Martin Kavka

My research over the last twenty-five years has treated how Jews in the modern West have appropriated, and resisted appropriating, various ideas and arguments in the canon of modern Western philosophy—or in other words, how Jews have articulated both their commonality with Western culture, as well as their difference from it. 

I am currently at work on two projects: (a) the long-gestating The Perils of Covenant, an argument that the “covenant theology” that became popular in American Jewish thought after World War II is politically obsolete at a time when Jews’ and Americans’ “enemies” are no longer godless communists but other religionists, and (b) a project on Jewish philosophy’s attempts to resist Christian hegemony. My CV, accessible from this page, lists my articles and short pieces. I am happy to send copies of my work to those who do not have access to various databases, journals, or volumes.