Nahum Glatzer and the German-Jewish Tradition

The Life and Work of a Judaic Scholar

Nahum N. Glatzer (1903-1990), was a noted Judaic scholar who exemplified scholarly integrity and the revivification of Judaic studies in a time of exile. The film explores the context of German-Jewish learning in which he developed and the theological, literary and philosophical worlds to which he contributed.

A foremost disciple of the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, Glatzer succeeded Martin Buber at the University of Frankfurt in the sole position in Jewish studies in Germany. Nahum and Anne Glatzer immigrated to Palestine in 1933 and then to the US in 1938, where he served as editor-in-chief of Schocken Books and presented among the first English editions of the work of Franz Kafka. Glatzer was the author of studies on Rosenzweig, Buber, Jewish history, midrashic literature, Wissenschaft des Judentums, and the connection between the Book of Job, the motif of the Tree of Knowledge, and Kafka's writings.

Glatzer went on to develop the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis, which became the prototype for departments across the US. The film explores his life as a paradigm of movement from culture to culture and an emblem of what lives on in the transition, influencing many students and training a generation of Judaic scholars.