Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Prochnik revisits the life and work of Gershom Scholem, whose once prominent reputation, as a Freud-like interpreter of the inner world of the Cosmos, has been in eclipse in the United States. He vividly conjures Scholem's upbringing in Berlin, and compellingly brings to life Scholem's transformative friendship with Walter Benjamin, the critic and philosopher. In doing so, he reveals how Scholem's frustration with the bourgeois ideology of Germany during the First World War led him to discover Judaism, Kabbalah, and finally Zionism, as potent counter-forces to Europe s suicidal nationalism.

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Library Journal Review

On this spiritual journey, writer Prochnik (The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World) traces the intellectual and mystical arc of Gershom Scholem, the German-born Israeli philosopher who advanced theories of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. In this complex and intricate narrative, the author attempts to sort through the contradictions and paradoxes of Scholem's (1897-1982) philosophy while also explicating Scholem's journey and relationship with Israel and mystical Judaism. Prochnik's own sojourn to Israeli in the 1990s resulted in his coming to terms with the increasing consumerism and tense politics that informed that decade. Ultimately, he returned to the United States, disillusioned with a society that he perceived as increasingly right-wing. Verdict Recommended for specialized readers drawn to Jewish mysticism and Jewish messianism and those interested in Prochnik's peregrinations in the footsteps of Scholem, Sabbatai Zevi, and Theodore Herzl.-Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Prochnik (The Impossible Exile) effectively and movingly combines a nuanced biography of Gershom Scholem, who "singlehandedly created an academic discipline [Jewish Mysticism] out of an obscure theological tradition [study of the Kabbalah]," with a warts-and-all autobiography that recounts Prochnik's search for meaning in his own life. The contrast between the physical and the spiritual is manifest from the opening section, as Prochnik engages even readers with no knowledge of his subject by recounting how he visited Scholem's old house in Jerusalem to find it abandoned and derelict. He interweaves Scholem's life story, starting with his boyhood in Berlin, with his own, alternating sections that illustrate how both he and his subject dealt with the contrast of the reality of the State of Israel with its idealistic aspirations. Scholem was prominent in the pre-state Brit Shalom movement, which advocated a binational Arab-Jewish state in Palestine; Prochnik, who lived in Israel with his wife in the 1990s, confronted the dehumanizing aspects of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the profound trauma of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He also makes Scholem's study of Jewish mystical texts, and of the 17th-century false messiah Sabbatai Sevi, interesting and accessible. This is a powerful must-read for anyone interested in how people of faith struggle to live in the real world. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

An award-winning author/journalist, Prochnik attempts to interweave two lives lived in Jerusalem--his own and that of Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), the great student of Jewish mysticism and probably the most influential Israeli scholar of the 20th century. Scholem migrated from Germany to Palestine in 1923; Prochnik emigrated to Jerusalem in 1988, married, had children, attempted to gain a doctorate at Hebrew University but failed, and eventually returned to the US as a critic of Israel. Prochnik devotes most of the volume to retelling the well-known story of Scholem's life: his growing up in Germany, his disillusionment with German Jewish culture, his discovery of kabbalah and Zionism, his friendship with Walter Benjamin, his emigration to what was to become Israel, and his employment at Hebrew University, where he wrote transformative books on Jewish mysticism. Scholem's story is accurately, albeit romantically, recounted. Prochnik devotes the remaining space to his own disappointed encounter with modern Israel. One wonders why Prochnik wrote this book. It adds nothing relevant to the study of kabbalah, and Scholem told his own story in several autobiographical works, the most famous of which is From Berlin to Jerusalem (1977; Eng. tr., 1980). Prochnik's criticisms of contemporary Israel add nothing new to the political debate. Summing Up: Not recommended --Steven Theodore Katz, Boston University

Booklist Review

This is an intriguing if sometimes difficult dual-track biography of the author and the Jewish writer, philosopher, and mystic Gershom Scholem. Like Scholem, Prochnik (The Impossible Exile, 2014) has repeatedly been engaged in an intellectual and spiritual quest, searching for a balance between the physical and the ethereal and touching on the nature of Jewish identity. Prochnik alternates between his own experiences living in Israel in the 1990s and Scholem's life and intellectual evolution in the emerging Zionist state. Along with his deep emotional attachment to Israel, Prochnik was troubled by the dehumanizing aspects of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Scholem, born in Berlin, was a cultural rather than a political Zionist. He hoped for a binational state in Palestine, an idealistic aspiration frustrated by both Jewish and Arab nationalism. Prochnik also delves into Scholem's efforts to interpret elements of Jewish mysticism and his relationship with critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin. The narrative shifts can be confusing, but this is a stimulating examination of the struggles of both men to reconcile their idealism with reality.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A convert to Judaism was deeply influenced by a prolific Jewish intellectual.Melding biography and memoir, National Jewish Book Award winner Prochnik (The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World, 2014, etc.) examines the life and work of Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), philological archaeologist of the mystical roots of Judaism. For Prochnik, Scholem "loomed as a kind of prophet," offering "something closer to revelation than anything I could discover in normative Judaism." Indeed, normative Judaismto which Prochnik converted in his 20sfailed him just as it had failed Scholem. Growing up in a bourgeois, assimilated German family, Scholem became a Zionist at the age of 11, vowing to go to Palestine, and by his teens, he became obsessed with cabala, a network of "widely diversified and often contradictory" texts. At the age of 17, he met Walter Benjamin, beginning an intense, sometimes-difficult friendship based on common passions. Prochnik traces the evolution of Scholem's parsing of "the underlying cosmological principles" of cabala, "its metaphysics." Although Prochnik faithfully and respectfully offers a detailed examination of these metaphysical works, they remain abstract and paradoxical; many who knew Scholem concluded that he "was just a maze of contradictions." Readers are likely to agree. In contrast, Prochnik vividly renders his own journey to define his relationship to Judaism, which took him and his wife to Jerusalem in search of a spiritual home. They were following Scholem's path to find "some more galvanizing external form of Judaism" than what they found in America, something "higher and purer." As they settled into Israeli culture, however, they found increasing consumerism, turbulent politics, violence that included the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and the election of right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu, and strife and oppression among Palestinians that they struggled to fully understand. Frustrated, unable to make a living, the family decided to return to the U.S., where the marriage finally unraveled and where Prochnik's commitment to both Zionism and Judaism floundered. An uneven but candid testament of two men passionately trying to revive and reimagine Judaism. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.