Jacob Taubes Vienna, Austria, 1923 - Berlin, Germany, 1987
From an old family of rabbis, and son of the chief rabbi of Vienna Zwi Taubes, Jacob Taubes concluded his rabbinical training in 1943, and studied philosophy and history in Zurich and Bern, where he received his doctorate in 1947 with a thesis on the western Eschatology. He taught philosophy of religion at the Rabbinical Seminary in New York (Jewish Theological Seminary), and between 1951 and 1953, was Gershom Scholem associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was professor of history and philosophy of religion at the universities of Harvard, Princeton and Columbia and from 1966 professor of hermeneutics in Judaism and the Free University of Berlin, whose Institute of Hermeneutics and Religion was principal. Scholar, expert on the Talmud, the original thought is at a crossroads in which, besides the biblical sources and traditions of Judaism are Paul of Tarsus, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt and Political Theology. His teaching, mainly oral, had a great influence. Jean-François Lyotard in France, in Italy and Giorgio Agamben Jan Assmann in Germany were the first to draw attention to his thought.