4/11/10

Was Rudolf Steiner Jewish?

My cousin and one of my best friends both went to the Rudolf Steiner School on 79th Street in the 1960s. That private school was known as an institution in the avant garde of education and especially suited for the development of creativity of all varieties.

Was the school's founder, Rudolf Steiner, Jewish? No Rudolf Steiner was not a Jew. He was an unconventional Christian, accused by some Jews as being anti-semitic, although he attacked anti-semitism, accused by Nazis as being too close to Jews or a Jew himself, even though he was a proponent of Nietzsche.

He was a controversial man of great talent, contradiction, ferment and creativity. See Wikipedia as well as articles in Jewish Parenting by Dan Dugan and by Deborah Salazar for some of the allegations and facts about Steiner.

What triggered our sudden interest in Steiner was a short offbeat profile of him this week. In the avant-garde T Magazine of style of the New York Times, Douglas Brenner writes about Steiner in a Talk essay called "Soul Man".

1 comment:

Michael said...

He had a lot of Jewish followers; and I had the privilege of knowing a few personally.