Levi Lebovitz

Major: Communication 

Instructor: Russell Berman

Winning paper: “Messianic Mysticism and the Myth of Eternal Return in A.M. Klein’s The Second Scroll"

This paper interprets Klein’s novel as an allegory for the post-Holocaust Jew who, in messianic fashion, seeks to annul the traumas of the past and inaugurate a renewed historical consciousness. Drawing on Gershom Scholem’s account of Kabbalistic mysticism and Mircea Eliade’s theory of mythic temporality, the paper examines Klein’s narrative as part of a larger Jewish striving to transcend the material catastrophes of the 20th century through a symbolic return to a primordial moment of creation.