In this article I will try to illuminate the sense of Jewish identity in the work of Arthur Allen Cohen as he understands it, from his own statements in two foundational texts, Why I Choose to be a Jew (1959) and his seminal book The Natural and the Supernatural Jew (1962), which makes him known as a theologian and one of the key works of Contemporary American Judaism. The analysis of the essential aspects of both the article and the book is only our “pretext”, the beginning and the finality of the foundational principles of Cohen’s theological discourse and also how they shape a concept of identity, based on an idiosyncratic vision of Jewish religious discourse. The text is structured on two presuppositions that support the article. I will contextualize what is understood by “theology” in the North American cultural world. I will consider his biography and works, analyze his “choice” of Judaism as the foundation of his life and attention will be focused on two relevant aspects of an immensely cultured and dense work, a focal point in a yet fairly unknown work of Contemporary Jewish Thought
Blunden, M. G. (2019). Towards a theology of Jewish identity in Arthur Allen Cohen. Cuadernos Judaicos, (36), 49–71. https://doi.org/10.5354/0718-8749.2019.55864
