Early Career
When the first volume of Gnosis und Späntantiker Geist appeared, in 1934, Jonas had already left Nazi Germany and emigrated to Jerusalem, where he stepped into the German-Jewish intellectual circle of Gershom Scholem (1887–1982) and taught at the Hebrew University. In 1939, he volunteered to serve in the British army and in 1945 he returned to Germany as a member of the Jewish Brigade Group. There he learned that his mother had been deported to Lodz and had subsequently been murdered in Auschwitz. The passion with which Jonas, in his philosophy, attempted to justify the value of life resulted from his confrontation with the Nazis' utter abandonment of all that is human. In 1949, after being drawn into the army again during the Israeli War of Independence, Jonas left Jerusalem in order to accept an academic position in Canada, and in 1955 he accepted a post at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
Gnosticism
Jonas published the second volume of Gnosis und Späntantiker Geist in 1954; however, he devoted himself increasingly to other topics and continued to pursue his gnosis research as a peripheral activity.
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