Gershom Scholem (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
The twentieth century scholar and historian Gershom Scholem (SHOH-luhm) singlehandedly brought Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, into serious consideration and radically altered the way mysticism is viewed in the course of Jewish history. Born Gerhard Scholem to an assimilated middle-class Jewish family in Berlin, Scholem early rejected both Jewish assimilation and German nationalism in his search for a Jewish identity. At the age of fourteen he became a Zionist, which for him was a starting point, a place where both secular and orthodox Jews could find common ground in their...
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