Judaism in Modernity: Franz Rosenzweig’s ‘On Jewish Learning’ and Its Philosophical Impacts

In discussing Jewish modernity, a predominant debate among scholars is whether or not modernization has a positive correlation with secularization among the Jewish community.This is a more nuanced argument than it may first appear; while of course, modernity brings with it change and reform, it has also seen the development of ultra-orthodox sects of Judaism such as the Hasidim and the Haredi.The development of religious sects such as Reform Judaism, the Conservative movement, and finally the Reconstructionist movement lends itself to the idea of secularization, or of bringing secular Jews back into some semblance of religious life depending on how one looks at it.The history of Jewish modernity, by and large however, challenges this scholarly association of modernization with secularization by emphasizing the increasing ways in which the global Jewish diaspora has begun to engage with their Judaism and Jewish communities.One oft-overlooked aspect of the philosophical shifts of European and Israeli Jewry during the shift into Jewish modernity was the role that Franz Rosenzweig's work had on the emergence of a religious Zionist movement that he himself was vehemently opposed to.