Scholem on Benjamin

Two clips:

That others were impressed, indeed entranced, by the imaginative verve of Goldberg's interpretations of Torah and sometimes even by their rather sinister aspects is evidenced not only by the writings of the paleontologist Edgar Dacque but above all by Thomas Mann; the first novel of the latter's Joseph tetralogy, The Tales of Jacob, is in its metaphysical sections based entirely on Goldberg's book. This, to be sure, did not keep Mann from making Goldberg the target of his irony a few years later in a special chapter of his novel Doctor Faustus. There Goldberg appears as the scholar Dr. Chaim Breisacher, a kind of metaphysical super-Nazi who presents his magical racial theory largely in Goldberg's own words. Benjamin's interest in this Jewish sect, if I may so describe it, accompanied him right into the Hitler period.

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     Shortly thereafter Benjamin came to Munich on his way to visit Dora on the Semmering. On that occasion he bought Klee's watercolor Angelus Novus for 1,000 marks (14 dollars!). In my essay "Walter Benjamin und sein Engel" ["Walter Benjamin and His Angel," in Jews and Judaism in Crisis, pp. 198 - 236] I have given a detailed account of this acquisition and Benjamin's close relationship to the picture.