Hermann Cohen and Jewish Religious Education

Abstract

The eminent philosopher and Jewish intellectual Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) lived his life in accordance with the principles and ideas he developed in his philosophical and religious thought. His work fell during the German Empire, a difficult historical era for Jewish society, when anti-Semitism and immature liberalism were gaining ground. In the history of Jewish philosophy, Cohen’s writings stand out as systematized and rationally grounded. The article presents a range of biographical facts that had a direct influence on the religious and philosophical views of the founder of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. In his philosophy of religion, Cohen sharply criticizes both Zionism and anti-Semitism, which are extremely harmful for understanding the ideas of true Judaism. Anti-Semitism, in his view, blocks the possibility of a synthesis of Jewish religion and German culture, and Cohen sees in Zionism a dangerous attempt to downplay the role of the ethical core of the Jewish religion and to reduce its significance to a narrowly national and state-centred one. Hermann Cohen’s philosophy of religion is characterized as an attempt to synthesize Kantianism and Judaism and as a necessary part of his philosophical system, giving it the specificity that largely determines the originality of Cohen’s philosophical position both in relation to Kantian philosophy and to neo Kantianism in general. It is noted that the Marburg philosopher was an important thinker in the Jewish community of his time, a well-known supporter of Judaism, and the problem of Jewish religious education was by no means marginal or private for him.

Keywords:

Cohen, neo-Kantianism, philosophy of religion, Judaism, Zionism, anti-Semitism, education