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“Die Zauberjuden”: Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, and Other German-Jewish Esoterics between the World Wars

“Die Zauberjuden”: Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, and Other German-Jewish Esoterics between... The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosopl?Y, Vol. 4, pp. 227-243 Reprints available directly from the publisher. Photocopying permitted by license only © 1995 "Die Zauberjuden": Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, and Other German- Jewish Esoterics between the World Wars Gary Smith Einstein Forum) Potsdam Walter Benjamin first coined the term "Zauberjuden" in a playful poetic allusion to Scholem and company as "crafty Magic Jews." By the time Ben- jamin reemployed the term thirteen years later, reporting to Scholem from San Remo on Oskar Goldberg and entourage, the term seems to have lost all favorable connotation: "You will hesitate all the less," Benjamin writes, "when I confide in you that I have landed here in the main camp of the true Magic Jews."! The endurance of this term in Benjamin's and Scholem's private vocabulary-resonant more of the fairy tale's "Zauberlehrling" than Mann's "Zauberberg" (1924)- is not accidental; it serves as a figure of their own participation in what I term the Jewish-German rhetoric of esotericism between the World Wars. Despite Alfred Dablin's assertion in 1927 that Weimar signified, among other phenomena, "the epoch of a ne\v, thriving esotericism of a special breed,"2 this efflorescence of esoteric discourse remains a http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy Brill

“Die Zauberjuden”: Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, and Other German-Jewish Esoterics between the World Wars

Smith, Gary
The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy , Volume 4 (2): 227 – Jan 1, 1995
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1995 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1053-699X
eISSN
1477-285X
DOI
10.1163/105369995790231317
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosopl?Y, Vol. 4, pp. 227-243 Reprints available directly from the publisher. Photocopying permitted by license only © 1995 "Die Zauberjuden": Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, and Other German- Jewish Esoterics between the World Wars Gary Smith Einstein Forum) Potsdam Walter Benjamin first coined the term "Zauberjuden" in a playful poetic allusion to Scholem and company as "crafty Magic Jews." By the time Ben- jamin reemployed the term thirteen years later, reporting to Scholem from San Remo on Oskar Goldberg and entourage, the term seems to have lost all favorable connotation: "You will hesitate all the less," Benjamin writes, "when I confide in you that I have landed here in the main camp of the true Magic Jews."! The endurance of this term in Benjamin's and Scholem's private vocabulary-resonant more of the fairy tale's "Zauberlehrling" than Mann's "Zauberberg" (1924)- is not accidental; it serves as a figure of their own participation in what I term the Jewish-German rhetoric of esotericism between the World Wars. Despite Alfred Dablin's assertion in 1927 that Weimar signified, among other phenomena, "the epoch of a ne\v, thriving esotericism of a special breed,"2 this efflorescence of esoteric discourse remains a

Journal

The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1995

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