Moses Hess and Modern Jewish Identity:

"Ken Koltun-Fromm's radical reinterpretation of the writings of Moses Hess, a fascinating nineteenth-century German Jewish intellectual figure who was at times religious and secular, traditional and modern, practical and theoretical, socialist and nationalist, shows Hess as a Jew struggling with the meaning of conflicting commitments and impulses. Modern readers will recognize how in Hess's life, as in their own, these commitments remain fragmented and torn. As contemporary Jews negotiate multiple, often contradictory allegiances in the modern world, Koltun-Fromm argues that Hess's struggle to unite conflicting traditions and frameworks of meaning offers intellectual and practical resources to re-examine the dilemmas of modern Jewish identity."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.