Weltsch, Felix
WELTSCH, FELIX
WELTSCH, FELIX (Baruch ; 1884–1964), philosopher and publicist; cousin of Robert *Weltsch. Born in Prague, from 1910 to 1939 Weltsch served as a librarian at Prague University and from 1940 at the National Library in Jerusalem. From 1919 to 1938 he was editor of the Zionist weekly *Selbstwehr ("Self-Defense") in Prague. He left Czechoslovakia with a group of 150 emigrants to Palestine on the night preceding the occupation by the Germans (March 14–15, 1939). In his first book, Anschauung und Begriff ("Intuition and Concept," 1913), written together with Max Brod, he developed his own theory on the relation of concept to observation. In 1918 he published a juridical-philosophical study called Organische Demokratie ("Organic Democracy"), followed by his major philosophical work, Gnade und Freiheit ("Mercy and Freedom").
Among his major essays are: "Nationalismus und Judentum" ("Nationalism and Judaism," 1920); "Zionismus als Weltanschauung" ("Zionism as an Encompassing Philosophy," 1925), written together with Max Brod; "Judenfrage und Zionismus" ("The Jewish Problem and Zionism," 1929); Palaestina – Land der Gegensaetze, ("Palestine – Land of Contrasts," 1929); Anti-semitismus als Voelkerhysterie ("Antisemitism as Hysteria of the Nations", 1931).
In Das Wagnis der Mitte ("The Daring of the Center," 1937, 19672) he developed his philosophy of the creative center. In his pamphlet Allgemeiner Zionismus ("General Zionism") he tried to apply this philosophy to Zionist ideology and policy.
Among Weltsch's later works is Ha-Di'alektikah shel ha-Sevel ("The Dialectic of Suffering," 1944), in which he revealed his general theory of the dialectics of the "spiral." Thought goes around in a circle, but it rises above it. Thus, from despair, from the destruction of the idea in matter, the flame of the idea bursts forth anew and recharges itself toward its formation in a new reality. In Teva, Musar u-Mediniyyut ("Nature, Morals, and Policy," 1950) he considered how the feeble spirit can survive in the body and the material world. The solution was not the subjugation of nature by the spirit, but the "Law of Minimum." Nature does not have to fill all the vacuum of possibilities, but only a part of it that is required by the spirit in order to exist in the world. In political terms this means security, but the minimum of security; armament, but the minimum of armament; and likewise, the minimum standard of living, violence, etc. In 1954 Weltsch edited Prag vi-Yrushalayim ("Prague and Jerusalem"), a collection of essays on Jewry and Zionism in Bohemia and Moravia in memory of Leo Herrmann.
Weltsch was a close friend of Franz Kafka. Among his articles about Kafka are "The Rise and Fall of the German-Jewish Symbiosis: The Case of Franz Kafka" (in the Year Book of the Leo Baeck Institute, Vol. 1, 1956), "Religion und Humor im Leben und Werk Franz Kafkas" ("Religion and Humor in Franz Kafka's Life and Work", 1957; Heb. 1959), and "Franz Kafka's Geschichtsbewusstsein" ("Franz Kafka's Consciousness of History") in Deutsches Judentum, Aufstieg und Krise (1963). He also published a work on the philosophy of Henri Bergson and a study entitled Das Raetsel des Lachens ("The Enigma of Laughter," 1935).
bibliography:
S.H. Bergman, in: Haaretz (March 5, 1937; Oct. 20, 1950); mb (Nov. 27, 1964); M. Brod, in: Zeitschrift fuer die Geschichte der Juden, 1 (1964), 201–4.
[Samuel Hugo Bergman]