mentalblog.com comments:
This fight goes back as you point out to the teens of the 20th century and was carried on for almost a half century after that. When I was young and read the attacks on Buber in Commentary and in books like his Devarim Begav I like you was convinced Buber was a bit of a showman /charlatan. But I sense the tide has turned thanks to people like Mendes- Flohr and the publication of Scholem's early correspondence with Benjamin. Here are three reasons.
Scholem used to present the issues as scharmerei vs. wissenschaft. But it now turns out his philosophy of language and his ideas on political theology are as mushy and mystical as Buber's just a little different. (A good intro. is Eric Jacobson's Metaphysics of the Profane.)
The Scholem idea of chassidus as watered down kabbalah or kosher style Sabbateanism has seen better days.
Much of his complaining had an underlay of envy. They were both Zionists who favored a bi-national state, both were religious people who had never seen the inside of a shul for decades and both were anti German-Jewish symbiosis pro Hebrew nationalists who thought, wrote and remained deeply immersed in German culture until the day they died. Two peas in a pod except Buber played the role of sage and was a famous celebrity which in turn drove Scholem up a wall.
"bi-national state"? bs, stop inserting YOUR politics here.
Sholem was on and off really frum. I think he was fully frum BT for two years preceding this diary. Sholem attended a a steady gemoro shir. He had much stronger textual command compared to Buber, no comparison. Buber was Galitzianer, Sholem was German. Buber was older but Sholem's criticism of the Buber cult (of which Sholem partaken himself) is spot on.
"bi-national state"? bs, stop inserting YOUR politics here.
evnastonejew is correct – Buber was indeed very-very vocal about his support for the binational solution in Palestine going all the way to 1925. Read also about Judah Magnes. This is all very well documented and is not a subject for debate. Buber failed in 1948, but he ultimately succeeded in turning his Hebrew University into a hub that nurtured a generation of intellectuals and writers that later brought about a major shift in the opinion of the Israeli intelligentsia on the subject of accommodation with the Arabs and on issue of the moral right of the Jews to the Land.
tzemach...As Berl pointed out I wasn't inserting my politics. I do not suport a binational state with Hamas, though I most certainly would have supported bi-nationalism in the 30's.You are so fast on the trigger it is a bit of a sakanah to comment here.
Yes, Scholem had a better command of the texts and was interested in philological accuracy in his research, though not in his philosophy which was German language mysticism at its most incomprehensible. Buber was who he was, but he did have some first hand knowledge of chassidus because he did live with his scholarly zayde Shlome Buber. In suggesting that Scholem's German scholarly knowledge of chassidus was superior to Buber's experiential understanding, you are repeating much of the implicit snobbism in Scholem's treatment of Buber... not only was Buber the darling of German speaking Jewry he was an ostjude. For Scholem and many more today, Benjamin the Communist assimilationist cool yekke could do no wrong, whereas the sappy Buber who brought many back to yiddishkeit and Zionism could do no right.
Ditto for Shlomo Carlebach and say Amy Winehouse.
evanstonjew, even in this quote Sholem doesn't argue that Buber knows his subject.
Ideology second, personal relationships first. Walter Benjamin was a very close friend to Sholem. They spent hours and hours taking and writing about ideas.
Why do you have to measure what anyone says against some external idealogical marker that resides in your head. Who cares what was the relationship between Sholem and Buber? This quote is spot on!
evanstonjew, I don't care about Jews being returned to Judaism, especially if by means of an elaborate Buber lie. It comes around in the end.
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