1886 CE–1929 CE · Modern · Frankfurt am Main
Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) was one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the modern era. Born in Kassel and trained in German philosophy and historiography (his doctoral dissertation on Hegel remains influential), he stood on the brink of converting to Christianity until a transformative experience at a Berlin Yom Kippur service in 1913 redirected him to a lifelong project of Jewish renewal.
His magnum opus, *Der Stern der Erlösung* (The Star of Redemption, 1921), is a sweeping post-Hegelian construction of creation, revelation, and redemption as the three points of a star spanning God, world, and human being. From 1920 he founded the Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus in Frankfurt with Buber and others — the model for modern adult Jewish learning. Stricken with ALS in 1922, he produced (with Buber) a famous new German translation of the Hebrew Bible while paralyzed, blinking out his commentary letter by letter.
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R. Samson Raphael Hirsch's lifelong rabbinate (1851-1888); a center of 19c. German Orthodoxy.
Frankfurt am Main · 1921
1921 philosophical masterpiece constructing God, world, and human existence around the three motions of creation, revelation, and redemption.
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Frankfurt am Main · 1925
New German translation of the Hebrew Bible (1925–1962, completed by Buber after Rosenzweig's death) attempting to preserve the oral, rhythmic, root-resonant texture of biblical Hebrew.
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