Éliane AMADO LÉVY-VALENSI (1919-2006), philosophe... Lot n° 24

Saint-Mandé and Israel, 1965-1990. 39 L.A.S. to Max Bilen. 81 pp. in-4. Fascinating, long and dense correspondence exchanged around philosophical questions and their respective works, very often centred on the Jewish question. Themes which can be found from the first letter: "I think, however, that it would be necessary to deepen what you say about the need of the diaspora to be "recognized" by Israel. This is certainly true, but it only takes on its full meaning when it is reintroduced into the dialogue and with all the nuances, reticence, ways and pitfalls that characterize any human dialogue. The diasporic thinker indeed needs to be recognized by Israel and this need is beyond him because it is the unity and the meaning of Jewish history that are at stake. And sometimes the diasporic thinker tends to deny this need, to want to relate only to the history of "anxiety" and "exile" by fallaciously detaching from it the mystique of return. Conversely, the Israeli thinker suffers the attempt to deny his links with the diasporic thinker, to focus on his tasks, the urgencies of his destiny and the fact that in his eyes they complete the cycle of useless martyrdom and degrading exile. But at the historical and metaphysical level, too, the diasporic thinker needs to be recognized and acknowledged by the diasporic thinker, for it is in this double and essential recognition that the meaning and unity of an ever-evolving "history" is inscribed. The Mystique of Return and the Mystique of Exile can in no way be detached from each other. Rootedness and uprootedness sum up, in the symbolism of the Jewish People, the whole history of man, the whole cosmogonic adventure foretold by the philosophers and, as you say in the other text (published in Ariel), by the Poets [...]". A set of drafts of letters from Max Bilen to Éliane Amado Lévy-Valensi (about 69 pp. in-8) is attached, as well as a typescript detailing the list of published or ongoing works by Éliane