The Legacy of German Jewry

Hermann Levin Goldschmidt, Translated by David Suchoff, Introduction by Willi Goetschel

First published in 1957, The Legacy of German Jewry is a comprehensive rethinking of the German-Jewish experience. Goldschmidt challenges the elegiac view of Gershom Scholem, showing us the German-Jewish legacy in literature, philosophy, and critical thought in a new light. That legacy, Goldschmidt argues, depended not just on a profound rethinking of Jewish sources and the idea of a universal culture, but on the productive and creative exchange German Jews discovered between the two.Part One re-examines the breakthrough to modernity, tracing out the moves of thinkers like Moses Mendelssohn. Part Two provides insight into Leo Baeck, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig, among others. Part Three analyzes the post-Auschwitz complex, using the Book of Job to break through that trauma. Ahead of his time and biblical in his perspective, Goldschmidt describes the innovative ways in which German-Jewish writers and thinkers anticipated what we now call multiculturalism and its concern with the Other.