This project compares the views of Gottlieb Klein, rabbi in Stockholm 1883–1914, and his successor Marcus Ehrenpreis, rabbi in 1914–1948, on homeland(s), nationalism, and assimilation. The study traces their parallel trajectories: both came from Eastern European, traditional, orthodox Jewish backgrounds, studied neo-Kantian philosophy at German secular universities, and were part of the emerging Wissenschaft des Judentums, a movement that approached Judaism with the scholarly methods used for the study of other religions. But as much as they agreed on such matters, their positions on the value of Zionism and the role of the diaspora and assimilationist politics were radically different. These differences will be examined and evaluated, to better understand their relationship to one another, and to shed light on the unfolding of those same debates – their afterlife – within a contemporary Swedish context.
Lena Roos is Professor of the Study of Religions at Södertörn University, Stockholm. She received her PhD in 2003 and has previously taught at the University of Gävle, Uppsala University, and Lund University. Her research interests include Jewish history from the Middle Ages to the present, Judaism, interreligious coexistence, religious education, and the historiography of the History of Religions. She also explores themes such as religion and food, religion and sexuality, and religion and gardening. Her recent publications include “Barn i judendomen” (“Children in Judaism”) in the anthology Children in the World of Religions (in Swedish, 2025); the entry on Judaism in Modern Gods: Progressive Religion in Our Time (in Swedish, 2025); entries on Judaism in Europe as well as Sephardic and Mizrahi Judaism in Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History; and she is the editor of a special issue titled Jewish–Christian Contacts, Past and Present: Sweden and Germany Compared in Scandinavian Jewish Studies (Vol. 34, No. 1, 2023).
