Richard Lowell Rubenstein

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Richard Lowell Rubenstein , known as Richard L. Rubenstein (born January 8, 1924 in New York City , † May 16, 2021 in Bridgeport , Connecticut ), was an American rabbi , theologian and publicist .

Life

Rubenstein studied Jewish religion at Hebrew Union College , a rabbinical seminary of Reform Judaism in New York City. In 1952 Rubenstein was ordained a rabbi. From 1958 he was director of the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation and worked from 1958 to 1970 as a minister for the students at the University of Pittsburgh , Carnegie-Mellon University and Duquesne University . From 1970 to 1995 he taught religious studies at Florida State University . From 1995 to 1999 Rubenstein was President of the University of Bridgeport in Connecticutwhich has been financially supported by the Unification Church since 1995. Although President of this university, Rubenstein was never a member of the Unification Church.

As an author, Rubenstein has written several books and an autobiography. Rubenstein's first work, After Auschwitz, postulated that the only honest intellectual response to the Holocaust was to reject a god who acts in history. This meant the end of a Jewish belief in election. Accordingly, the Jewish existence is by no means a punitive existence in which the fate of the Jews is to be viewed as God's punishment. Exile is not just a historical and geographical figure of Jewish exile, but a general human and cosmic reality. In it the person has to create the meaning of his life himself. This view of God is dead theology was widespread reading in the Jewish communities of the United States in the 1970s and sparked media discussions with Protestant theologians such as Gabriel Vahanian , Paul van Buren , William Hamilton, and Thomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer .

To fill his image of God positively, Rubenstein resorted to Jewish mysticism. For him God was en-sof - 'holy no-thingness' as the source and outlet of all being. In his 1972 book My Brother Paul , he provided a psychoanalytic study of Paul of Tarsus .

Richard L. Rubenstein died in May 2021 at the age of 97.

Works (selection)

  • After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1966, ISBN 0-672-50604-1 . 2nd edition: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore / London, 1992, ISBN 0-8018-4285-9 .
  • Morality and Eros. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970.
  • My brother Paul. Harper & Row, New York, 1972, ISBN 0-06-067014-2 .
  • The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future. Harper and Row, New York, 1975, OCLC 0061320684 .
    • 2nd edition: The cunning of history: the holocaust and the American future. Harper & Row, New York, 1978. ISBN 0-06-090597-2 .
  • Age of Triage: Fear and Hope in an Overcrowded World. Beacon, Boston, 1983, ISBN 0-8070-4376-1 .
  • The Religious Imagination: A Study in Psychoanalysis and Jewish Theology. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1968, OCLC 377212 . New edition: University Press of America, Lanham, 1986, ISBN 0-8191-4539-4 .
  • Power Struggle: An Autobiographical Confession. University Press of America, New York / Lanham, 1986, ISBN 0-684-13757-7 .
  • Dissolving Alliance: The United States and the Future of Europe. Paragon, New York City, 1987, ISBN 0-88702-217-0 .
  • Jihad and Genocide. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham et al., 2010, ISBN 978-0-7425-6203-5 .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Healey: Remembering Dr. Richard Rubenstein. In: bridgeport.edu. May 17, 2021, accessed May 24, 2021 .
  2. ↑ Joseph Berger: U. of Bridgeport Honors Rev. Moon, Fiscal Savior. In: nytimes.com . September 7, 1995, archived from the original on February 28, 2018 ; accessed on May 25, 2021 (English).
  3. ^ Richard L. Rubenstein: My brother Paul. Harper & Row, New York, 1972, ISBN 0-06-067014-2 .
  4. ^ Rubenstein and the Unification Church: See Neil Albert Salonen: My reflections on Richard Rubenstein. In: Michael Berenbaum / Hannah Rubenstein Feibel / Betty Rogers Rubenstein (eds.): What Kind of God? Essays in Honor of Richard L. Rubenstein (= Studies in the Shoah; 11). University Press of America, Lanham / New York / London, 1984, ISBN 0-7618-0036-0 , pp. 435-440.
    On “en-sof”: Rubenstein: Morality and Eros. Pp. 185-191. See also: Klaus Rohmann: Perfection in nothing? A documentation of the American God-is-dead theology. Benziger, Zurich / Einsiedeln / Cologne, 1977, ISBN 3-545-22086-9 .
personal data
SURNAME Rubenstein, Richard Lowell
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rubenstein, Richard L .; Rubenstein, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American rabbi and author
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 2021
PLACE OF DEATH Bridgeport , Connecticut