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The New Jerusalem: Spinoza in NY

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 2:09 AM and is filed under Jews & Judaism, The Arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “The New Jerusalem: Spinoza in NY”

imjudy86 says:

January 12, 2008 at 8:51 AM

If all the Jews of his time had followed Spinoza. there wouldn’t be any “Hebrew Tribe” left today. Or maybe people dont’ think that would have been such a bad thing?

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The Golem says:

January 12, 2008 at 12:04 PM

Judy,

Maybe, but maybe Reform and Conservative Judaism might have started two centuries earlier.

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Gene says:

January 12, 2008 at 11:37 PM

I, too, wish I could attend the play.

Last summer, I got hold of two books on him: Steven Nadler’s Spinoza: A Life and Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment. An extraordinary journey and a wonderful experience!

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Richard Silverstein says:

January 12, 2008 at 11:39 PM

The issue isn’t whether all the Jews of his time would have become his followers since that would be an impossibiilty. The issue is whether the Jewish community could have allowed have room for debate about theological (& in today’s world, political) issues that it didn’t need to ostracize one of its most brilliant and thoughtful members for an alleged infraction.

Interesting that imjudy favors herem against theologically treif Jews. Prob. also favors putting those of us who don’t see things politically as she does in herem as well.

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imjudy says:

January 13, 2008 at 3:12 AM

Richard-do you believe in “Herem” for those you don’t like, such as AIPAC, West Bank settlers, Lev Leviev, etc? It seems to me that the “herem” is alive and well today and a pan-Jewish phenomenon, visible among all groups—by this I mean intolerance for those who oppose one’s views and attempts to silence them.

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Richard Silverstein says:

January 13, 2008 at 6:25 PM

Imjudy: No. The diff. bet. the Jewish right & me is that they don’t believe I’m a Jew & I believe that they are. They are just Jews whose views I disapprove of. But I wouldn’t write them out of the tribe as Spinoza’s peers did. If you look at any Kahanist or settler site or Masada 2000 you will see quotation marks around the word “rabbi” for any individual whose views they detest. That’s not an approach I approve of.

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