Born in Kassel, Franz Rosenzweig was a German philosopher of self-conscious Jewish affiliation and a charismatic leader in a circle of existentially minded contemporaries. His major work, The Star of Redemption (1921), presents a sui generis iteration of systematic hermeneutics, a way of proceeding in a world centred on ‘experiential philosophy’ [erfahrende Philosophie] and an ecumenical project of ‘speech-thinking’, or ‘thinking with others’ that influenced Emmanuel Levinas and Walter Benjamin, among others.