German-Jewish Hermeneutics Conference, October 2018

In the early 20th century, German Jews were avidly interested in Jewish and Christian scriptures, whether as a basis for an inter-religious conversation (Franz Rosenzweig), for Jewish renewal (Martin Buber) or artistic inspiration (Else Lasker-Schüler). Though they did not realize it was to be the culmination of a century-old conversation about emancipation and assimilation, key thinkers in the German and German-Jewish elite of this time brought theology and hermeneutics into a reconsideration of the present and possible future of what it might mean to be both Jewish and German. Today, in Jewish Studies and in German Studies, we find ourselves rereading these materials after our own “linguistic turn” and “political turn” have come and gone. What can these German Jews, obsessed as they were with the Jewish prophets, with Augustine and with Paul, tell us about our own scholarly moment?