Amos Morris-Reich
Amos Morris-Reich holds the Geza Roth Chair in Modern Jewish History and is a Professor in the Cohn Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. His research integrates modern Jewish history with the history of science and technology. The excerpt is from his latest book (“Nazi Fantasy” Vilém Flusser and History as a Site of Experiment, Routledge 2025), which focuses on Vilém Flusser to illuminate intellectual Jewish history in the second half of the twentieth century, and vice versa. Flusser also featured prominently in his previous book, Photography and Jewish History: Five Twentieth Century Cases (UPENN Press, 2022). By examining five major twentieth-century case studies—from science and philanthropy to art—that intersect Jewish history and the history of photography, the book adapted Flusser’s theoretical framework to historical study to demonstrate how photography reshaped major concepts in twentieth-century Jewish history.
Articles of Amos Morris-Reich
The Political Crisis of the Anti-Zionist Jewish Intellectual
This text is an excerpt is from his latest book, which focuses on Vilém Flusser to illuminate intellectual Jewish history in the second half of the twentieth century, and vice versa. Flusser also featured prominently in his previous book, Photography and Jewish History: Five Twentieth Century Cases (UPENN Press, 2022). By examining five major twentieth-century case studies—from science and philanthropy to art—that intersect Jewish history and the history of photography, the book adapted Flusser’s theoretical framework to historical study to demonstrate how photography reshaped major concepts in twentieth-century Jewish history. individuals as isolated entities destined to face death in solitude. Flusser ultimately resolved his personal dilemma of place and belonging by embracing Bodenlosigkeit, locating its final form within the realm of aesthetics. His sharp rejection of a grounded politics stood in stark contrast to Zionism, which asserted Boden (ground/land) was a prerequisite for political life. It also diverged fundamentally from Heidegger's philosophy, which linked the "right way" to Boden but was an impossible alternative for Flusser, who viewed Nazism as a biological-technological program. Flusser’s philosophy, which notably lacks concepts such as political life, citizenship, or the state, exposes a profound political crisis in the post-Holocaust condition. His anti-nationalism and anti-Zionism stemmed from a general rejection of nationalism as a false striving for security and a specific conviction that Zionism contradicted his ideal of Judaism. While structurally echoing pre-1918 anti-Zionist thought, Flusser's views diverged from the post-1948 Jewish intellectual mainstream, ultimately offering a distinctive, marginal perspective on the evolving history of Jewish opposition to Zionism.
Retreat from Nihilism
This article attempts to elaborate Flusser’s “logic of freedom” as related to nihilistic strains of thought found in his early writings. I suggest that Flusser conceptualizes freedom as partial and narrow, responsive, and negative. Freedom is only possible within, with regard to, and in opposition to the “apparatus” or a coercive order. Underlying this reconstruction is the question about the connection between this logic and the nihilistic strains of thought found in his early writings. I show that the nucleus of the later logic can already be found in these same early writings. Consequently, I argue, the “logic of freedom” should be read as an answer to, and a retreat from, the nihilistic orientation.