Nathan Rotenstreich

Bio: Nathan Rotenstreich is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Emancipation & German philosophy. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 7 citations.

What Enlightenment Was: How Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant Answered the Berlinische Monatsschrift

Abstract: IN DECEMBER 178 3 THE Berlinische Monatsschr i f t publ i shed an article by the theo log ian and e d u c a t i o n a l r e f o r m e r J o h a n n Fr iedr ich Z611ner on the advisability o f pu re ly civil m a r r i a g e ce r emon ie s . No t ing the j o u r n a l ' s f r e q u e n t use o f the t e rms aufldiiren, aufgekliirte, a n d Aufk l~rung , he asked in a foo tno te : \"Wha t is e n l i g h t e n m e n t ? Th i s ques t ion , which is a lmost as i m p o r t a n t as wha t is t ru th , shou ld i n d e e d be a n s w e r e d b e f o r e o n e begins en l igh ten ing! A n d still have I neve r f o u n d it answered ! \" , Few foo tno tes have m a d e such a m a r k on the h is tory o f ph i lo sophy . For the n e x t d e c a d e a discussion o f the n a t u r e a n d limits o f e n l i g h t e n m e n t filled the pages o f G e r m a n l i terary a n d scholar ly journa ls . \" I m m a n u e l Kant ' s r e s p o n s e is by fa r the mos t f amous . But, as Kan t h imse l f

The two Marxes: From Jewish domination to supersession of the Jews

Abstract: This article identifies two different patterns in how Karl Marx, in collaboration with Friedrich Engels, portrayed the relationship between the Jews and modern capitalism. The early Marx described modern economic life as domination by a Jewish spirit that is internalized by non-Jews and objectified in economic institutions. The Jews did not drop out of Marx’s mature work, as is sometimes supposed, but there was a major shift in how he linked European Jewry to capitalist development. The mature Marx, it is argued, substituted a new narrative in which the Jews, after contributing to the creation of modern capitalism, were then superseded. In addition, the article seeks to explain these patterns: it argues that assumptions about the Jews originally derived from Christian theology but subsequently secularized and transposed to economic life formed part of the cultural toolkit with which Marx and other classical German social thinkers constructed their understanding of modern capitalism.

Between messianism and survival

Abstract: Contrary to the predictions of sociologists that modernity would spell Judaism’’s demise, Judaism in the last three centuries has shown itself to be remarkably productive. The inner dynamic of that productivity is not the bipolarity of assimilation and nationalism that historians have asserted, but rather the dialectic between apprehensions for survival on the one hand and messianic hopes and presentiments on the other. That dialectic has resulted in interlinked developments of secularization and sacralization that have occurred in three identifiable waves of change that have been formative for the modern period.