Correspondence – 1939-1964

Edited by Marie Luise Knott in collaboration with David Heredia; with approximately 20 illustrations
Suhrkamp | Insel
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Correspondence – 1939-1964 / Hannah Arendt / Gershom Scholem Der Briefwechsel
Edited by Marie Luise Knott in collaboration with David Heredia; with approximately 20 illustrations
This first-time publication of the correspondence between Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt is a unique contemporary historical document: a discussion on crucial questions of Jewish history and self-image after the Shoah led by two of the 20th century’s most significant thinkers of Jewish extraction.


»Jews die in Europe and they are buried like dogs.« This is how the letter ends in which Hannah Arendt informs Gershom Scholem in October 1940 that Walter Benjamin has taken...
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This first-time publication of the correspondence between Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt is a unique contemporary historical document: a discussion on crucial questions of Jewish history and self-image after the Shoah led by two of the 20th century’s most significant thinkers of Jewish extraction.


»Jews die in Europe and they are buried like dogs.« This is how the letter ends in which Hannah Arendt informs Gershom Scholem in October 1940 that Walter Benjamin has taken his life while escaping from the Nazis. In times of greatest danger, a correspondence begins that is underpinned by a commitment to the work of their mutual friend and in which, from New York and Jerusalem, the world of European Judaism is always kept in sight. On behalf of the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, whose aim it was to save Jewish cultural assets stolen by the Nazis, Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem travelled for the first time back to Germany in the early post-war years. This largely unknown chapter in both their histories is documented in the letters and hitherto unpublished reports by Hannah Arendt of her 1949/50 journey through Germany. In 1963, Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem was published. In it, her criticism of Jewish representatives during the time of the Shoah was thoroughly rejected by Gershom Scholem in a public controversy. The dialogue that they had maintained for over two decades ended in silence.

»A unique document of contemporary history and of the German-Jewish mind in the twentieth-century.« Süddeutsche Zeitung

»These letters illuminate the historical record by placing into context and documenting not only the profound differences between these powerful personalities but also their commonalities, shared activities, interests, and loyalties. (One hopes that English and Hebrew translations of this correspondence are forthcoming.)« Jewish Review of Books

»Now that the full correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem has finally been published, we can begin to understand the contours and dynamics of a relationship that was always complex. These letters illuminate the historical record by placing into context and documenting not only the profound differences between these powerful personalities but also their commonalities, shared activities, interests, and loyalties.« Steven E. Aschheim, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

»A unique document of contemporary history and of the German-Jewish mind in the twentieth-century.« Süddeutsche Zeitung

»These letters illuminate the historical record by placing into context and documenting not only the profound differences between these powerful personalities but also their commonalities, shared activities, interests, and loyalties. (One hopes that English and Hebrew translations of this correspondence are forthcoming.)« Jewish Review of...

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2010, 695 pages
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Persons

Gershom Scholem, 1897 – 1982, established a new strand of research with his work: the academic exploration of Jewish mysticism that opened up a new understanding of Jewish history. His work has been translated into 40 languages. His correspondences with Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt are legendary.

Gershom Scholem, 1897 – 1982, established a new strand of research with his work: the academic exploration of Jewish mysticism that opened...

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) is one of the most significant thinkers of the 20th century. Driven into exile in America by the Nazis, she, a German-Jew, posed fundamental questions on philosophy and politics. Her life and thoughts opposed the constraints of the times with an attitude of independence and freedom.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) is one of the most significant thinkers of the 20th century. Driven into exile in America by the Nazis, she, a German-Jew,...

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Poetica
Year of Publication: 2019
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 2019

Gershom Scholem’s name goes beyond the frontiers of Jewish Studies into the history of Jewish mysticism and Messianic Judaism. It is less well known that during his lifetime Scholem was intensely involved with poetry and translation as well as with philological questions on the theory of language. This edition shows the literary side of the famous academic. It provides a comprehensive and...

Correspondence 1939 - 1969
Year of Publication: 2015
Theodor W. Adorno, Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 2015

»I really like him and we find that we have an awful lot to say to each other« Gershom Scholem wrote to Walter Benjamin in 1938. With »he« Scholem meant Theodor W. Adorno, the man whom...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Polity), Spanish world rights (Eterna Cadencia)

»There is a Secret in the World«
Year of Publication: 2002
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 2002

How did Gershom Scholem, the great scholar and researcher of Jewish mysticism, assess Judaism’s chances of survival in a secularised world? The two texts in this volume shed light on this...

Rights sold to:
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta), France (Bayard), Italy (selection; Giuntina)
Diaries, Essays and Sketches Until 1923
Year of Publication: 2000
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 2000
Gershom Scholem’s diaries, published from his estate, acquaint us with the beginnings of the great Jewish scholar’s intellectual development. Scholem’s life led him from Berlin to...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (for the selection »On Eduard Mörike's Nolten the Painter« / »On Rainer Maria Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge«; Bamberger Books), France (Editions Rue D’Ulm)

Judaica VI
Year of Publication: 1997
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1997
The present volume provides another access to the often-quoted manifesto on the study of kabbalah. Judaica VI thus brings together Scholem’s most important programmatic writings and gives the reader an idea of the consistent radicalism with which Gershom Scholem dedicated himself to the science of Judaism.
Diaries, Essays and Sketches Until 1923
Year of Publication: 1995
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1995
Not only was Gershom Scholem one of the most important scholars of this century, he also founded his own subject: the study of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, which opens up a new understanding of...
Rights sold to:

France (Editions Rue D'Ulm)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (selection 1913 - 1919; Harvard UP)

Judaica V
Year of Publication: 1992
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1992
Twenty years before his monumental work Sabbatai Zwi, which was first published in German by Jüdischer Verlag in 1922, Gersholm Scholem rattled the traditional Jewish worldview and its historiography with his essay »Redemption through Sin« in 1937. Scholem describes the history of the followers of the Jewish mystic and messiah Sabbatai Zwi (1626–1676) after the...
Judaica IV
Year of Publication: 1984
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1984

Among Gershom Scholem’s works, the three volumes of the Judaica probably achieved the widest circulation. The publication of a fourth volume, which Scholem planned, was prevented by...

Rights sold to:

France (Éditions du Cerf), Italy (selection; Giuntina), Sweden (selection; Faethon)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Japan (Sakuhin Sha)

Walter Benjamin and His Angel
Year of Publication: 1983
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1983
Content:
Vorrede zu Benjamins »Briefen«
Benjamin und sein Engel
Nachtrag: Die geheimen Namen Walter Benjamins
Walter Benjamin und Felix...
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Italy (Adelphi)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta)

Correspondence 1933-1940
Year of Publication: 1983
Gershom Scholem, Walter BenjaminYear of Publication: 1983

The correspondence between Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem spans from March 1933 to February 1940. The letters document the last period in Benjamin’s life: the problems of material existence,...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Schocken Books), Spanish world rights (Trotta), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai Sanhui), Italy (Adelphi), Turkey (Ketebe)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Brazilian Portuguese rights (Perspectiva), France (L'Éclat), Korea (Saemulgyul), Japan (Hosei UP)

On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead
Year of Publication: 1977
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1977

»In the Zohar and other writings of the Kabbalah, Jewish mystics developed concepts and symbols to help them penetrate secrets of the cosmos that cannot be understood through reason or...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Schocken Books), France (Éditions du Cerf)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Portuguese rights (Dom Quixote), Italy (Adelphi), Poland (Aletheia), Czech Republic (Malvern), Romania (Editura Hasefer)

From Berlin to Jerusalem
Year of Publication: 1977
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1977
On his 80th birthday, Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) created the most beautiful birthday present for himself: the memories of his youth in the Jewish milieu in the still quiet Berlin of the early...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Paul Dry Books), France (Albin Michel), Italy (Einaudi), Sweden (Faethon)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese simplex rights (Lijiang), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Perspectiva), Netherlands (Amphora Books), Japan (Hosei UP), Czech Republic (Periplum)

Walter Benjamin – The Story of a Friendship
Year of Publication: 1975
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1975
Gershom Scholem’s report is more than a biography. Documented in partially unpublished documents, the most intimate expert of the biography and oeuvre of Walter Benjamin examines...
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Spanish world rights (PRH (Debolsillo)), Chinese simplex rights (Chongqing Yuanyang Culture & Press), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Perspectiva), France (Calmann-Lévy), Italy (Adelphi), Sweden (H. Ström)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (NYRB), Russia (Grundrisse), Korea (Hangilsa), Japan (Shobunsha)

On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism
Year of Publication: 1973
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1973
Scholem’s studies on the Kabbalah – the secret Jewish mystical-theosophical doctrine that claims to be ancient revelation – are a fascinating contribution to understanding the...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Schocken Books), Arabic world rights (Al Kamel), France (Payot & Rivages), Italy (Adelphi)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Siglo XXI), Poland (Aletheia), Czech Republic (Volvox Globator), Hungary (Hermit), Bulgaria (Bulgariski Haudozhnik), Romania (Humanitas), Croatia (Hlad I Sinovj), Serbia (Vuk Karadžić)

Judaica III
Year of Publication: 1973
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1973
The third volume of the Judaica is dedicated to issues of mysticism. Gershom Scholem suceeds in writing Jewish history anew from a place of a deeper understanding of the interplay between...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (selection; Siruela), France (selection; Allia), Italy (selection; Adelphi), Brazilian Portuguese rights (selection; Perspectiva), Sweden (selection; Faethon)

Judaica II
Year of Publication: 1970
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1970
The first volume of the Judaica is followed by a second, a collection of lectures and essays by Scholem, the great representative of Jewish heritage. They revolve around two themes: firstly,...
Rights sold to:

Brazilian Portuguese rights (selection; Perspectiva), Sweden (selection; Faethon)

On A Few Basic Concepts of Judaism
Year of Publication: 1970
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1970
In this work, Gershom Scholem examines the guiding threads that are the foundation for understanding the concepts of God, Creation, Revelation, Tradition and Salvation in...
Rights sold to:

Italy (Marietti), Poland (Aletheia)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta)

Judaica I
Year of Publication: 1963
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1963
Scholarly research has secured Gershom Scholem‘s prominent place among the interpreters of Judaism and the Jewish past. Just like his standard works on Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah, the...
Rights sold to:

Brazilian Portuguese rights (selection; Perspectiva), Sweden (selection; Feathon)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: France (selection; Calmann-Lévy)

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
Year of Publication: 1957
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1957
With this work, Gershom Scholem created the scholarly basis for the study of Jewish mysticism. Through a comprehensive analysis and interpretation of documents of the Jewish mystical tradition, this...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Schocken Books), Italy (Einaudi), Czech Republic (Argo), Romania (Federatia Comunitatilor Evreiesti Din Romania), Turkey (Alfa)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Siruela), France (Payot & Rivages), Sweden (Symposion), Poland (Aletheia), Israel (Miskal Publishing)

Sabbatai Zevi
Year of Publication: 1957
Gershom ScholemYear of Publication: 1957

In his opus magnum Scholem reconstructs a biography that had a unique impact on the history of Judaism. The history of the Jewish faith, of mysticism and Kabbala, thousands of years old, form the...

Rights sold to:

Italy (Adelphi), Turkey (Alfa)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Japan (Hosei UP)


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News
05.12.2022
German-Israeli author Gershom Scholem would have celebrated his 125th birthday today.
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