Reviews for Western Jewry and the Zionist Project, 1914-1933

The average rating for Western Jewry and the Zionist Project, 1914-1933 based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-08-20 00:00:00 Sean Mckiernan A very good intellectual biography of a highly underrated, obscure and eccentric character in the story of the German Enlightenment. Because of the restrictions on Jews in the 18th century Maimon had access to a different corpus. Instead of adhering to the doctrine of Rational Psychology, promoted by Wolff, Cartesianism, and the bleached white Spinoza rip-off mannequin that is clothed in Christianity (Leibniz), Maimon used the Medieval Aristotelian-Averroës school, Yeshiva, and the up and coming Hasidism. He compared Kant to Moses. One threw down the tablets and the other showed us the tables of judgement and understanding. Maimon temporarily patched a resolution for Kant's dualism. This ad hoc resolution permeated their intellectual context, and was then taken up by the next generation of German Idealists. Maimon contributed significantly to developing the (form of) Idealism we are now familiar with. So credit where it's due.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-02-06 00:00:00 Christopher Johnson This book gives some good color on Jewish life, but it fails to properly contextualize things and it makes too many pleas on behalf of the poor persecuted Jews to be an objective source.