellectual, in Berlin between the 1910s and 1920s, which prepared him for his lifelong research mission. Filling these pages are a motley crew of Zionists, anti-Zionists, pious Talmudists, charlatans, atheists, baptized Jews, aesthetes, Marxists, and cult leaders. Scholem's great scholarly insight was that the variety and weirdness of Jewish mysticism exploded the idea of a unitary Jewish tradition. This book explodes any sense of a unitary Jewishness in Germany. It is a fascinating portrait of a world on the brink of destruction.

[Jacek]

I get the sense that for Gershom Scholem, childhood and early youth were a sort of necessary trudge towards scholarship. Once he begins finding his heart's way into Judaica and especially the Kabbalah, the narrating voice becomes excited, and suddenly even the long catalogues of (to me) unfamiliar places and people and publishing houses become interesting to read.

I looked this up for the bits about befriending and hanging out with S. Y. Agnon in Germany, which did not disappoint.

[yelnats hammer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow a page-turner, maybe because it is basically an intellectual gossip column. His careful attention to his milieu is the strength and weakness of this book; we learn more about the philosophical orientation of others than of Scholem. The author impresses as a clear, ironic, humorous and dialectical thinker. Would be interested to read some of his academic work. (Major Trends added to reading list-he also may push me to some Kafka)

[Jamal · Rating 5 out of 5]

An autobiography from his youth in Berlin via Munich to his arrival in Jerusalem. Among other things, a sad love story is woven into the story. But also quite metaphysical and theologically profound statements not only at the end with the truth that is fulfilled in the land. With him about his statement to Moses de Leon

[Ilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important Jewish philosopher wrote a nice autobiography allowing to understand the history of Germany in the first half of 20 century, through the eyes of a Jew from Munich. Easy and pleasant reading.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers German Jewish family life prior to the First World War. You will not find this information in a history book. Gershom grew up in a non-observant middle class family and was a disappointment to his father because he studied math and languages. He was a Zionist and emigrated to Israel and became a professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the author of many books on kabbalah. Gershom was an intellectual's intellectual and cohorts with the German philosophers of that period as well friends with Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt. I look forward to reading more of his writing.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

In interesting journey into the life of a young scholar in Germany in the 1910s and 20s. Scholem was from a Jewish family that was about to assimilate. His own predilection was for mathematics, study of the Kaballah and Zionism. I found this to be an enjoyable read for the insight gained into this interesting man and also Jewish life (including family life and the differences and struggles among family members) in Germany in the early days of the 20th century. I now want to read another book by Scholem -- the one about his friendship with Walter Benjamin.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es handelt sich um meine Zweitlektüre des Buches. Und wenn man meine Liebe zur Autobiographie und meinen Hang zum Anekdotischen bedenkt, ist es nicht erstaunlich, dass diese überaus lebhaft geschriebenen Aufzeichnungen mir sehr gut gefallen haben.

Das Buch ist darüber hinaus sehr anregend, gibt Lust mehr zu lesen und mehr zu lernen, was nicht wu verschmähen ist.