Overview

Grappling with the place of Jewish philosophy at the margin of religious studies, Robert Erlewine examines the work of five Jewish philosophers—Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Joseph Soloveitchik—to bring them into dialogue within the discipline. Emphasizing the tenuous place of Jews in European, and particularly German, culture, Erlewine unapologetically contextualizes Jewish philosophy as part of the West. He teases out the antagonistic and overlapping attempts of Jewish thinkers to elucidate the philosophical and cultural meaning of Judaism when others sought to deny and even expel Jewish influences. By reading the canon of Jewish philosophy in this new light, Erlewine offers insight into how Jewish thinkers used religion to assert their individuality and modernity.

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Reviews

Judaism in the West is an excellent book, which reaches further than its unassuming tone would have one assume. It is essential reading for scholars of Jewish thought, and valuable for anyone interested in religious studies methodology, and the relationship between Jewish and religious studies. * Reading Religion * Erlewine's book provides a distinctive, indispensable introduction to modern Jewish thought.... Highly recommended. * Choice * [The] author has done an important service for the fields of Jewish studies and religious studies by linking the thought of five great modern Jewish philosophers directly to the problem of the West and of Judaism's place in it. * Harvard Theological Review * While the thinkers examined here are hardly unknown, each chapter offers an original analysis that builds on but also importantly adds to previous scholarship. One of the book's important contributions lays in the philosophical credit that is granted to Buber, Heschel, and Soloveitchik, who are often taken to be of less philosophical rigor than Cohen and Rosenzweig, and Erlewine's justification for giving this credit. * Religious Studies Review *

Erlewine's book provides a distinctive, indispensable introduction to modern Jewish thought. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice * While the thinkers examined here are hardly unknown, each chapter offers an original analysis that builds on but also importantly adds to previous scholarship. One of the book's important contributions lays in the philosophical credit that is granted to Buber, Heschel, and Soloveitchik, who are often taken to be of less philosophical rigor than Cohen and Rosenzweig, and Erlewine's justification for giving this credit. * Religious Studies Review *

An important study that provides a good overview of some of the problems and growing pains inherent to modern Jewish philosophizing. Taken as a whole, the book provides an excellent introduction to modern Jewish philosophy. -Aaron Hughes, author of The Invention of Jewish Identity A veritable tour de force and will certainly be greeted as a seminal contribution to the study of modern Jewish thought. -Paul Mendes-Flohr, author of The Promises and Limitations of Interfaith Dialogue Erlewine's book provides a distinctive, indispensable introduction to modern Jewish thought... Highly recommended. -Choice

An important study that provides a good overview of some of the problems and growing pains inherent to modern Jewish philosophizing. Taken as a whole, the book provides an excellent introduction to modern Jewish philosophy. Aaron Hughes, author of The Invention of Jewish Identity

Author Information

Robert Erlewine is Associate Professor of Religion at Illinois Wesleyan University. He is author of Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason (IUP, 2009).

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