Martin Buber's Theopolitics

Samuel Hayim Brody

Description

How did one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the 20th century grapple with the founding of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—one of the most significant political conflicts of his time? Samuel Hayim Brody traces the development of Martin Buber's thinking and its implications for the Jewish religion, for the problems posed by Zionism, and for the Zionist-Arab conflict. Beginning in turbulent Weimar Germany, Brody shows how Buber's debates about Biblical meanings had concrete political consequences for anarchists, socialists, Zionists, Nazis, British, and Palestinians alike. Brody further reveals how Buber's passionate commitment to the rule of God absent an intermediary came into conflict in the face of a Zionist movement in danger of repeating ancient mistakes. Brody argues that Buber's support for Israel stemmed from a radically rich and complex understanding of the nature of the Jewish mission on earth that arose from an anarchist reading of the Bible.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation/Transliteration
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: What is Theopolitics?
Part One: From Anarchism to Anarcho-Theocracy: The Birth of Theopolitics
1. The True Front: Buber and Landauer on Anarchism and Revolution
2. The Serpent: Theopolitics from Weimar to Nazi Germany
3. God against Messiah: The Kingship of God and the Ancient Israelite Anarcho-Theocracy
Part Two: The Anointed and the Prophet: Theopolitics in Israel from Exodus to Exile
4. Between Pharaohs and Nomads: Moses
5. The Arcanum of the Monarchy: The Anointed
6. The Battle for YHVH: The Prophetic Faith
Part Three: Theopolitics and Zion
7. Palestinian Rain: Zionism as Applied Theopolitics
8. This Pathless Hour: Theopolitics in the Present
Conclusion: The Narrow Ridge, the Razor's Edge
Appendix: Martin Buber to Hans Kohn, 10/4/1939
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy of religion

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 16 février 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253035370
• Langue: English

Extrait

MARTIN BUBER S THEOPOLITICS
NEW JEWISH PHILOSOPHY AND THOUGHT
Zachary J. Braiterman
MARTIN BUBER S THEOPOLITICS
Samuel Hayim Brody
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2018 by Samuel Hayim Brody
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brody, Samuel Hayim, author.
Title: Martin Buber s theopolitics / Samuel Hayim Brody.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2018] | Series: New Jewish philosophy and thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017054186 (print) | LCCN 2017054647 (e-book) | ISBN 9780253030221 (e-book) | ISBN 9780253029751 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253030030 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Buber, Martin, 1878-1965. | Judaism and politics. | Politics in the Bible. | Arab-Israeli conflict. | Zionism and Judaism. | Palestine-In Judaism.
Classification: LCC B3213.B84 (e-book) | LCC B3213.B84 B76 2018 (print) | DDC 296.3/82092-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017054186
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To my parents
Love work. Hate positions of domination. Do not make yourself known to the authorities.
-Shemayah, Pirkei Avot 1:10 (translation of Siddur Sim Shalom )
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation and Transliteration
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: What Is Theopolitics?
Part I. From Anarchism to Anarcho-Theocracy: The Birth of Theopolitics
1 The True Front: Buber and Landauer on Anarchism and Revolution
2 The Serpent: Theopolitics from Weimar to Nazi Germany
3 God against Messiah: The Kingship of God and the Ancient Israelite Anarcho-Theocracy
Part II. The Anointed and the Prophet: Theopolitics in Israel from Exodus to Exile
4 Between Pharaohs and Nomads: Moses
5 The Arcanum of the Monarchy: The Anointed
6 The Battle for YHVH: The Prophetic Faith
Part III. Theopolitics and Zion
7 Palestinian Rain: Zionism as Applied Theopolitics
8 This Pathless Hour: Theopolitics in the Present
Conclusion: The Narrow Ridge, the Razor s Edge
Appendix: Martin Buber to Hans Kohn, October 4, 1939
Selected Bibliography
Index
Preface
T HIS BOOK is about what it might be like to think about religion and politics together in a liberating rather than an oppressive way. It explores the topic primarily through the lens of one thinker, the Jewish author Martin Buber (1878-1965).
Buber was born and raised in Habsburg Galicia and Vienna, and educated in Germany. He lived through World War I, the end of the Kaiser s reign, the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic, and five years of the Nazi Reich. In 1938 he fled to Palestine, which was itself in the midst of the Arab Revolt against the Zionists and the British. There he witnessed the declaration of the State of Israel and the first decades of its existence. And throughout this whole period, he was writing.
So, this book is about the kingship of God. It is about anarchists and Zionists, ancient Israelites and modern Israelis, German liberals and Nazis. It is about the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinian struggle, and how one man tried to reconcile the two. It is about how modern Jews have read and continue to read the Bible for answers to their questions.
The book is intended to be read as one long story, but each chapter can stand on its own for readers with a special interest in a particular topic. Readers who are primarily interested in anarchism and revolution should start with chapter 1 . Readers interested in German politics and theology in the Weimar era can turn to chapter 2 . Those concerned with Zionism, its conflict with the Palestinians, and the special role that Buber plays in arguments on these topics may skip to chapter 7 , although I hope they then go back to read the other chapters. Finally, chapter 8 will be of most interest to readers who follow contemporary trends in philosophy and political theory.
Chapters 3 - 6 are the heart of the book. Chapter 3 focuses intensely on Buber s 1932 work Kingship of God , to lay out his idea of theopolitics as fully as possible. Chapters 4 - 6 then show how the ideas of Kingship of God are elaborated in Buber s other, later biblical writings: Moses ( chapter 4 ), The Anointed (the unfinished, still-untranslated sequel to Kingship of God , presented in chapter 5 ), and The Prophetic Faith ( chapter 6 ). These chapters are the living center that radiate outward to the rest of the book, orienting everything from anarchism to Zionism.
Caption for Cover Art
This work appeared on the frontispiece to the issue of Masken , the D sseldorf theater journal, in which appeared Martin Buber s eulogy Landauer und die Revolution. Signed by H. Petermann (possibly Hedwig Petermann, a D sseldorf artist with whom Landauer corresponded), it seems intended to evoke the Brescia church mural described by Buber at the end of his eulogy (see chapter 1 ). In this context, however, it evokes not only the ten thousand martyrs of medieval Christian art but also the crucified of the Spartacus revolts, both ancient and modern, among whom Buber saw Landauer hanging. Masken: Halbmonatschrift des D sseldorfer Schauspielhauses 14.18-19 (1919).
Acknowledgments
P AUL M ENDES -F LOHR , my Doktorvater , and the University of Chicago Divinity School provided a warm and challenging atmosphere for my graduate study. In particular, I d like to thank Michael Fishbane, Bruce Lincoln, Margaret Mitchell, David Nirenberg, Lucy Pick, Jim Robinson, Richard Rosengarten, and Eric Santner. And finally, the late Jean Bethke Elshtain, with whom I disagreed about much in theology and politics but who was a giving and thoughtful teacher.
The administration and faculty of the Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary generously funded my master s degree. I owe a great deal to the many wonderful teachers I had there, especially Alan Mittleman, whose dry wit and reasoned disagreements sharpened my thinking.
The University of Cincinnati Department of Judaic Studies and the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas gave me welcoming institutional homes to teach, research, and finish my work on this book. I d especially like to thank my colleagues at KU: Jackie Brinton, Bill Lindsey, Joshua Lollar, Tim Miller, Paul Mirecki, Hamsa Stainton, Dan Stevenson, Molly Zahn, and Michael Zogry.
Sections of this book were presented as papers over the years at the conferences of the American Academy of Religion, the Association of Jewish Studies, and the Society for Jewish Ethics, as well as at the Yale Modern Jewish History Colloquium, the Harvard Jewish Studies Workshop, and the Israel-Palestine Graduate Group at Boston College. I am grateful to all of them for their invitations and critical feedback.
Thanks to Dee Mortensen and Paige Rasmussen of Indiana University Press for taking on this project, and for being so easy to work with. And thanks to Asher Biemann and Michael Morgan, the manuscript s outside readers, for their critical and constructive feedback.
The Borrowing Unit Staff at the Interlibrary Loan department of the Van Pelt Library, at the University of Pennsylvania, assisted me in an extensive search for the image that appears on this book s cover. The ILL office of the library of Washington University in St. Louis was finally able to supply it. Both have my gratitude. Heba Mostafa and Mary Channen Caldwell generously assisted me in tracing the image s lineage.
Thanks to the Klau Library, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, for permission to publish the appendix. The original letter can be found there in the Hans Kohn Collection, box 1, I: Correspondence: 1939, 1.
Thanks to Walter de Gruyter in Berlin for permission to republish material from Samuel Hayim Brody, Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? in Dialogue as a Trans-Disciplinary Concept: Martin Buber s Philosophy of Dialogue and Its Contemporary Reception , edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr, 61-88 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015).
Many colleagues make my fields quite simply decent places to be-or as decent as possible in the face of unrelenting political and economic indecency. Martin Kavka and Randi Rashkover above all, and others too many to name. They know who they are.
Carrie Caine is most likely the only person besides my parents to have read this book in all its forms. She did drudge work on the footnotes to chapter 6 and provided crucial editorial suggestions in the crunch. She truly does whatever a Carrie Caine.
This book is dedicated to my parents, Ruth Sussman and Jules Brody, who taught me to love learning, and whose love and support have always shaped my life.
Note on Translation and Transliteration
T RANSLATIONS FROM THE Tanakh are usually drawn from the old Jewish Publication Society (1917) version, though I have frequently tweaked the translation to bring it closer to the new JPS. New Testament translations are from the New Revised Standard Version.
I have not employed any standardized transliteration schemes, such as that of the Society of Biblical Literature, preferring to employ less specialized transliterations more accessible to general readers. When I cite German bi