For many young intellectuals (Jewish and otherwise) in the early decades of the 20th century, Friedrich Nietzsche’s thought, iconoclastic voice, and irreverent philosophy inspired a world-challenging self-assertion and boldness. In Nietzsche and Jewish Political Theology, David Ohana spells out Nietzsche’s reception by and enduring influence on a half dozen influential Jewish—and for those who lived into Israel’s founding, Israeli—intellectuals. Ohana discerns in each of them a distinctive theological position he labels “heretical religiosity.” Heretical religiosity does not denote any mutual beliefs or commitments among them—they range all over the map in their attitudes toward Judaism, religion, and Zionism—but rather a receptivity to and engagement with various themes of the Nietzschean message.
Following an introduction that explains his thesis and offers biographical overviews of the lives and contexts of the thinkers examined, Ohana offers extended examinations and summarizations of their interactions with Nietzsche’s work. The Orthodox Yiddish journalist Hillel Zeitlin, murdered by Nazis en route to the Treblinka concentration camp, was not intimidated by Nietzsche’s critique of religiousness, but saw him as a model “religious searcher in an age of apostasy” (63). Franz Rosenzweig, while deeply appreciating Nietzsche’s demolishing of pretentious philosophical systemization on the order of Hegelian idealism, ultimately rejected the content of Nietzsche’s perspectives, and chose to philosophize “not with a hammer but with phylacteries” (105).
The midsection of Ohana’s exposition shifts to Mandatory Palestine and the work of Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem. For Buber, Nietzsche defied conceptualization. His death of God allowed for a reconception of myth and of a dynamic evolving God in place of a static Creator. For Scholem, scholar of the Sabbatean and Frankist heresies, Nietzsche made it possible to conceive of Zionist nationalism in light of Judaism’s inner essence, as Scholem refused to conflate the religious-Messianic and the political-historic arenas.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, other Nietzschean-shaped thinkers were prominent in the contested struggle over the concept of “Zionism.” Baruch Kurzweil challenged the Nietzschean will to power he saw in political Zionism, especially the versions inspired by Micha Berdichevsky and Yonatan Ratosh, who sought to replace traditional Diaspora religiousness with a land-focused identity as “Young Hebrews” in Canaan/Israel. In sharp contrast, Israel Eldad, the ultranationalist coleader of the Lehi underground prior to Israeli independence, became the translator of Nietzsche’s works into Hebrew, and was one of the forces in rehabilitating Nietzsche from his Third Reich legacy as the proto-Nazi philosopher. Eldad argued that Nietzsche valorized the Jews as even more Dionysian than the Greeks, proof-texting from a letter Nietzsche wrote to a friend, “Just now I am having all antisemites shot” (quoted on 270).
Ohana allows his exposition of each figure’s thought to speak for itself; despite the quite disparate positions on Judaism, Zionism, and Mandatory Palestine and Israeli politics of the various writers he examines, the Nietzschean influence on their philosophical formation is clearly and profoundly present in each author’s work. The lessons they drew enforced or reinforced for each the legitimacy of bold expression of provocative views outside the mainstream, forcefully lived out and expressed. In Ohana’s own words, “‘Heretical religiosity’ is a liminal position that protects the constant tensions between a religiosity that is not a reflection of accepted religious practices and heresy, especially metaphysical heresy . . . This was a dual self-awareness of heresy and faith” (278). While Ohana shies away from identifying with any of his chosen authors, he clearly seems sympathetic to their attraction to and engagement with Nietzsche’s evaluation of the Modern situation for Jews.
An evaluation of the book requires asking what the reader should take away from reading it. Apart from the introduction and closing summary, the label “heretical religiosity” rarely appears in the book. While heretical religiosity may be characteristic of the diverse thinkers Ohana chooses to explore, as a catch-all it does not tell us whether there were others shaped by Nietzsche in this way, whether Nietzsche appealed to something in their personalities or views, or whether there were lots of folks in 20th century Judaism who had this characteristic religiosity. Within the context of 20th century Jewish thought, especially in Europe, Mandatory Palestine, and post-independence Israel, a host of factors created a climate in which the nature of Judaism and Israel—what it was and would be going forward—was existentially urgent and inchoate.
That Nietzsche touched a nerve (or a cluster of nerves) by means of a corpus that itself inspired his readers to take away varied lessons should not surprise. Perhaps Ohana means “heretical” in the sense of Peter Berger’s “heretical imperative,” that is, that for Jewish thinkers and writers, the mid-20th century required choosing, choosing something, and Nietzsche inspired an existential courageousness that spoke to the times and places they faced. For these people, not choosing was not an option.
This is a challenging book; the more readers know about Jewish history and thought and the issues within Israeli life and politics of the time period covered, the better prepared they will be to follow the case Ohana is making. Nevertheless, Ohana has done a great service to his readers. Ohana’s erudition and wide reading expounds for Jewish and non-Jewish readers much material that is not otherwise readily available in English, and he is a reliable expositor of key voices in Jewish thought of the last century.
Steve Young is a professor in philosophy at McHenry County College, Crystal Lake, Illinois.
Steve Young
Date Of Review:
June 23, 2023