Abraham Rubin
Postdoctoral Fellow, Martin Buber Society of Fellows, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Aufenthalt
November 2021–Februar 2022
Forschungsthema
»Conversion and the Problem of Persuasion in Modern Jewish Life Writing«
Projektbeschreibung
Conversion and the Problem of Persuasion is a study of the autobiographical writings of six European Jews, who converted to Christianity and Islam in the first half of the twentieth century. It asks how such figures articulated the meaning of their conversion and forged their religious identity in relation to their Jewish background. It analyzes the rhetorical means they used to persuade themselves and their audiences of the authenticity of their religious transformation at a time when conversion from Judaism was perceived to be a craven act of communal betrayal, and Jewishness construed as an intractable racial trait. Contrary to the notion that conversion represents a radical break with one’s Jewish past, this study seeks to demonstrate the ways in which the political and cultural dilemmas of modern Jewish identity and its corresponding modes of self-representation were carried over into converts’ autobiographical accounts of religious transformation.
Wissenschaftliches Profil
Abraham Rubin hat im Fach Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft an der City University in New York promoviert. Gegenwärtig ist er Postdoctoral Fellow an der Martin Buber Society of Fellows der Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Zuvor war er an den Universitäten Lawrence University in Wisconsin und der Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main tätig.
Veröffentlichungen (Auswahl)
- »Zionism, Pan-Asianism and the Post-Colonial Predicament in the Interwar Writings of Eugen Hoeflich«, in: AJS Review 45.1 (2021), S. 120-142.
- »Hugo Hamid Marcus (1880-1966): The Muslim Convert as German Jew«, in: The Jewish Quarterly Review 109.4 (2019), S. 598-630.
- »Reading Kafka, Debating Revelation: Gershom Scholem’s Shadow Dialogue with Hans-Joachim Schoeps«, in: Literature and Theology 31.1 (2017), S. 78-98.
Forschungskontext
Abraham Rubin kooperiert mit Christian Wiese, Inhaber der Martin-Buber-Professur für Jüdische Religionsphilosophie an der Goethe-Universität und Mitglied im Direktorium des Forschungskollegs Humanwissenschaften. Sein Aufenthalt wird von der Johanna Quandt Young Academy at Goethe gefördert.
