SOURCE: A review of Athens and Jerusalem, in Jewish Social Studies, Vol. XXX, No. 4, October, 1968, pp. 291-92.

German-born Wyschogrod is a professor of philosophy and author who specializes in Jewish theology. In the following review, he offers a mixed assessment of Athens and Jerusalem.

Lev Shestov was a Russian Jewish philosopher who lived in Paris from 1920, the year he was forced to flee his homeland for France because of the Bolshevik revolution. He very quickly won considerable fame on the continent and, though philosophically in total disagreement, Husserl and Shestov became close friends. It was in Husserl's home that Shestov met Heidegger in 1929. At Husserl's suggestion, Shestov began reading Kierkegaard under whose influence he remained for the rest of his life.

[Athens and Jerusalem] is an excellent translation of Shestov's last and most important work. It is fundamentally an attack on philosophy which, in Shestov's view, is enslaved...