Felix Weltsch

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Felix Weltsch (born Oct. 6th, 1884 Prague- died in Jerusalem on Nov. 9th, 1964). Dr. jur et phil.

The closest friend of Max Brod and Franz Kafka was one of the most important Zionists in Austria / Czech Republic. He was a librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and a journalist. He studied Law and Philosophy at the Karlova University of Prague.

His most important work was the Jewish-Zionist weekly paper "Selbstwehr" (self-defense), which he led from 1919 until 1938. With this work and hundreds of articles he became one of the most important personalities in Jewish Life next to Martin Buber, Chaim Weizmann and Hugo Bergmann, his early school friend.

He had one daughter, Ruth Weltsch (1920-1991), with his wife Irma Herz (1892-1969). They married in August 1914.

Weltsch lived and worked in Prague until the 15th of March, 1939, and left the city with Max Brod and his family on the last train out of the Czech Republic. In Palestine, he worked as a librarian in Jerusalem until 1964.

His works around are dealing with the subjects of Ethics, Politics and Philosophy. For his ethical and political publications Weltsch received the Ruppin-Prize from the city of Haifa in 1952.

Felix Weltsch wrote remarkable essays on Philosophers like Henri Bergson and Christian von Ehrenfels, who was the most influential teacher for Felix Weltsch. This was in so far unusual, as most of Weltsch´s colleagues and student friends were more following the ideas of Franz Brentano.

The publisher, journalist and important Zionist Robert Weltsch was his cousin. He published the big Jewish paper "Juedische Rundschau" in Berlin, in which he bravely criticized Hitler´s anti-Semitic politics at the beginning of the 1930s.

Both men, Felix and Robert Weltsch, have their origins in an old Jewish Prague family.

[edit] Works

• Anschauung und Begriff, 1913 (Co-author, Max Brod)
• Organische Demokratie, 1918
• Gnade und Freiheit. Untersuchungen zum Problem des schöpferischen Willens in Religion und Ethik, Munich 1920
• Nationalismus und Judentum, Berlin 1920
• Zionismus als Weltanschauung, Jerusalem 1925 (Co-author, Max Brod)
• Judenfrage und Zionismus, 1929
• Antisemitismus als Völkerhysterie, 1931
• Thesen des Nationalhumanismus, 1934
• Das Rätsel des Lachens, 1935
• Das Wagnis der Mitte, 1937
• Die Dialektik des Leidens (Ha-Di’alektikah shel ha-Sevel), 1944
• Natur, Moral und Politik (Teva, Musar u-Mediniyyut), 1950
• Religion und Humor im Leben und Werk Franz Kafkas, 1957

[edit] Literature

• Schmidt, Carsten: Felix Weltsch.- Biography. Phd-work, University of Potsdam, Germany (published 2007.)