Gershom Scholem: 125th Birthday on December 5, 2022

On December 5, 2022, Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) would have celebrated his 125th birthday.
 

Scholem was born in Berlin to a German Jewish family. He studied Mathematics and Philosophy at the universities of Berlin, Bern, Jena and Munich, where he discovered an interest in Jewish studies. He wrote his 1922 doctoral dissertation at the University of Munich on the then-earliest existing book of Jewish mysticism, Sepher Ha-Bahir.

During World War I, he connected with Zionist circles in Germany and emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1923, where he joined the Hebrew University of Jerusalem two years later. From 1956 to 1957, he was a visiting professor at Brown University, USA. In 1978, he received an honorary degree from Yale University.

As a philosopher and historian of Judaism, Scholem established a new strand of research with his work: the academic exploration of Jewish mysticism that opened up a new understanding of Jewish history. Widely regarded as the founder of the modern academic study of the Kabbalah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His efforts gained him esteem and distinction such as the Israel Prize in Jewish studies (1958), the Yakir Yerushalayim, Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem Award (1969) and the Bialik Prize for Jewish Thought (1977). He was elected president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1968.

His oeuvre includes foundational works such as Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, the volumes of the Judaica, as well as the memoir From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memories of My Youth.

Scholem was a close friend and supporter of Walter Benjamin, whose works he later edited; indeed, he is one of the greatest experts on Benjamin’s life and work as evidenced in publications such as Walter Benjamin: the Story of a Friendship. His correspondences with Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt are legendary. Scholem’s works have been translated into 40 languages.