Schocken Books is a book

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

imprint of

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House Limited is a British-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was or ...

that specializes in Jewish literary works. Originally established in 1931 by Salman Schocken as Schocken Verlag in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, the company later moved to Israel and then the United States, and was acquired by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

in 1987.

History

Schocken Books was founded in 1931 by Schocken Department Store owner Salman Schocken. Schocken has published the writings of Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig,

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

and S. Y. Agnon, among others. After being shut down by the Germans in 1939, Schocken, who immigrated from Germany to Palestine in 1934, founded the Hebrew-language ''Schocken Publishing House'' in

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

. Schocken moved to the United States in 1940. In 1945 he founded the English-language Schocken Books in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. In 1987 it was bought up by Random House. Schocken Books continues to publish Jewish literary works.

Selected English publications

Franz Kafka

* '' The Trial'' * '' The Castle'' * '' Amerika'' * '' The Diaries 1910-1923'' * '' Letters to Felice'' * '' Letters to Ottla'' * '' Letters to Milena'' * '' Letters to Family, Friends, and Editors'' * '' The Complete Stories'' * '' The Sons'' * '' The Penal Colony'' * '' The Great Wall of China'' * '' Dearest Father'' :Bilingual Editions * '' The Metamorphosis'' * '' Parables and Paradoxes'' * '' Letter to His Father''

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

* ''Illuminations'' * ''Reflections''

Gershom Scholem

* ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' * ''The Messianic Idea in Judaism'' * ''On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead'' * ''On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism'' * ''Zohar: The Book of Splendor''

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theory, political theorists of the twentieth century. Her work ...

* ''The Promise of Politics'' * ''The Jewish Writings'' * ''Responsibility and Judgment'' * ''Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954'' * '' The Origins of Totalitarianism''

Elie Wiesel

* ''The Time of the Uprooted'' * ''Somewhere a Master'' * ''Wise Men and Their Tales'' * ''The Judges'' * ''Legends of Our Time'' * ''After the Darkness'' * ''And the Sea Is Never Full'' * ''The Testament'' * ''The Fifth Son'' * ''A Beggar in Jerusalem'' * ''All Rivers Run to the Sea'' * ''The Trial of God'' * ''

Twilight Twilight is daylight illumination produced by diffuse sky radiation when the Sun is below the horizon as sunlight from the upper atmosphere is scattered in a way that illuminates both the Earth's lower atmosphere and also the Earth's surf ...

'' * '' The Gates of the Forest'' * ''The Town Beyond the Wall'' * '' The Forgotten'' * ''From the Kingdom of Memory'' * '' The Oath'' * ''Rashi''

References

External links

*
A Conversation about Schocken Books - Part I
- Katharine McNamara talks with Altie Karper.

- Katharine McNamara talks with Susan Ralston.

- Katharine McNamara talks with Arthur Samuelson. *
Schocken Publishing House Ltd.
a
Database – Jewish Publishers of German Literature in Exile, 1933-1945
{{Literature in Israel Book publishing companies based in New York (state) Franz Kafka Jewish German history Jewish printing and publishing Publishing companies established in 1931 Schocken family