Redemption and utopia

Description:

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there appeared in Central Europe a generation of Jewish intellectuals whose work was to transform modern culture. Drawing at once on the traditions of German Romanticism and Jewish messianism, their thought was organized around the cabalistic idea of the “tikkoun”: redemption. Redemption and Utopia uses the concept of “elective affinity” to explain the surprising community of spirit that existed between redemptive messianic religious thought and the wide variety of radical secular utopian beliefs held by this important group of intellectuals. The author outlines the circumstances that produced this unusual combination of religious and non-religious thought and illuminates the common assumptions that united such seemingly disparate figures as Martin Buber, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukács. (Source: [Verso Books](https://www.versobooks.com/books/2397-redemption-and-utopia))

subjects: Cultural assimilation,  German Jews,  History,  Intellectual life,  Jews,  Jews, German,  Reform Judaism,  Cabala,  Jewish Philosophy,  Judaism,  Philosophy, Jewish,  Redemption,  Religion: general,  Jews, europe

People: Martin Buber (1878-1965),  Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929),  Gershom Gerhard Scholem (1897-1982),  Leo Löwenthal (1900-1993),  Franz Kafka (1883-1924),  Walter Benjamin (1892-1940),  Gustav Landauer (1870-1919),  Ernst Bloch (1885-1977),  György Lukács (1885-1971),  Erich Fromm (1900-1980),  Bernard Lazare (1865-1903)

Places: Central Europe

Times: 20th century