The Quest for Redemption ― Central European Jewish Thought in Joseph Roth's Works

Questfor Redemption: Central European Jewish Thought in Joseph Roth's Works by RaresPiloiu fills animportant gap in Roth scholarship, placing Roth’s major works of fiction forthe first time in the context of a generational interest in religious redemptionamong the Jewish intellectuals of Central Europe. In it, Piloiu argues that Roth’schallenging, often contradictory and ambivalent literary output is the resultof an attempt to recast moral, political, and historical realities of anempirically observable world in a new, religiously transfigured reality throughthe medium of literature. This diegetic recasting of phenomenologicalencounters with the real is an expression of Roth’s belief that, since the selfand the world are in a continuing state of crisis, issuing from theirseparation in modernity, a restoration of their unity is necessary to redeemthe historical existence of individuals and communities alike. Piloiu notes,however, that Roth’s enterprise in this is not unique to his work, but ratheris shared by an entire generation of Central European Jewish intellectuals.This generation, disillusioned by modernity’s excessive secularism, rationalism,and nationalism, sought a radical solution in the revival of mystical religioustraditions—above all, in the Judaic idea of messianic redemption. Their use ofthe Chasidic notion of redemption was highly original in that it striped thenotion of its cathected theological content and applied it thus denuded tosecular experience of reality. As a result, Roth’s Quest for Redemption is a quest for a salvation of the individualnot outside, but within, history.