Jüdischer Nietzscheanismus (review)

Book Reviews 141 Gennan Jewish identity, and, even more ambitiously, "the fundamental issue ofhistory: the fate of personal identity in time" (p. 10). Herz is for him "a symbol pf the contingency ofexistence, an image ofthe similarly contingent nature of our own life" (p. II). Davies believes that Herz was denied lasting historical recognition because he was Jewish. While recognized in his own life time, in "the end this recognition proved to be futile in that it did not prevent Herz's ultimate demise from the public sphere and from the common memory ofhistory." And Davies thinks that "this futility reflects as much on the internal dynamics ofthe set of ideas and principles within the Enlightenment that caused it to abandon one of its own adherents, as on the inherent precariousness of Herz's own situation as a Gennan Jew" (p. 219). But all this seems false or at least misleading. Isn't most recognition by contemporaries "futile" in Davies's sense? How can such recognition ever "prevent" the forgetfulness of later generations? And what does Enlightenment have to do with it? In fact, exactly the opposite of what Davies suggests may be the case. Many, if not most, equally deserving enlightenment thinkers are just as much forgotten. The philosopher Johann August Eberhard, another friend ofMendelssohn, but an enemy ofKant, is today as little known as is Herz. It was Romanticism (not his Jewishness) that "did Herz in"-as it did so many others. Nor was Herz forgotten because he was a Jew. Herz deserves to be remembered-not as a symbol or an image, but as a man. Hert was important for what he did in his lifetime, not for what happened to his reputation after his death. Davies's book is important because it reminds us of an intelligent, courageous, and interesting Gennan Jew, who overcame many obstacles to achieve what he did. Manfred Kuehn Department of Philosophy Purdue University Jildischer Nietzscheanismus, edited by Werner Stegmaier and Daniel Krochmalnik. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997. 476 pp. DM 298.00. Scholars have treated many dimensions of Nietzsche's relationship to Jews and Judaism. Some have dealt with Nietzsche's own views on Jewish culture, on Jewish history, or on the Jews ofhis own times. Others have examined the way in which Jews have received and evaluated Nietzsche's writings, both the assimilated Jews who knew him and those who were affected by Nietzsche subsequent to his demise. Finally, a few have scouredNietzsche's writings for parallels between his thought and Jewish thought. The editors ofthis collection make it clear that they have a particular and fairly narrow 142 SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 concern: they define Jiidischer Nietzscheanismus as the point where the "interest by Jews for Nietzsche" and the "interest for Judaism" intersect, that is, "where Jews have concerned themselves with Nietzsche in regard to Judaism" (p. v). If the editors had adhered rigorously to this definition, they would have produced a slim volume with only a handful ofessays. Fortunately they chose to be more liberal in their defmition, and the result is a collection with many excellent observations of Nietzsche's influence in a variety of contexts. The 22 essays in Jiidischer Nietzscheanismus are based on contributions to a conference that took place in Greif~wald in September of 1995. The editors had obvious difficulty in assigning categories to the various contributions: the first two "groups," "Nietzschean Perspectives on Judaism" and "The Origin and Concept of Jewish Nietzscheanism," contain only on!e essay apiece. The initial essay, written by Josef Simon, argues that Nietzsche believed the Jews were not a people since they define themselves in their relationship to God, not in opposition to other nations. Simon's interest, however, is less Jews and Judaism in Nietzsche's thought than the more abstract concern for the processes by which otherness is conceptualized in the philosopher's work. Friedrich Niewt>hner's contribution, by contrast, deals with the historically documented notion of Jewish Nietzscheanism. "Nietzscheanism" was coined in 1889, when Ola Hansson labeled Georg Brandes a "preacher of Nietzscheanism"; in combination with the adjective "Jewish" it appears nine years later in 5658 (1898) in a Hebrew...