No masters but God: Portraits of anarcho-Judaism

The forgotten legacy of religious Jewish anarchism, and the adventures and ideas of its key figures, finally comes to light in this book. Set in the decades surrounding both world wars, No masters but God identifies a loosely connected group of rabbis and traditionalist thinkers who explicitly appealed to anarchist ideas in articulating the meaning of the Torah, traditional practice, Jewish life and the mission of modern Jewry. Full of archival discoveries and first translations from Yiddish and Hebrew, it explores anarcho-Judaism in its variety through the works of Yaakov Meir Zalkind, Yitshak Nahman Steinberg, Yehudah Leyb Don-Yahiya, Avraham Yehudah Heyn, Natan Hofshi, Shmuel Alexandrov, Yehudah Ashlag and Aaron Shmuel Tamaret. With this ground-breaking account, Hayyim Rothman traces a complicated story about the modern entanglement of religion and anarchism, pacifism and Zionism, prophetic anti-authoritarianism and mystical antinomianism.

ISBN-13: 9781526167217

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Publication Date: 02-14-2023

Pages: 288

Product Dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.60(d)

Series: Contemporary Anarchist Studies

Hayyim Rothman is a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow at Bar Ilan University, Israel

Table of Contents

1 An anarchist minyan
2 Historical and theological context
Part I: The activists
3 Yaakov Meir Zalkind (1875–1938)
4 Yitshak Nahman Steinberg (1888–1957)
Part II: The mystics
5 Shmuel Alexandrov (1865–1941)
6 Yehuda Ashlag (1885–1954)
Part III: The pacifists
7 Yehuda-Leyb Don-Yahiya (1869–1941)
8 Avraham Yehudah Heyn (1880–1957)
9 Natan Hofshi (1890–1980)
10 Aaron-Shmuel Tamaret (1869–1931)
Conclusion: Contemporary relevance
Index

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