February 21: Gershom Scholem

Gershom Scholem, the first professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University, died in Jerusalem at age 84 on this date in 1982. Scholem pioneered the contemporary study of kabbalah and other sources and streams of Jewish mysticism while remaining a committed Jewish secularist throughout his life. He is best known for Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, a 1941 collection of lectures, and for his 1973 biography of Shabbatai Zvi, the messianic figure of the 17th century. Scholem was lifelong friends with Walter Benjamin, the Marxist philosopher who committed suicide under Nazi pressure in 1940, whose reputation Scholem helped build and preserve. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1958 and became a very influential commentator on Israeli culture and politics, while training three generations of scholars and raising the profile of Jewish mysticism from an obscure to a central role in Jewish history and thought.

“All of us have students, schools, but only Gershom Scholem has created a whole academic discipline!”—Martin Buber