A new book asks readers to understand Spinoza through cancel culture
Ian Buruma’s biography of the philosopher paints a vivid picture of the Netherlands of the 17th century, but ruins it with some talk of today
baruch spinoza
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Film & TV Have we finally discovered the real reason for Spinoza’s excommunication?
A documentary details how controversial ideas about God, Mosaic law and finances all may have played a role in the philosopher’s exile
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Breaking News Spanish Civil Servant Dumped Work for 6 Years To Study Baruch Spinoza
A Spanish civil servant who collected a salary for at least six years without working used the time to become an expert on the writings of Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, Spanish media reported. A court on Cadiz in southern Spain last month ordered Joaquin Garcia, 69, to pay approximately $30,000 in fines for failing to…
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Culture Should Baruch Spinoza Be Brought Back Into Jewish Fold — 350 Years Later?
(JTA) — More than 350 years after this city’s Portuguese Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza and banned his writings for eternity, the philosopher’s books are for sale at the souvenir shop of the community’s synagogue. Spinoza, a Dutch-born Jewish philosopher who laid the intellectual foundations of the Enlightenment and is sometimes referred to as history’s…
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Culture Our Favorite Heretic
Romantic rehabilitations of Jewish history’s most notorious heretic, Baruch Spinoza, seem — like Spinoza’s Deus sive Natura (God or Nature) — to be without end. German romantics crowned this radical unbeliever a “God-intoxicated man.” Zionists claimed the excommunicant as an ideological ancestor of modern Jewish nationalism. The array of uses and misuses of Spinoza by…
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Opinion Centuries Later, Spinoza Back in the Fold
After more than 350 years of enforced exile, Baruch Spinoza has been invited back into the Jewish community — at least by the people who participated in a mock trial and symposium at Theatre J in Washington D.C. earlier this month. The vote was 108 to 41. The controversial writ of excommunication was lifted by…
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Culture Making a ‘New Jerusalem’ in D.C.
Despite a title that sounds like a grad school dissertation, and pontifications that would make a third-year philosophy major proud, “New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza” keeps theatergoers surprisingly engaged. In fact, the opening night audience at Theater J took in the fast-paced courtroom-style drama with at times audible gasps and guffaws. Theater…
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