Arthur Hertzberg

Arthur Hertzberg ( June 9, 1921 in Lubaczów, Poland, † April 17, 2006 in Westwood, New Jersey) was a conservative rabbi, who played an important role in the development of post-war Jewry. He taught as a rabbi and wrote fundamental works on the modern anti-Semitism and Zionism.

Life

At the age of five years, Arthur Hertzberg leaves with his parents Europe and comes in the Orthodox community of Youngstown, Ohio, where he, as he later recalled, as a teenager, however, pronounce that the literary meaning of the Talmud, Kabbalah and should be the writings of Hasidism lower than, for example, Homer's Iliad or Odyssey, or as Dante's Inferno. His own father is an Orthodox rabbi, rooted in Judaism in Eastern Europe. He has Arthur in the intricacies of the Talmud and of the other great scriptures of Judaism. Although Hertzberg will later move from orthodoxy toward conservative Judaism, he once said: " I used my heresy ' never an excuse for allowing me the culture of a majority of my own prefer. " He will Phyllis Cannon, the couple married in 1950 parents of two daughters.

In its over fifty year career Hertzberg has worked as a congregational rabbi, as President of the American Jewish Policy Foundation and the American Jewish Congress, Vice President of the World Jewish Congress and represents Judaism at the forefront in the Catholic- Jewish dialogue during the tenure of John XXIII. He joins 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. during his "March on Washington for work and freedom " at, the peak of the American civil rights movement. He also plays a major role in the debate with the Catholic Church about the non-publication of documents relating to Pius XII. and the Holocaust. Also noteworthy is his clear criticism of the political behavior of Israel towards Palestine. Arthur Hertzberg was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, Germany's first rabbinical seminary since the Shoah.

In his major work, The French Enlightenment and the Jews: The Origins of Modern Anti -Semitism ( lit.: The French Enlightenment and the Jews: The origin of modern anti-Semitism ) of 1968, he shows how the origin of modern anti-Semitism on the "liberal" worldview enlightened philosophers like Voltaire can be recycled. Similarly, his work, The Zionist Idea justified: A Historical Analysis and Reader of 1972, the Zionism - studies and describes modern Zionism as a secular movement to re-establish Jewish identity beside the widespread nationalism of other peoples. Hertzberg, who describes himself as a pragmatic liberal, sees no contradiction between his political judgment and his reverence for the Jewish, divorced from religious fundamentalism traditions.

Writings (selection )

• The French Enlightenment and the Jews. The Origins of Modern Anti -Semitism, 1968
• Zionist Idea. A Historical Analysis & Reader, 1972
• The Jews in America (German Shalom, America 324 The history of the Jews in the new Welt1992; currently under ISBN 3-633-54110-1 )
• Judaism (German Judaism The foundations of the Jewish religion, 1993;. Currently under 3-499-16522-8 )
• Together with Aron Hirt- Manheimer: Jews (Eng. Who is a Jew beings and embossing of a people, 2000; currently under ISBN 3-423-30806-0? )

Quotes

• "I was American by I refused to adapt. "
• " Everything I have written in the past half century, is based on the premises that I learned from Kaplan and Baron. "
• " I identified the ghetto Never backwardness. "