Editing Walter Benjamin (section)

=== Early life and education ===
Walter Benjamin and his younger siblings, Georg (1895–1942) and [[Dora Benjamin|Dora]] (1901–1946), were born to a wealthy business family of assimilated [[Ashkenazi Jews]] in [[Berlin]], then the capital of the [[German Empire]]. Walter's father, Emil Benjamin, was a banker in Paris who had relocated from France to Germany,<ref name=":5" /> where he worked as an antiques trader; he later married Pauline Schönflies.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Scholem |first=Gershom |date=1982 |title=Ahnen und Verwandten Walter Benjamins |url=https://www.academia.edu/44509105 |journal=Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts |volume=61 |pages=29–55}}</ref> He owned a number of investments in Berlin, including ice skating rinks.<ref name=":5" /> 

Walter's uncle, [[William Stern (psychologist)|William Stern]], was a prominent German [[child psychology|child psychologist]] who developed the concept of the [[intelligence quotient]] (IQ).<ref name=":5" /> He also had a cousin, [[Günther Anders]],<ref name=":5" /> a German philosopher and anti-nuclear activist who studied under [[Edmund Husserl]] and [[Martin Heidegger]]. Through his mother, Walter's great-uncle was the classical archaeologist [[Gustav Hirschfeld]].<ref name=":5" /><ref>Howard Eiland, ''Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life'', Harvard University Press (2014), p. 20</ref>

In 1901, eight-year-old Walter was enrolled at the Kaiser Friedrich School in [[Charlottenburg]]; he completed his secondary school studies ten years later. In his youth, Walter was of fragile health and so in 1905 the family sent him to [[Hermann-Lietz-Schule Haubinda]], a [[boarding school]] in the [[Thuringia]]n countryside, for two years; in 1907, having returned to Berlin, he resumed his schooling at the Kaiser Friedrich School.<ref name="Witte" />

In 1912, at the age of 20, he enrolled at the [[University of Freiburg]], but at the summer semester's end, he returned to Berlin and matriculated at the [[Humboldt University of Berlin|University of Berlin]] to continue studying philosophy. There, Benjamin had his first exposure to [[Zionism]], which had not been part of his liberal upbringing. This gave him occasion to formulate his own ideas about the meaning of Judaism. Benjamin distanced himself from political and nationalist Zionism, instead developing in his own thinking what he called a kind of "[[cultural Zionism]]"{{mdash}}an attitude that recognized and promoted Judaism and [[Jewish ethics|Jewish values]]. In Benjamin's formulation, his Jewishness meant a commitment to the furtherance of European culture. He wrote: "My life experience led me to this insight: the Jews represent an elite in the ranks of the spiritually active ... For Judaism is to me in no sense an end in itself, but the most distinguished bearer and representative of the spiritual."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benjamin |first=Walter |title=Gesammelte Schriften II |publisher=Suhrkamp |year=1955 |pages=839 |language=German}}</ref> This was a position Benjamin largely held lifelong.<ref>Witte, Bernd. (1996) ''Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography''. New York: Verso. pp. 26–27</ref>

It was as a speaker and debater in the milieu of the [[Gustav Wyneken]]'s [[German Youth Movement]] that Benjamin was first encountered by [[Gershom Scholem]] and later [[Martin Buber]] although he had parted ways with the youth group before they had become properly acquainted.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scholem |first=Gershom |title=Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship |publisher=Schocken |year=1988 |isbn=0-8052-0870-4 |location=New York |pages=3–5, 7, 13}}</ref> Elected president of the ''Freie Studentenschaft'' (Free Students Association), Benjamin wrote essays arguing for educational and general cultural change while working alongside Wyneken at the legendary and controversial youth magazine ''Der Anfang'' (The beginning), that was banned in all schools in Bavaria. Wyneken's thesis that a new youth must pave the way for revolutionary cultural change became the main theme of all of Benjamin's publications at that time.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Scholem |first1=Gershom |title=Walter Benjamin: the story of a friendship |last2=Scholem |first2=Gershom |date=1982 |publisher=Faber and Faber |isbn=978-0-571-11970-7 |location=London |pages=4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life |last1=Eiland |last2=Jennings |first1=Howard |first2=Michael W |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA and London |date=2014 |isbn=978-0-674-05186-7}} Chapter II: 'Metaphysics of Youth' (Berlin and Freiburg: 1912–1914).</ref> When not reelected as student association president, he returned to Freiburg to study, with particular attention to the lectures of [[Heinrich Rickert]]; at that time he traveled to France and Italy.

Benjamin's attempt to volunteer for service at the outbreak of [[World War I]] in August 1914 was rejected by the army.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Jay|first=Martin|date=1999|title=Walter Benjamin, Remembrance, and the First World War|journal=Review of Japanese Culture and Society|volume=11/12|pages=18–31|issn=0913-4700|jstor=42800179}}</ref> Benjamin later feigned illnesses to avoid conscription,<ref name=":1" /><ref name=Eberg2018>{{Cite book|last=Eilenberger|first=Wolfram|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1127067361|title=Time of the magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the decade that reinvented philosophy|date=2020|others=Shaun Whiteside|isbn=978-0-525-55966-5|publisher=Penguin Press |location=New York|pages=91–94|oclc=1127067361}}</ref> allowing him to continue his studies and his translations of works by French poet [[Charles Baudelaire]]. His conspicuous refuge in Switzerland on dubious medical grounds was a likely factor in his ongoing challenges in obtaining academic employment after the war.<ref name=Eberg2018/>

The next year, 1915, Benjamin moved to Munich, and continued his schooling at the [[University of Munich]], where he met [[Rainer Maria Rilke]]<ref name="Faber and Faber">{{Cite book |last1=Scholem |first1=Gershom |title=Walter Benjamin: the story of a friendship |last2=Scholem |first2=Gershom |date=1982 |publisher=Faber and Faber |isbn=978-0-571-11970-7 |location=London |pages=33}}</ref> and Scholem; the latter became a friend. Intensive discussions with Scholem about Judaism and Jewish mysticism gave the impetus for the 1916 text (surviving as a manuscript) ''Über Sprache überhaupt und über die Sprache des Menschen'' ("[[On Language as Such and on the Language of Man]]"), which, as Benjamin said to Scholem , "has an immanent relationship to Judaism and to the first chapter of the [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Benjamin |first1=Walter |title=The correspondence of Walter Benjamin: 1910 - 1940 |last2=Benjamin |first2=Walter |date=2012 |publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-04238-1 |editor-last=Scholem |editor-first=Gershom |edition= |location=Chicago, Ill London |pages=81 |chapter=Letter to Scholem November 11th, 1916}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Walter Benjamin mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten |trans-title=W. Benjamin with self-testimonies and photo documents |last=Witte |first=Bernd |publisher=Rowohlt |location=Reinbek bei Hamburg |date=1985 |page=28 |language=de}}</ref> In that period, Benjamin wrote about the 18th-century [[Romanticism|Romantic]] German poet [[Friedrich Hölderlin]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Scholem |first1=Gershom |title=Walter Benjamin: the story of a friendship |last2=Scholem |first2=Gershom |date=1982 |publisher=Faber and Faber |isbn=978-0-571-11970-7 |location=London |pages=14}}</ref>

In 1917 Benjamin transferred to the [[University of Bern]]; there he met [[Ernst Bloch]], and Dora Sophie Pollak<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Scholem |first1=Gershom |title=Walter Benjamin: the story of a friendship |last2=Scholem |first2=Gershom |date=1982 |publisher=Faber and Faber |isbn=978-0-571-11970-7 |location=London |pages=20}}</ref> (née Kellner), whom he married. They had a son, Stefan Rafael, in 1918. In 1919 Benjamin earned his [[PhD]] ''[[summa cum laude]]'' with the dissertation ''Der Begriff der Kunstkritik in der deutschen Romantik'' (''The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism'').<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Benjamin |first1=Walter |title=Selected writings. 2,1: Vol. 2, part 1, 1927-1930 / Transl. by Rodney Livingstone. Ed. by Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland and Gary Smith |last2=Jennings |first2=Michael W. |last3=Eiland |first3=Howard |last4=Smith |first4=Gary |last5=Livingstone |first5=Rodney |date=2005 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-674-01588-3 |edition= |location=Cambridge, Mass |pages=422 |chapter=Curriculum Vitae (1)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Benjamin |first1=Walter |title=Selected writings. 2,1: Vol. 2, part 1, 1927-1930 / Transl. by Rodney Livingstone. Ed. by Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland and Gary Smith |last2=Jennings |first2=Michael W. |last3=Eiland |first3=Howard |last4=Smith |first4=Gary |last5=Livingstone |first5=Rodney |date=2005 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-674-01588-3 |edition= |location=Cambridge, Mass |pages=116–200 |chapter=The Concept of Art Criticism in german Romanticism}}</ref>

For his [[postdoctoral]] thesis in 1920, Benjamin hit upon an idea very similar to the thesis proposed by [[Martin Heidegger]] in the latter's own postdoctoral project (''Duns Scotus: Theory of Categories and Meaning'').<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Benjamin |first1=Walter |title=The correspondence of Walter Benjamin: 1910 - 1940 |last2=Benjamin |first2=Walter |date=2012 |publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-04238-1 |editor-last=Scholem |editor-first=Gershom |edition= |location=Chicago, Ill London}}</ref> Wolfram Eilenberger writes that Benjamin's plan was "to legitimize [his theory of language] with reference to a largely forgotten tradition [found in the archaic writings of [[Duns Scotus]]], and to strike the sparks of systematization from the apparent disjunct among modern, logical, and analytical linguistic philosophy and medieval speculations on language that fell under the heading of theology".<ref name="Eberg2018" /> After Scholem sympathetically informed his friend that his interest in the concept had been pre-empted by Heidegger's earlier publication,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Benjamin |first1=Walter |title=The correspondence of Walter Benjamin: 1910 - 1940 |last2=Benjamin |first2=Walter |date=2012 |publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-04238-1 |editor-last=Scholem |editor-first=Gershom |edition= |location=Chicago, Ill London |pages=167–169}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Eilenberger |first=Wolfram |title=Time of the magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the decade that reinvented philosophy |date=2020 |publisher=Penguin Press |isbn=978-0-525-55966-5 |location=New York |pages=92 |translator-last=Whiteside |translator-first=Shaun}}</ref> Benjamin seemed to have derived a lifelong antagonism toward the rival philosopher whose major insights, over the course of both of their careers, sometimes overlapped and sometimes conflicted with Benjamin's.<ref name="Eberg2018"/>

Later, unable to support himself and family, Benjamin returned to Berlin and resided with his parents. In 1921 he published the essay "[[Critique of Violence|Zur Kritik der Gewalt]]" ("Toward the Critique of Violence"). At this time Benjamin first became socially acquainted with [[Leo Strauss]], and he remained an admirer of Strauss and his work throughout his life.<ref>''Jewish philosophy and the crisis of modernity'' (SUNY 1997), ''Leo Strauss as a Modern Jewish thinker'', Kenneth Hart Green, Leo Strauss, page 55</ref><ref name=":3">Scholem, Gershom. 1981. Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship. Trans. Harry Zohn, page 201, page 79</ref><ref>''The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932–40'', New York 1989, page 155–58</ref>