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This groundbreaking book answers myriad compelling questions for modern day spiritual seekers, as well as those interested in a feminist theology of the Holocaust.What do Edith Stein, a Jewish Carmelite nun and Regina Jonas, the first woman rabbi in Jewish history have in common? Both were German Jewish women who demonstrated "deviant" religious desires as they pursued their spiritual paths to serve their communities during the Holocaust. What did it mean to be a Jewish nun? What did it mean to be a woman rabbi? Both were religious visionaries viewed as iconoclastic in their own times. Why did Stein convert from Judaism to Catholicism and Jonas go deeper into Judaism? How did Stein, the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, claim her Jewish identity while she was a cloistered Carmelite nun from 1933 to 1942 in the monasteries of Carmel in Cologne and then Echt? How did Regina Jonas, the first ordained woman rabbi in Jewish history, serve as a woman rabbi from 1936 to 1944, first in Berlin and then in Theresienstadt? How did they view their own hybrid religious identities and how did these claims show their "spiritual resistance," allegiances and leadership during the Holocaust? What does it mean to have "deviant" religious desires? What does it mean to be spiritually true to oneself and to spiritually resist the Holocaust? What is a theology of "spiritual resistance"? For Stein, it meant redemption and the transmutation of suffering on the cross; for Jonas, acts of compassion bring the face of God into our presence, which is a form of liberation. The contemplative and the rabbi provide us with new insights into this world of unimaginable suffering. Stein died in Auschwitz in 1942; Jonas died there in 1944, never having known each other. ... Read more

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This book contains articles exploring the broad spectrum of opinions related to the beatification and canonization of Edith Stein, along with testimonies from those who knew her.
An eminent philosopher, educator, and advocate for women who became a Discalced Carmelite nun, Edith Stein (1891-1942) died like many millions of others of Jewish ancestry in the Auschwitz concentration camp, a victim of Nazi genocide. Today she is increasingly recognized as a major figure of our times.
The Catholic Church's decision to beatify and canonize Edith Stein as a martyr has inspired many. Yet it has also raised important concerns, especially within the Jewish community, about the implications of this action, and of Edith Stein's life and death, for Jewish-Christian relations.
The essays in this volume, gathered together by Sr. Waltraud Herbstrith of the Edith-Stein-Karmel in Tübingen, Germany, and translated by Edith Stein's niece, Susanne Batzdorff, explore the broad spectrum of Jewish and Christian opinions on the controversy. Also included are reactions of Edith Stein's own surviving family members, along with warm remembrances by her former students, friends, and acquaintances. Several important new essays have likewise been added for the American edition.
A useful companion to Edith Stein's Life in a Jewish Family, this seventh entry in the Carmelite Studies series can help readers better appreciate Edith Stein's rich and multifaceted personality, along with her significance for the ongoing dialogue between Christians and Jews. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A tough but still fascinating study
Although this book is written in difficult, technical language, it nevertheless provides the reader with remarkable insights into the nature of the human person and the importance of understanding how communities influence the individual. A worthwhile read for those with patience who are interested in these topics. ... Read more

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Potency and Act is the second of three works in which Edith Stein said she endeavored to fulfill her proper mission in philosophy, her life s task : relating the phenomenology of her teacher Edmund Husserl and the scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas. But more than critically comparing the two ways of thinking, she wished to fuse them into her own philosophical system, searching for that perennial philosophy lying beyond ages and peoples, common to all who honestly seek truth.

Edith Stein was a Jewish phenomenologist who became a Catholic after reading the autobiography of St. Teresa of Jesus and entered the order of Discalced Carmelites founded by the saint. Stein died in Auschwitz in 1942 and was herself canonized in 1998 as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Her philosophical thinking had been formed by Husserl, but she came to find a home in Aquinas s thought world. In Potency and Act she aimed to get from scholasticism to phenomenology and vice versa and allow the two ways of doing philosophy to come to resolution within herself.

The first of the three works in which she carried out her mission was a play where Husserl and Aquinas appear on stage to discuss their agreements and differences (in Knowledge and Faith, ICS Publications, Edith Stein s Collected Works, vol. 8). The second, Potency and Act, was written in 1931 but published for the first time in 1998. The third was her major work, Finite and Eternal Being, written around 1935 and also published posthumously, in 1950 (Collected Works, vol. 9).

Potency and Act is complementary to Finite and Eternal Being, for they are quite different in content. The approach to the study of being in Potency and Act is modal as the title implies; her treatment of possible worlds and of form prescribing possibilities relates to phenomenological themes and also to recent developments in logical semantics.

Philosophy of religion, of course, is a central concern. We reach God not only through faith and contemplation, she says, but by thinking, using logical reasoning both from the world without (as in St. Thomas) and from the world within ( the way of St. Augustine ); indeed, God s existence is also a purely formal conclusion.

Her many searching analyses are suggestive in their own right: on human freedom, temporality, self-knowledge, individuality, evolution (which she fits into the scholastic world view ), atheism, eschatology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Jewess, Woman, and Philosopher
This book caught my eye because it was translated and has a preface by Ralph McInerny, the acclaimed Thomist philosopher who recently died.Edith Stein, raised in a devout Jewish family, decided to be an atheist at age 15.After serving as an assistant to Heidegger, she later became an accomplished philosopher in her own right and converted to Catholicism after reading the writing of the 16th century Spanish St. Teresa of Avila.She then entered a religious order.The Nazis put her to death at age 51. She was canonized (made a saint) in 1998 by Pope John Paul II.Gaboriau's chose to build his discussion of her life around her three major identities as she entered her vocation: Jewess, Woman, and Philosopher.He begins each chapter with a selection from her writings, all of which display brilliance and a profound faith.This construct works fairly well highlighting as it does her full confidence in her ability vis-a-vis male colleagues.Gaboriau's own writing provides valuable insights into her life, but stops short of providing enough information to be a well-rounded biography.I had the impression that Gaboriau assumes that the reader has a certain familiarity with the Saint's life.I did not.This is the first book I've read about Edith Stein, aka Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, so I felt a little on the outside, so to speak, at times.Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it.It will provide a firmer foundation should I read Stein's own works in the future. ... Read more

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Three women, all philosophers, all of Jewish descent, providea human face for a decade of crisis in this powerful and movingbook. The dark years when the Nazis rose to power are here seenthrough the lives of Edith Stein, a disciple of Husserl and author ofLa science et la croix, who died in Auschwitz in 1942; Hannah Arendt,pupil of Heidegger and Jaspers and author of Eichmann in Jerusalem,who unhesitatingly responded to Hitler by making a personal commitmentto Zionism; and Simone Weil, a student of Alain and author of Lapesanteur et la grace.

Following her subjects from 1933 to 1943, Sylvie Courtine-Denamy recounts how these three great philosophers of the twentieth century endeavored with profound moral commitment to address the issues confronting them. Condemned to exile, they not only sought to understand a horrible reality, but also attempted to make peace with it. To do so, Edith Stein and Simone Weil encouraged a stoic acceptance of necessity while Hannah Arendt argued for the capacity for renewal and the need to fight against the banality of evil.

Courtine-Denamy also describes how as a student each woman caught the eye of her famous male teacher, yet dared to criticize and go beyond him. She explores each one's sense of her femininity, her position on the "woman question," and her relation to her Jewishness.

"All three," the author writes, "are compelling figures who move us with their fierce desire to understand a world out of joint, reconcile it with itself, and, despite everything, love it." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A good intro to these ladies and their times
This is not an easy book.It is a glance into the lives of 3 women, Hanna Arendt, Simone Weil, and Edith Stein, each of Jewish descent and, in particular, at the response each one made to Nazism.There is a review of each woman's life and her career.A lot of space is given to the education of these women, which is especially interesting since each studied under some of the biggest names in philosophy in the 20th century.It is not easy to follow, however, unless you have some basic knowledge of Heidegger, Jaspers, Alain, Husserl.But it is still interesting.Each of these women chose a different response (not just to nazism, but to the world, actually).Arendt became strongly Zionist, and an author of wonderful books; Simone Weil, strangely at odds with her heritage, but whose essays are marvels of clarity, chose a strange path of starvation (whatever the philosophical underpinnings, one wonders about anorexia); Edith Stein converted to Catholicism and became a Carmelite nun, devoting her life to prayer (though still writing).Each of these responses is fascinating in its own right.I highly recommend this difficult, but rewarding book.

disappointing story of three remarkable women
I am no philosopher, but have read the works of the three women who are the subjects of the book.
I was hoping to put the three lives into the context of the intellectual and social world they lived in, and how and why they made their individual decisions on philosophy, religion, and their approach to the questions posed by both Nazism and the feminist movement.
But little detail is given about the intellectual life. We are told the names of their mentors: but not any details of what these mentors taught (a major flaw for the non philosophy student who is not familiar with Heddiger etc.).
At the same time, except for some fine passages on Simone Weil, there is little detail on the inner lives of the women: we see only the outline of their parallel lives, often mixed together in a confusing manner. Arendt's affair with her professor, a subject recently treated in detail in a recent Atlantic magazine article, is given one sentence. Stein converts, with no more detail on her inner life than one could read in a blurb in the Catholic encyclopedia.
In summary, the author fails to provide details for the novice to understand the lives of these women, but does not go into sufficient depth for a philosophy student to learn anything new.
However, the passages on Simone Weil are an exception to my criticism. I did learn a lot about both her writings and why she thought and wrote her famous letters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

informative, but only just!
This is an interesting book, enough that I wish it were a great one. Generous delving into Hadewijch of Antwerp, her mysticism and its rights, right to the essence of Hadewigian spirituality-- there are some fine passages illumined with Bouyer's considerable gifts, and a superb translation (by Mother Columba Hart) of a Hadewijch spring aubade that leaves you pinned to its two pages for a spell!Bouyer's thought is lean and clean, and admirable for that, but pointlessly smug with a really old-fashioned modernism.Some of his remarks on Elizabeth of the Trinity betray this tendency, and in fact nearly indicate that he hasn't understood her mystic gifts one whit, however well-schooled his observations are.This affectation is less noticable in his remarks on Therese Martin, although he reckons Elizabeth Catez's family "more open to the world and generally more cultured" than the Martins.He loves Edith Stein most of all, of course, and he manages some genuinely interesting insights into a rather overexposed spirituality.The lines he draws between Stein and Husserl are interesting enough, but nothing new, I think because he's apparently miles from grasping the living charism of Carmel.While he devotedly mentions Teresa- "such a scatterbrain, the copies of whose spiritual writings betray superficiality and a pretentious vacuum on every page"- Fr. Bouyer might benefit most from reading again not only the 'Life', but 'The Book of Foundations' as well, to receive, hopefully, what he has not yet learned-- interestingly, the very Thing received freely, learned quickly and lived profoundly by Elizabeth of the Trinity.Predictable scholarship, book has no soul, take a pass. ... Read more