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Felix Weltsch (October 6, 1884 – November 9, 1964), Dr. jur et phil., was a German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
-speaking Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist. A close friend of Max Brod
Max Brod

Max Brod was an Austria-Hungary-Jewish author, composer, and journalist, known for his close friendship with Franz Kafka....
 and Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German language-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary, presently the Czech Republic....
, he was one of the most important Zionists
Zionism

Zionism is the international Jewish political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine....
 in Bohemia
Bohemia

History...
.

Life
Born in Prague
Prague

Prague is the Capital and World's largest cities of the Czech Republic. Its official name is Hlavn? mesto Praha, meaning Prague, the Capital City....
, Weltsch studied Law and Philosophy at the Charles University
Charles University in Prague

Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Being founded in 1347, it was the first one in the Holy Roman Empire and in Central Europe in general....
. He lived and worked in Prague until 15 March, 1939, and left the city with Max Brod
Max Brod

Max Brod was an Austria-Hungary-Jewish author, composer, and journalist, known for his close friendship with Franz Kafka....
 and his family on the last train out of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918 until 1992 . On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia....
.






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Encyclopedia


Felix Weltsch (October 6, 1884 – November 9, 1964), Dr. jur et phil., was a German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
-speaking Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist. A close friend of Max Brod
Max Brod

Max Brod was an Austria-Hungary-Jewish author, composer, and journalist, known for his close friendship with Franz Kafka....
 and Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German language-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary, presently the Czech Republic....
, he was one of the most important Zionists
Zionism

Zionism is the international Jewish political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine....
 in Bohemia
Bohemia

History...
.

Life


Born in Prague
Prague

Prague is the Capital and World's largest cities of the Czech Republic. Its official name is Hlavn? mesto Praha, meaning Prague, the Capital City....
, Weltsch studied Law and Philosophy at the Charles University
Charles University in Prague

Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Being founded in 1347, it was the first one in the Holy Roman Empire and in Central Europe in general....
. He lived and worked in Prague until 15 March, 1939, and left the city with Max Brod
Max Brod

Max Brod was an Austria-Hungary-Jewish author, composer, and journalist, known for his close friendship with Franz Kafka....
 and his family on the last train out of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918 until 1992 . On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia....
. In Palestine
Palestine

Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is derived from a name used already much earlier for a narrower geographical region, mainly along the coastal region....
, he worked as a librarian in Jerusalem
Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its List of Israeli cities in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if Positions on Jerusalem East Jerusalem is included....
 until his death in 1964.

He had one daughter, Ruth Weltsch (1920-1991), with his wife Irma Herz (1892-1969). They married in August 1914. The publisher, journalist and important Zionist Robert Weltsch
Robert Weltsch

Robert Weltsch was a journalist, editor and prominent Zionist.He was editor of the , a newspaper published twice a week in Berlin, Germany during the years the Nazis were gaining influence....
 was Felix Weltsch's cousin. He published the Jewish paper Juedische Rundschau in Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
, in which he criticized Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born Germany politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party....
's anti-Semitic politics at the beginning of the 1930s.

Influence


Weltsch's works around deal with the subjects of Ethics, Politics and Philosophy. For his ethical and political publications Weltsch received the Ruppin- Prize from the city of Haifa
Haifa

Haifa is the largest city in North District Israel, and the List of Israeli cities in the country, with a population of over 264,900. Haifa has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs....
 in 1952. 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
Martin Buber

Martin Buber was an Austrian-Israeli-Jewish philosopher, translator, and educator, whose work centered on theism ideals of religious consciousness, interpersonal relations, and community....
, Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionism leader, President of the World Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was Israeli presidential election, 1949 on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
 and Hugo Bergmann
Hugo Bergmann

Samuel Hugo Bergman, or Samuel Bergman was a Czech Republic-born Germany and Israelis Jewish philosopher.He emigrated to British Mandate of Palestine in 1920, and founded, together with Martin Buber, a movement promoting a "binational solution" area where Jews and Arabs could live under equal conditions....
, his early school friend.

Weltsch wrote remarkable essays on philosophers like Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a French philosophy, influential in the first half of the 20th century....
 and Christian von Ehrenfels
Christian von Ehrenfels

Christian Freiherr von Ehrenfels was an Austrian Philosophy, and is known as one of the founders and precursors of Gestalt psychology.Although Max Wertheimer is to be credited as the founder of the movement of Gestalt psychology, the concept of Gestalt itself was first introduced in contemporary philosophy and psychology by Ehrenfels i...
, who was the most influential teacher for Weltsch. This was in so far unusual, as most of Weltsch's colleagues and student friends were more following the ideas of Franz Brentano
Franz Brentano

Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential Germany philosophy and psychology whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views....
.

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


Literature


  • Schmidt, Carsten: Life and Works of Felix Weltsch - A Biography. Phd-work, University of Potsdam, Germany, 2007 (still unpublished)