In Old Worlds, New Mirrors Moshe Idel turns his gaze on figures as diverse as Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida, Franz Kafka and Franz Rosenzweig, Arnaldo Momigliano and Paul Celan, Abraham Heschel and George Steiner to reflect on their relationships to Judaism in a cosmopolitan, mostly European, context.

Preface
Introduction
I. INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF JUDAISM
1. Arnaldo Momigliano and Gershom Scholem on Jewish History and Tradition
2. Eric Voegelin's Israel and Revelation
3. George Steiner: A Prophet of Abstraction
II. SCHOLEM'S CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF KABBALAH
4. The Function of Symbols in Gershom Scholem
5. Hieroglyphs, Mysteries, Keys: Scholem Between Molitor and Kafka
6. Subversive Catalysts: Gnosticism and Messianism in Scholem's View of Jewish Mysticism
III. KABBALAH IN SOME TWENTIETH-CENTURY THINKERS
7. Franz Rosenzweig and Kabbalah
8. Abraham Abulafia, Gershom Scholem, and Walter Benjamin on Language
9. Jacques Derrida and Kabbalistic Sources
10. Paul Celan's "Psalm": A Revelation Toward Naught
IV. UNDERSTANDING HASIDISM
11. Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem on Hasidism
12. Abraham Heschel on Mysticism and Hasidism
13. White Letters: From R. Levi Isaac of Berdichev to Postmodern Hermeneutics
List of Abbreviations and Sources
Notes
Index

Moshe Idel is Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Senior Researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is the winner of many awards and prizes, including the EMET Prize, given by the Prime Minister of Israel; the Israel Prize for Jewish Thought; the Gershom Scholem Prize for research in Kabbalah, given by the Israeli Academy for Sciences and Humanities; and the National Jewish Book Award. Among his many books are Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation, and Kabbalah and Eros.