Martin Buber: His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy is a collection of contemporary reflections on one of the most pivotal figures of modern Jewish thought. Born in Austria and reared in Galicia, Buber (1878-1965) became a spiritual representative of Judaism in German culture before emigrating to Jerusalem on the brink of the Shoah. His prolific writings on matters spanning the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to Hasidism and Zionism inspired diverse audiences throughout the world. In this volume, Sam Berrin Shonkoff has curated an illuminating array of essays on Buber’s thought by leading intellectuals from five different countries. Their treatments of Buber’s dialogues with Christianity, politics, philosophy, and Judaism exhibit Buber’s ramified legacy and will surely stimulate fruitful discussion in our own time.
Sam Berrin Shonkoff, Ph.D. (2018), University of Chicago, is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Oberlin College. His writings have appeared recently in The Journal of Religion,The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, and Brill’s Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers.
Preface Sam Berrin Shonkoff
part 1 Dialogues with Christianity
1 Theolatry and the Making-Present of the Nonrepresentable: Undoing (A)Theism in Eckhart and BuberElliot R. Wolfson 2 Defining Christianity and Judaism from the Perspective of Religious Anarchy: Martin Buber on Jesus and the Ba‘al Shem TovShaul Magid
3 “Companionable Being”: American Theologians Engage Martin BuberW. Clark Gilpin 4 Beyond the Law and Without the Cross: Martin Buber and Saint Paul as an Apostolic Competition between “Two Types of Faith”Christoph Schmidt
part 2 Dialogues with the Political
5 The Hard and the Soft: Moments in the Reception of Martin Buber as a Political ThinkerSamuel Hayim Brody 6 Versions of Binationalism in Said and BuberJudith Butler 7 Martin Buber’s SocialismMichael Löwy 8 Buber’s ProvocationPaul Mendes-Flohr
part 3 Dialogues with Philosophy and Philosophers
9 From Genius to Taste: Martin Buber’s AestheticismSarah Scott 10 The Paradox of Realization: Buber on the Transcendental Boundary of Spatial ImagesMartina Urban 11 Martin Buber and Leo Strauss: Notes on a Strained RelationshipPhilip von Wussow 12 Martin Buber and the Problem of Dialogue in Contemporary ThoughtHans Joas
part 4 Dialogues with Jewish Sources
13 Religious Authenticity and Spiritual Resistance: Martin Buber and Biblical HermeneuticsMichael Fishbane 14 Buber’s Biblical Hermeneutics and Education—Some New PerspectivesJonathan Cohen 15 The Tragedy of the Messianic Dialectic: Buber’s Novel Gog and MagogFumio Ono 16 Sacramental Existence and Embodied Theology in Buber’s Representation of ḤasidismSam Berrin ShonkoffIndex
All interested in Continental philosophy, modern political and ethical thought, modern religious thought, Jewish-Christian relations, modern Jewish philosophy, the German-Jewish renaissance, and of course the figure of Martin Buber.