Franz Rosenzweig

Franz Rosenzweig (1886 - 1929) was one of the most influential modern Jewish religious thinkers.

Related Topics:
1886 - 1929 - Jew

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Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany to a minimally observant Jewish family. His education was primarily secular, studying history and philosophy at the universities of Göttingen, Munich, and Freiburg.

Related Topics:
Kassel - Germany - Göttingen - Munich - Freiburg

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While researching his doctoral dissertation on the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Rosenzweig reacted against Hegel's idealism and favored an existential approach.

Related Topics:
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Idealism - Existential

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Rosenzweig, for a time, considered conversion to Christianity, but in 1913, he turned to Jewish philosophy. His letters to his friend, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, whom he had nearly followed into Christianity, have been published as Judaism Despite Christianity. He became a philosopher and student of Hermann Cohen.

Related Topics:
Christianity - 1913 - Jewish philosophy - Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy - Hermann Cohen

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Rozensweig's major work, Star of Redemption, is his new philosophy in which he portrays the relationships between God, humanity and world as they are connected by creation, revelation and redemption. He criticizes Western philosophy, especially that of Hegel.

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Rosenzweig also worked with his friend Martin Buber, another Jewish scholar, on a retranslation of the Old Testament, from Hebrew to German.

Related Topics:
Martin Buber - Hebrew - German

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Rosenzweig also founded the Independent House of Jewish Learning, a place where Jews could re-discover and study their Jewish heritage. The Lehrhaus, as it was known in Germany, produced many prominent Jewish intellectuals.

Related Topics:
House of Jewish Learning - Lehrhaus

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He suffered from the muscular degenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS - the same disease which struck Stephen Hawking) and towards the end of his life had to write with the help of his wife, who would recite letters of the alphabet until he indicated for her to stop, continuing until she could guess the word or phrase he intended.

Related Topics:
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis - Stephen Hawking

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