Paul Robert Mendes-Flohr

Background

Paul Robert Mendes-Flohr was born on April 17, 1941 in New York City. He is the son of William Flohr and Blanch Leah (Freeman) Flohr. In 1970 Paul emigrated to Israel.

Education

In 1965 Paul Mendes-Flohr received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brooklyn College. He also holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Brandeis University.

Career

Mendes-Flohr has written several books on Jewish theology in the modem era, and edited volumes of essays on such pivotal Jewish philosophers as Gershom Scholem and Franz Rosenzweig.

With Jehuda Reinharz, Mendes-Flohr is the editor of The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, a collection of original source material spanning three hundred years of Jewish history. The volume was hailed by reviewers as a signal achievement in the field of Jewish studies for the documents it presents.

With Arthur A. Cohen, Mendes-Flohr commissioned 140 original essays for Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, an encyclopedic treatment of Jewish teachings on such topics as feminism, atheism, idolatry, faith, love, work, peace, and many others subjects, written by prominent Jewish theologians. Because the essays for this work are original, and the authors specialists, the contributions tend to summarize ideas present in the authors’ other writings on the same topics.

With Otto Dov Kulka, Mendes-Flohr is the editor of Judaism and Christianity under the Impact of National Socialism, a collection of essays drawn from an international symposium held in Jerusalem in 1982. The contributors attempt to trace the evolving relationship between the program of German National Socialism and the Christian churches in Germany during the Weimar years. Mendes-Flohr has also edited a collection of essays titled Gershom Scholem: The Man and His Work, a tribute to the pivotal contribution to the modem understanding of the Jewish religion made by Scholem’s focus on kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. Many of the essays were presented at a symposium held in 1982 at the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities and previously published in Hebrew.

Mendes-Flohr has collected and edited several volumes of Buber’s writings that have received high marks from critics. His A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, in particular, is a well-regarded contribution to scholarship for it collects all of Buber’s writings on this important topic from 1918 to 1965, when Buber died. With Nahum N. Glatzer, Mendes-Flohr edited a collection of Buber’s correspondence, The Letters of Martin Buber, from the three- volume German edition to one volume in English translation. The volume includes missives from such important figures in twentieth century letters as Theodor Herzl, Hermann Hesse, Albert Einstein, Albert Camus, and Franz Kafka.

In 1909, Buber published a collection of Jewish mystical writings that Mendes-Flohr prepared for a new edition in 1985 under the title Ecstatic Confessions. Buber’s early years are also the focus of Mendes-Flohr’s monograph From Mysticism to Dialogue: Martin Buber’s Transformation of German Social Thought, a revision of the author’s 1978 doctoral dissertation. In particular, Mendes-Flohr emphasizes Buber’s editorship of an important sociological series, Die Gesellschaft, and his indebtedness to sociologist Georg Simmel.

In his monograph, German Jews: A Dual Identity, Mendes-Flohr succinctly and eloquently shows how Rosenzweig combined the ancient destiny of the Jews as God’s people with their role as custodians of German culture to produce a new vocation for Judaism. Mendes-Flohr also edited The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, a collection of essays written in honor of Rosenzweig’s 100th birthday.

Nowadays Mendes-Flohr teaches at the University of Chicago as a Dorothy Grant Maclear Professor of Modern Jewish History. He is also a Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Achievements

• Paul Robert Mendes-Flohr has been listed as a noteworthy Theology educator by Marquis Who's Who. He is considered an important scholar in the history of Jewish theology and the preeminent authority on Martin Buber, a pivotal Jewish theologian of the twentieth century.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent

    (An authority on the twentieth‑century philosopher Martin ...)

    2019
  • Ecstatic Confessions: The Heart of Mysticism

    (Beginning with Buber's seminal essay on mysticism, this b...)

    1996
  • German Jews: A Dual Identity 1999
  • The Jew in the Modern World 1980
  • A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs 2005

Membership

Paul Mendes-Flohr is a member of Jewish Rainbow Interfaith Society, S. H. Bergman for Philosophical Studies, Palestinian-lsraeli Dialogue Group and Peace Now.

• president

  Jewish Rainbow Interfaith Society

  1988 - 1991

• board of directors

  S. H. Bergman for Philosophical Studies

  1980 - 1981

• coordinator

  Palestinian-lsraeli Dialogue Group

  1990 - 1995

Interests

• fitness training, hiking, classical music

Connections

Paul Robert Mendes-Flohr married Rita Mendes-Chumaceiro in 1970. Their marriage produced two children - Inbal and Itamar.

Father:

William Flohr

Mother:

Blanche Leah (Freeman) Flohr

Spouse:

Rita Mendes-Chumaceiro

child:

Inbal Mendes-Flohr

child:

Itamar Mendes-Flohr