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The kabbalah of R. Jacob b. Jacob edited by Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), Jewish scholar; pioneer and leading authority in the field of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Born into an assimilated German-Jewish family in Berlin, Scholem joined the Zionist movement as a young student. This, to him, implied a thorough understanding of the full historical, religious, and cultural tradition of Judaism, to the study and interpretation of which he henceforward devoted himself. He acquired a thorough knowledge of Hebrew and the Jewish sources, benefiting from the influence and friendship of H. N. Bialik, S. Y. Agnon, S.Z. Rubashov (Shazar), and others who, coming from the traditional Jewish culture of Eastern Europe, happened to be in Germany during and after World War I. Scholem studied at the universities of Berlin, Jena, Berne, and Munich, but changed from mathematics and philosophy to oriental languages and in 1922 submitted his doctoral thesis: a translation of, and commentary on, Sefer ha-Bahir - the earliest extant kabbalistic text and one of the most obscure and difficult. Das Buch Bahir (1923) was followed by many other studies and publications, as a result of which the history of the Kabbalah became established as a major discipline and its study placed on a solid philological basis. Scholem joined the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1923 and served as librarian at the University and National Library (1923–27), as lecturer (from 1925), and as professor of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah (1933–65). His researches consist of philological, bibliographical, and other technical studies (including the discovery of many unknown manuscripts and the edition of texts) as well as of works of synthesis. Among the former are the many studies and texts published in Kirjath Sepher, Zion, Sefunot, and other scholarly periodicals; among the latter group Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941, 1954, repr. 1965), Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (1960, 1965), Shabbetai Zevi ve-ha-Tenu'ah ha-Shabbeta' it, 2 vols. (1957; English translation, Shabbetai Sevi, 1973), Ursprung und Anfaenge der Kabbala (1962), and The Messianic Idea in Judaism (1971) are the most outstanding.
After World War II Scholem became a regular participant at the annual Eranos Conferences in Ascona, Switzerland. Many of the papers read at these conferences, as well as other studies, essays, and speeches have been collected in several volumes (e.g., On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, 1965) and have contributed greatly to a better knowledge and appreciation of the history of Jewish mysticism among non-Jews also and established his international reputation in the scholarly world. His combination of painstaking analysis, penetrating philosophical insight, and profound historical understanding have set new standards and added new perspectives to Jewish studies as a whole, in addition to bringing about new evaluations of many religious and historical phenomena and movements (e.g., the messianic movement connected with Shabbetai Zevi). A bibliography of his writings published in Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to Gershom G. Scholem on his Seventieth Birthday (1967) lists over 500 items. Scholem holds honorary degrees from many academic institutions and is the recipient of many distinctions and prizes, including the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies (1958). In 1962 he was elected vice-president and in 1968 president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was a consulting editor to the Encyclopaedia Judaica.
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