The Hebrew Spinoza

Spinoza has gained acceptance into Hebrew culture in the last two centuries, a period that includes the Jewish Haskalah in Europe, the culture created in Eretz Yisrael in the pre-statehood days, and contemporary Israeli culture. This acceptance is rather intimate by nature. Hebrew authors and their readers turned to Spinoza to clarify their own problems. To these audiences, Spinoza was not only a great philosopher, whose writings are worth interpreting and spreading. He was also perceived as someone who could help formulate what Judaism is and learn the possible meaning it can find in the world of Jews who had moved away from a religious lifestyle.