#gershomscholem — Public Fediverse posts

"In his #novel #AFoolsKabbalah, #SteveStern #writes in a manic whirl of disturbing and hilarious images as he follows the great historian of #Jewish #mysticism #GershomScholem on his journey to gather up the remains of a vanished civilization."

"Steve #Stern’s new novel, A Fool’s #Kabbalah, is a #comedy about #tragedy and a tragedy about comedy. It is a #mystical #fable of real events and a realistic account of mysticism. There are Jewish #jokes and Jewish jokesters and #Nazis who torture and kill the jokesters. #Kafka, Kabbalah, #Zionism, and the #shtetl of #Zyldzce (pronounced, perhaps, as “zilch”); #WalterBenjamin, #HannahArendt, love for a #rabbi’s beautiful daughter, and an #occult midnight marriage to an unearthly albino girl in a white gauze dress; shit jokes, fart jokes, raw misery, deep #philosophy, brutal #history and brutal #fantasy, broken hearts and heartfelt joy—these exuberantly disparate topics are somehow, improbably, made to cohere."

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/04/09/the-possibility-of-humor-fools-kabbalah-steve-stern/

"In his #novel #AFoolsKabbalah, #SteveStern #writes in a manic whirl of disturbing and hilarious images as he follows the great historian of #Jewish #mysticism #GershomScholem on his journey to gather up the remains of a vanished civilization."

"Steve #Stern’s new novel, A Fool’s #Kabbalah, is a #comedy about #tragedy and a tragedy about comedy. It is a #mystical #fable of real events and a realistic account of mysticism. There are Jewish #jokes and Jewish jokesters and #Nazis who torture and kill the jokesters. #Kafka, Kabbalah, #Zionism, and the #shtetl of #Zyldzce (pronounced, perhaps, as “zilch”); #WalterBenjamin, #HannahArendt, love for a #rabbi’s beautiful daughter, and an #occult midnight marriage to an unearthly albino girl in a white gauze dress; shit jokes, fart jokes, raw misery, deep #philosophy, brutal #history and brutal #fantasy, broken hearts and heartfelt joy—these exuberantly disparate topics are somehow, improbably, made to cohere."

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/04/09/the-possibility-of-humor-fools-kabbalah-steve-stern/

"In his #novel #AFoolsKabbalah, #SteveStern #writes in a manic whirl of disturbing and hilarious images as he follows the great historian of #Jewish #mysticism #GershomScholem on his journey to gather up the remains of a vanished civilization."

"Steve #Stern’s new novel, A Fool’s #Kabbalah, is a #comedy about #tragedy and a tragedy about comedy. It is a #mystical #fable of real events and a realistic account of mysticism. There are Jewish #jokes and Jewish jokesters and #Nazis who torture and kill the jokesters. #Kafka, Kabbalah, #Zionism, and the #shtetl of #Zyldzce (pronounced, perhaps, as “zilch”); #WalterBenjamin, #HannahArendt, love for a #rabbi’s beautiful daughter, and an #occult midnight marriage to an unearthly albino girl in a white gauze dress; shit jokes, fart jokes, raw misery, deep #philosophy, brutal #history and brutal #fantasy, broken hearts and heartfelt joy—these exuberantly disparate topics are somehow, improbably, made to cohere."

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/04/09/the-possibility-of-humor-fools-kabbalah-steve-stern/

"In his #novel #AFoolsKabbalah, #SteveStern #writes in a manic whirl of disturbing and hilarious images as he follows the great historian of #Jewish #mysticism #GershomScholem on his journey to gather up the remains of a vanished civilization."

"Steve #Stern’s new novel, A Fool’s #Kabbalah, is a #comedy about #tragedy and a tragedy about comedy. It is a #mystical #fable of real events and a realistic account of mysticism. There are Jewish #jokes and Jewish jokesters and #Nazis who torture and kill the jokesters. #Kafka, Kabbalah, #Zionism, and the #shtetl of #Zyldzce (pronounced, perhaps, as “zilch”); #WalterBenjamin, #HannahArendt, love for a #rabbi’s beautiful daughter, and an #occult midnight marriage to an unearthly albino girl in a white gauze dress; shit jokes, fart jokes, raw misery, deep #philosophy, brutal #history and brutal #fantasy, broken hearts and heartfelt joy—these exuberantly disparate topics are somehow, improbably, made to cohere."

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/04/09/the-possibility-of-humor-fools-kabbalah-steve-stern/

"In his #novel #AFoolsKabbalah, #SteveStern #writes in a manic whirl of disturbing and hilarious images as he follows the great historian of #Jewish #mysticism #GershomScholem on his journey to gather up the remains of a vanished civilization."

"Steve #Stern’s new novel, A Fool’s #Kabbalah, is a #comedy about #tragedy and a tragedy about comedy. It is a #mystical #fable of real events and a realistic account of mysticism. There are Jewish #jokes and Jewish jokesters and #Nazis who torture and kill the jokesters. #Kafka, Kabbalah, #Zionism, and the #shtetl of #Zyldzce (pronounced, perhaps, as “zilch”); #WalterBenjamin, #HannahArendt, love for a #rabbi’s beautiful daughter, and an #occult midnight marriage to an unearthly albino girl in a white gauze dress; shit jokes, fart jokes, raw misery, deep #philosophy, brutal #history and brutal #fantasy, broken hearts and heartfelt joy—these exuberantly disparate topics are somehow, improbably, made to cohere."

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/04/09/the-possibility-of-humor-fools-kabbalah-steve-stern/

.> Benjamin wrote of the failures of so-called “progress,” citing the marginalized histories that we cannot remember because victors inspire a collective amnesia to preserve dominant narratives. He wrote of the societal fracturing that occurs when histories are ignored, cultural fault lines that burst open in times of economic or social change. He wrote of yesterday, and somehow also of today....

.> ... As a sort of pilgrimage for his fallen companion, Scholem carried the painting to Israel. And soon after, Hannah Arendt took the final words that Benjamin had written (the Theses) and fled with them, eventually making her way—and their way—to America.