The Story of a Friendship: The Archive and the Question of Palestine

Apparently The Story of a Friendship, the document Gershom Scholem has left concerning his friendship with Walter Benjamin, is in keeping with the classic conception of an intellectual friendship between two men, both in Scholem’s stated intent and in the content he presents: “When I reflect on what it was we had in common after these first encounters, I can cite a few things that are not to be overlooked easily. I can describe them only in general terms as a resoluteness in pursuing our intellectual goals, rejection of our environment—which was basically the German-Jewish assimilated middle class—and...