Building a Zion in German(y): Franz Rosenzweig on Yehudah Halevi

Among the diverse positions on the question of Zionism held by early-twentieth-century German Jewish intellectuals is the eccentric "non-Zionist" stance of Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929). In a translation and commentary called Sixty Hymns and Poems of Yehudah Halevi (1924; 2nd ed. 1927), Rosenzweig aimed to contribute to and shift the discourse concerning Jewish distinctiveness and belonging in German culture. Critical in this effort was Rosenzweig's attention to the scriptural and liturgical elements of Yehudah Halevi's poetry, which he argued were emblematic of Jewish literary and textual culture. The structure, poetic choices, and commentary of Hymns and Poems, a volume long overlooked in Rosenzweig's oeuvre, is properly understood as a sustained meditation on Jewish diasporic life and the role of textuality in preserving it.