Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 17891848 [Paperback]

In this book Rose illuminates the extraordinary creativity of Jewish intellectuals as they reevaluated Judaism with the tools of a German philosophical tradition fast emerging as central to modern intellectual life. While previous work emphasizes the subversive dimensions of German-Jewish thought or the inner antisemitism of the German philosophical tradition, Rose shows convincingly the tremendous resources German philosophy offered contemporary Jews for thinking about the place of Jews in the wider polity. Offering a fundamental reevaluation of seminal figures and key texts, Rose emphasizes the productive encounter between Jewish intellectuals and German philosophy. He brings to light both the complexity and the ambivalence of reflecting on Jewish identity and politics from within a German tradition that invested tremendous faith in the political efficacy of philosophical thought itself.

SVEN-ERIK ROSE is associate professor of German, University of California, Davis.

Acknowledgments Introduction Off with Their Heads? Lazarus Bendavids Vision of Kantian Subjects at the End of Jewish History Becoming Citizens of Hegels State, or the Politics of Wissenschaft des Judentums in 1820s Germany Locating Themselves in History: Hegel in Key Texts of the Verein Marxs Real Jews between Volk and Proletariat: Productivizing Social Abjection and Grounding Radical Social Critique Patriotic Pantheism: Spinoza in Berthold Auerbachs Early Career Moses Hess: Beyond the Politics of Self-Possession Concluding Remarks Abbreviations Notes Works Cited Index