The Angel of Jewish History casts a philosophical gaze upon the relationship between the traditional Jewish past and the present through the metaphysical worldviews of five formative Jewish studies scholars Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi Amos Funkenstein Gershom Scholem Baruch Kurzweil and Nathan Rotenstreich Their hermeneutic worldviews and writings deal with the nature and formation of modern Judaism the Wissenschaft des Judentums historicism the image of the Jewish past and tradition secularization and God s status in present day Jewish reality In this volume these issues are explored against the background of the tense discourse between the perception of modern Jewish reality as a break from the past and tradition and the argument for continuity despite the changes and developments of modernity