xiiiacknowledgments
paul Mendes-Flohr, my Doktorvater, and the university of chicago divinity
school provided a warm and challenging atmosphere for my graduate study. in
particular, i’d like to thank Michael Fishbane, Bruce lincoln, Margaret Mitch-
ell, david nirenberg, lucy pick, Jim robinson, richard rosengarten, and eric
santner. and finally, the late Jean Bethke elshtain, with whom i disagreed about
much in theology and politics but who was a giving and thoughtful teacher.
The administration and faculty of the graduate school of the Jewish Theo-
logical seminary generously funded my master’s degree. i owe a great deal to the
many wonderful teachers i had there, especially alan Mittleman, whose dry wit
and reasoned disagreements sharpened my thinking.
The university of cincinnati department of Judaic studies and the depart-
ment of religious studies at the university of Kansas gave me welcoming institu-
tional homes to teach, research, and finish my work on this book. i’d especially
like to thank my colleagues at Ku: Jackie Brinton, Bill lindsey, Joshua lollar,
tim Miller, paul Mirecki, hamsa stainton, dan stevenson, Molly Zahn, and Mi-
chael Z og r y.
sections of this book were presented as papers over the years at the confer-
ences of the american academy of religion, the association of Jewish studies,
and the society for Jewish ethics, as well as at the yale Modern Jewish history
colloquium, the harvard Jewish studies workshop, and the israel-palestine
graduate group at Boston college. i am grateful to all of them for their invita-
tions and critical feedback.
Thanks to dee Mortensen and paige rasmussen of indiana university press
for taking on this project, and for being so easy to work with. and thanks to
asher Biemann and Michael Morgan, the manuscript’s outside readers, for their
critical and constructive feedback.
The Borrowing unit staff at the interlibrary loan department of the Van
pelt library, at the university of pennsylvania, assisted me in an extensive search
for the image that appears on this book’s cover. The ill office of the library of
washington university in st. louis was finally able to supply it. Both have my
gratitude. heba Mostafa and Mary channen caldwell generously assisted me in
tracing the image’s lineage.
Thanks to the Klau library, hebrew union college–Jewish institute of reli-
gion, cincinnati, for permission to publish the appendix. The original letter can
be found there in the hans Kohn collection, box 1, i: correspondence: 1939, 1.