Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth-Century Thought Book

Finally, what I took away from this volume:
Idel's suggestion that, I paraphrase, 'there is less Kabbala in Kafka, than there is Kafka in Scholem's reconstructions of Kabbala'. That Scholem often introduces innovations in his interpretations, without making it clear that his readings are novel, rather than resuscitation of traditonal readings.
ALso, that Scholem's school of followers is a little ossified orthodoxy, which enshrined the master's words as some dogma, rather than pioneering attempts at interpretation which must be checked and re-checked.
He is a little too tough on Steiner, I think, almost accusing him of calling forth a new Holocaust by his privileging of the figure of a displaced, cosmopolitan Jew as a perennially critical thorn in the side of Gentile cultures. As if such a figure was all too common today.
All in all, if you are obsessed with the minutae of politico-theological and philosophical in the German-Jewish tradition, you will find this volume alternately tedious and inspiring, as I did.