Editorial
Daniel Weidner, Yfaat Weiss, Christian Wiese

Philipp von Wussow
Horkheimer und Adorno über "jüdische Psychologie". Ein vergessenes Theorieprogramm der 1940er Jahre

This article explores a forgotten theoretical program developed, and eventually dropped, by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno in the 1940s. In letters, drafts and memorandums, but also in the chapter “Elements of Anti- Semitism” in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno sought to clarify whether anti-Semitic stereotypes corresponded in some way with certain “Jewish” behavioral patterns and character traits. But their socio-psychological mapping of contemporary Jewry revealed, first of all, the authors’ own stereo- types and biases toward the Jews. Upon their return to Germany, Horkheimer and Adorno abandoned this program, but many of the research methods that were employed to operationalize these biases survived in their sociological and pedagogical projects of the 1950s and 1960s.

Uri Ganani and Dani Issler
"The World of Yesterday" versus "The Turning Point": Art and the Politics of Recollection in the Autobiographical Narratives of Stefan Zweig and Klaus Mann

This article revisits the world-views of Stefan Zweig and Klaus Mann by analyzing the diverse ways in which they shaped their literary careers as autobiographers. Particular focus is given to the crises they experienced while composing their respective autobiographical narratives, both published in 1942. Our re-evaluation of their complex discussions on literature and art reveals two distinctive approaches to the relationship between aesthetics and politics, as well as two alternative concepts of authorial autonomy within society. Simultaneously, we argue that in spite of their different approaches to political involvement, both authors shared a basic understanding of art as an enclave of humanistic existence at a time of oppressive political circumstances. However, their attitudes toward the autonomy of the artist under fascism differed greatly. This is demonstrated mainly through their contrasting portrayals of Richard Strauss, who appears in both autobiographies as an emblematic genius composer.

Yfaat Weiss
Rückkehr in den Elfenbeinturm: Deutsch an der Hebräischen Universität

German culture and language has played a significant part in the Hebrew University’s self-understanding since its founding in the 1920s. Almost half of its professors in the years 1925–1948 were trained in the German academic system and perceived themselves as part of the German scientific tradition. However, in 1934, as a reaction to National Socialist race politics in Germany, attitudes toward the German language changed and it was no longer taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This status quo was challenged at the end of the 1940s, as students and professors alike sought to reintroduce German as a language as part of the curriculum. Unsurprisingly, their initiative encountered strong opposition both within and outside the University. Based on documents kept at the Archive of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, this article reconstructs the arguments in the debate that took place in the early 1950s and which culminated in the reintroduction of the German language at the beginning of 1953, shortly after the signing of the reparations agreement between Israel and Germany.

Lina Barouch/Galili Shahar
Introduction: Arie Ludwig Strauss Between Hölderlin and Yehuda Halevi

Shimon Sandbank
Arie Ludwig Sandbank: "A Psalm Returns Home"

This is an attempt to describe the bi-lingual poet Arie Ludwig Strauss’s journey from his poetry in German to his Hebrew poetry. Steeped as he was in the German poetic tradition, from Old Germanic Stabreim to Hölderlin and particularly Stefan George, and preoccupied with the phonetic, musical aspects of verse, Strauss was determined, on discovering his Hebrew heritage, to apply George’s sound devices to the Hebrew poems he began writing after his immigration to Palestine. This paper focuses on Strauss’s struggle to find a Hebrew parallel to the music of his German verse. It argues that the tonality of his Hebrew poetry is a product of two traditions: a phonological orchestration of syllables, derived largely from George, and wordplay involving whole words rather than only syllables, derived from biblical Hebrew and the Hebrew of medieval Judeo-Spanish poetry.

Anat Koplowitz-Breier
A Blessed Journey. The Imprint of Yehuda Halevi's Poetry on Ludwig Strauss's "Land Israel Poems"

In 1935, Ludwig Strauss published a volume of poetry entitled Land Israel, the contents of which relate to the two visits he had made to the country in 1924 and 1934. This article discusses the imprint of Yehuda Halevi’s poetry – in particular his Zion and journey poems – on Strauss’s collection. Strauss’s poems depict “Eretz Israel” not only via descriptions of the trials and tribulations of the nascent Zionist enterprise but also through cognitive ideals such as the prophetic utopian vision of Zion. Like Halevi, Strauss fuses pragmatism with a messianic vision in Land Israel. Strauss’s “Die Verheissungen,” which exhibits close affinities with Halevi’s “Ẓiyon ha-lo tishʼali lishlom asirayikh” (“Zion Shall You Not Ask After the Welfare of Your Captives?”), is one of the most striking examples of Halevi’s influence on Strauss. The imprint of Halevi’s “On the Sea” cycle on Strauss’s poems “Gesegnete Fahrt” and “Ungewisse Fahrt” is likewise clearly evident.

Lina Barouch
Hölderlin in Jerusalem: Buber and Strauss on Poetry and the Limits of Dialogue

This paper discusses a series of commentaries and lyrical texts by Martin Buber and Ludwig Strauss, which dwell on Hölderlin’s poetry and the dialogical ideas implicit therein (e.g. the dialogical vocation of the poet). The paper distinguishes between the dialogical ideal and its concretization in language, as the selected texts all strive to develop a dialogical poetics, yet at the same time engage with textual junctures where the dialogical mode collapses. This collapse is also registered in the historical sphere: Buber’s engagement with Heidegger’s paradigmatic Hölderlin studies calls for a comparison with Strauss’s reception of Hölderlin, and therefore points to an absent dialogue between these two contemporary scholars. This historical lacuna, which Buber may have wished to bridge, thus resonates with ideas on the limits of dialogue in the poetic sphere. The paper draws on further Hölderlin scholars, such as Peter Szondi and Winfried Menninghaus, and their discussion of the lyrical results of failed dialogue, and on the ideas of Franz Rosenzweig and Rabbi Nahman, in the mapping of the dialogical ideas of both Buber and Strauss. Strauss himself thus emerges as a scholar and poet who draws both on Hölderlinian motifs and notions and on dialogical ideas in contemporaneous German-Jewish thought.