Monthly Archives: February 2015

Photoshop Kabbalah Modern (Mid-Century Gershom Scholem)

Posted on February 6, 2015 by zjb

The sitz im Leben of modern Kabbalah studies. Friend Jay Eidelman posted this photo at FB, and I’m putting it up here immediately. I’m being told by Margaret Olin that the large piece in the back is Knoll furniture.And, of course, there’s … Continue reading →

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Mid-Century Modern Gershom Scholem Design

Posted on February 6, 2015 by zjb

I love the old mid-century dust jacket cover design. It’s the color scheme and abstract design element that stands out on the 1965 cover of Scholem’s On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. The soft electric pastel colors are very mod. … Continue reading →

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Zohar & American Judaism (Symbols & Modernist Sculptural Models in Mid-Century Jewish Thought)  

Posted on February 5, 2015 by zjb

[Henry Moore with plaster for Reclining Figure: External Form 1953-54] I thought teaching a Zohar seminar and an American Judaism seminar was going to be a strange combination, a bit of a stretch, and it is, but it’s not, or … Continue reading →

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The life and works of the Marxist art historian Meyer Schapiro

Posted on February 4, 2015 by zjb

On art, politics, and art with lots of gossip about everyone who was anyone on the postwar scene including Adorno, Sartre, Meleau-Ponty, Brecht, Derrida, Clement Greenberg.

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Hitler Finds Out About His Application to Grad School in Philosophy

Posted on February 4, 2015 by zjb

Watch here.

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Mystical Burlesque (Reading Zohar with Gershom Scholem)

Posted on February 4, 2015 by zjb

Re-reading Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) perhaps more systemically than I did many years ago when I read it for the first time. While most of the main lines of argument have been assimilated and critically sifted … Continue reading →

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A Protestant & A Catholic & A Jew (Blurbing Will Herberg)

Posted on February 3, 2015 by zjb

The back cover of the 1960 paperback of Protestant-Catholic-Jew is kind of hysterical in the way it pitches Herberg’s argument to the general reading public. The book blurbs are visually organized triumphantly according to the typology announced by the book. The … Continue reading →

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Snow Trees Sky (Riverside Park)

Posted on February 2, 2015 by zjb

A cold wet walk in the snow in Riverside Park to get into the trees. I like how the grey sky came out in the second picture framed by the lattice work of snow and branch. I like the quick … Continue reading →

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(Mid-century Modern) Protestant Catholic Jew (Will Herberg)

Posted on February 2, 2015 by zjb

Reading for the first time Will Herberg’s classic Protestant-Catholic-Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (1955), I was surprised to see so many interesting things. To start, I’ll only say that the most obvious problem with the book is the … Continue reading →

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Polish American (Dickson City, PA)

Posted on February 1, 2015 by zjb

The drive home the other week took me through Dickson City, just north of Scranton. It used to be a big coal mining town. It was called Priceburg. A very strange experience, I got off rt 81, I kept driving and … Continue reading →

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