Abstract
In the mid 1950's in Waltham, Massachussetts, Simon Rawidowicz (1897-1957)
wrote Bavel Verushalayim (Babylon and Jerusalem), a magisterial two-volume collection of essays purported to lay out a philosophy of Jewish history. Rawidowicz died before the book
was published, but its appearance signaled the
unapologietic Diasporic voice that marked his
life’s work as a tireless scholar, publisher, and
politico-cultural activist. At a time when world
Jewry sought to find its bearings after the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, he offered a dynamic vision of continuity
and change that might seem especially suited
for Jewry’s groping need for reorientation. He
mobilized his unrivaled command of the entire
sweep of Jewish thought in order to offer a
critical standpoint from which contemporary
Jewry could meet and engage the challenges
of its past, present, and future.