Joseph Klausner

Joseph Gedaliah Klausner (Hebrew יוסף גדליה קלוזנר; born August 20, 1874 in Olkeniki, Lithuania, † October 27, 1958 in Jerusalem) was a Russian literary critic, historian and scholar of religion.

His family had moved because of the increasing anti-Semitism in Lithuania at the turn of the century to Odessa. Klausner, a staunch Zionist who Theodor Herzl had personally met and also participated in the First Zionist Congress, where he received early in life a professor of Hebrew literature. In 1919 he emigrated to Palestine and received at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the chair of Hebrew literature and later also for the study of the history of the Second Temple. His private library contains - according to his great-nephew Amos Oz - 25,000 books.

He was not an orthodox Jew, but rather a national liberal Zionist, but had a comprehensive knowledge of the Talmud and the entire Hebrew literature. He became famous for his book Jesus of Nazareth and the continuation of Jesus to Paul. His position is that Jesus was a Jewish reformer who had died as a committed Jew, was attacked by Christian and Jewish side sharp. He gave HaMeassef out (Heb. " the collector " ) Ahad Ha'am of and was Conservative candidate for the presidency of Israel. With Chaim Weizmann he had several controversies.

His home in Talpiot was largely destroyed during the Arab riots of 1929. In recognition of his services to the State of Israel issued a commemorative stamp for him. In addition, the street in which his house stood, was renamed in his honor in Klausner Street. This writes his great-nephew Amos Oz in his autobiographical novel A Tale of Love and Darkness, in the three chapters (9-11) "Uncle Joseph " are dedicated. To his neighbors, the eminent Hebrew writer Samuel Josef Agnon, was - according to Amos Oz - only a very strained relationship.

Swell

• John F. Oppenheimer (ed. ): Encyclopedia of Judaism. 2nd edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh 1971, inter alia, ISBN 3-570-05964-2.