Valter Benjamin - Gershom Scholem Correspondence

Author's name: Walter Benjamin Publisher: Al-Jamal Publications for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2023 Literary classification: Biographies and Memoirs Book overview: Correspondence between Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem by Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem... The book includes correspondence between the period 1932–1940, translated into Arabic by Dr. Abdul Qadir Mirza. In his introduction to the translation of the correspondence, he indicates that in April of the year 1927, Scholem and Benjamin met for the first time after their separation four years earlier, this time in Paris. Regarding Scholem's perceptions of their changing relationship at that stage, the book states, "When I left Benjamin in 1923, I took with me an image of a man driven by a direct motivation to form a conceptual world around him. A man who follows his genius steadily and knows where he is heading regardless of external complexities in his life. I was heading toward a world where everything still seemed mysterious and confusing, and I was searching, amid a fierce internal struggle, for a stable position where my efforts to understand Judaism would fit more clearly and comprehensively. When we saw each other again, I met a person who was caught in a severe frenzy, and his harmonious view of the world had miserably shattered, revealing new shores he was unable to define yet."