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Author: Rory Schacter

Rory Shacter studied political theory, classical Greek, and Jewish philosophy at the University of Toronto, and holds an MA in religious studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Hermann Cohen’s Secular Messianism and Liberal Cosmopolitanism

Hermann Cohen’s Secular Messianism and Liberal Cosmopolitanism

April 24, 2008 | Rory Schacter
The German Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) had interesting perspectives on messianism, liberalism, and Zionism. Despite the great changes that the nature of Jewish life on the one hand, and the conceptions of liberalism on the other, have undergone since Cohen wrote, many modern thinkers continue to frame their political positions on strikingly "Cohenian" grounds. Hence the theoretical basis of his attack on Zionism and nationalism in the name of liberal universalism