State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity: Essays on the “Ever-Dying People”

by Simon Rawidowicz

This readable, insightful, and thought-provoking collection of essays, presents an original and innovative ideology that stirringly affirms the unity of the Jewish people. Rawidowicz's rich themes include the relationship between the State of Israel and the Diaspora; Jewish "difference" and its repercussions; Jewish learning; and Jewish continuity in the post-Holocaust world. In his foreword to the paper edition, Michael A. Meyer writes, "Forty years after his death, [Rawidowicz's] sober analyses, his realism with regard to both the State of Israel and the Diaspora, and his striving to find unities among dichotomies that divide the Jewish people -- all of these make his images and ideas still worthy of our reflection."

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1998

About the author

Simon Rawidowicz was born in 1896 in Grajewo, Poland to Chaim Yitzchak Rawidowicz (later Ravid), a Zionist activist, a travelling merchant, a writer, and a pioneer farmer, and to Chana Batya (née. Rembelinker). A second of ten children – seven of whom survived childhood – he studied at the modern Yeshiva at Lida. Rawidowicz received a traditional Jewish education, during the course of which he became attracted to the Haskalah and Modern Hebrew literature. He was drawn to the reviving Hebrew language and literature, and before turning 18 he became a teacher at a cheder metukan ("improved cheder"). He was educated in Germany. In 1933 he emigrated to the United Kingdom.
He married Esther Klee in 1926, the daughter of Alfred Klee and the maternal aunt of Hanneli Goslar (Anne Frank's best friend).
Rawidowicz taught at the Jews' College in London and at the Leeds University (as of 1941). In 1948 he emigrated to the United States, first teaching at the College of Jewish Studies of Chicago. Rawidowicz served as the chair of the Department of Near-Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. He was the author of several books and essays, some of which were published posthumously.