Zionism

By Levy, Zeev

Zionism, the idea of Jewish nationality in its modern form, emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century, several decades after nationalism had taken hold among most European ...

Leibowitz, Yeshayahu (1903–94)

By Hartman, D.

Unlike the major intellectual currents that shaped religious thought in the modern world, Leibowitz’s thought is deeply anchored in the Israeli context. Both as philosopher and activist, Leibowitz ...

Ha’am, Ahad (1856–1927)

By Levy, Zeev

Ahad Ha’am (Asher Hirsch Ginzberg) was one of the most remarkable Jewish thinkers and Zionist ideologists of his time. Born in the province of Kiev in the Ukraine, ...

Political philosophy, Jewish

By Zohar, Noam J.; Walzer, Michael

Jewish ideas about politics are embedded in the traditional genres of Judaic discourse, more often legal or homiletic than systematically philosophical. A defining feature of this tradition is ...

Anti-Semitism

By Leaman, Oliver; Nyman, Clive

Anti-Semitism is a form of racism which sees Jews as a dangerous and despicable group in society. It has solid philosophical sources in the work of German Idealism ...

Kaplan, Mordecai (1881–1983)

By Ellenson, David

Kaplan argued that Judaism was the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people. He attempted to recast an inherited faith in rational and natural terms. His advocacy of ...

Einstein, Albert (1879–1955)

By Fine, Arthur; Howard, Don; Norton, John D.

Albert Einstein was a German-born Swiss and American naturalized physicist and the twentieth century’s most prominent scientist. He produced the special and general theories of relativity, which overturned ...

Jewish philosophy

By Goodman, L.E.

Jewish philosophy is philosophical inquiry informed by the texts, traditions and experiences of the Jewish people. Its concerns range from the farthest reaches of cosmological speculation to the ...

Enlightenment, Jewish

By Harris, Jay M.

The eighteenth century in Europe saw the beginnings of Jewish emancipation, and this led to an intellectual development which came to be known as the Jewish Enlightenment or ...

Buber, Martin (1878–1965)

By Wright, Tamra

Martin Buber covered a range of fields in his writings, from Jewish folklore and fiction, to biblical scholarship and translation, to philosophical anthropology and theology. Above all, however, ...

Race, theories of

By Banton, Michael

The first theories of race were attempts to explain why the peoples of Europe (or sometimes particular peoples within Europe) had developed a higher civilization than the peoples ...

Hess, Moses (1812–75)

By Avineri, Shlomo

Hess was a socialist philosopher, closely connected with the Young Hegelians, who influenced the initial philosophical development of Karl Marx, and later articulated, in the context of a ...

Political philosophy

By Miller, David

Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic ...

Holocaust, the

By Katz, Steven T.

The specific, tragic event of the Holocaust – the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War – raises profound theological and philosophical problems, ...

Butler, Judith (1956–)

By Murphy, Ann

Judith Butler (1956–) is an American philosopher working in feminist and queer theory, psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. She is known for her work on gender, sexuality, power, vulnerability ...

Jewish philosophy, contemporary

By Levinson, Henry S.; Malino, Jonathan W.

Jewish philosophy is pursued by committed Jews seeking to understand Judaism and the world in one another’s light. In this broad sense, contemporary Jewish philosophy maintains the central ...

Rosenzweig, Franz (1886–1929)

By Bienenstock, Myriam

An outstanding Hegel scholar – his Hegel und der Staat (Hegel and the State) (1920) remains a standard work on Hegel’s political philosophy – Franz Rosenzweig elaborated, in ...

Halevi, Judah (before 1075–1141)

By Goodman, L.E.

Physician, philosopher and perhaps the greatest Hebrew poet since the Psalms, Judah Halevi studied the Neoplatonic Aristotelianism widespread in Islamic Spain, but his loyalty to Judaic traditions, love ...

Nation and nationalism

By Miller, David

No one observing political events in the world today could deny the continuing potency of nationalism. Many of the most intractable conflicts arise when one national community tries ...

Political philosophy, history of

By Hampsher-Monk, Iain

The history of political philosophy attempts to yield a connected account of past speculation on the character of human association at its most inclusive level. ‘History’ or ‘philosophy’ ...

Nation and nationalism

No one observing political events in the world today could deny the continuing potency of nationalism. Many of the most intractable conflicts arise when one national community tries ...