Benjamin Girls

These unpublished letters between the philosophical shyster Walter Benjamin and his pal, Kabbalah scholar and Go partner Gerschom Scholem were discovered in a chest in a Jerusalem closet labelled "String and Elastics", which Scholem was very keen on saving in his golden years. Also discovered was a pictured of Hannah Arendt with a Hitler mustache doodled on. I publish them here for the first time because that's usually considered a pretty cool thing to do:

Liebe Walter,

It has been months since your last letter, and we here in the Holy Land shake our heads in confusion or because there is a big wasp buzzing around. They are crazy big here. Why are you so silent? The last we heard was from that jerk Hannah Arendt, who wrote that you were hanging around with that communist hussy Asja again. Really Walter, I cannot stand the idea of you rising with the proletariat. Why bother with Moscow sluts? We’ve sluts a-plenty here, why, dozens! You should see how their soft European skin blisters in the horrible desert heat! I cannot accept that you truly believe in this socialist doctrine. I know you far better than that, Walter. You are at heart a theologian, a lover of enigmas, and a man who knows how to save string. In other words, Walter, you are Jew. Come to your people! Are you truly naïve enough to believe the Party will stand for your one-liners? Try the one you pulled on Herzl back in 1914, you know, when you asked him whether he was an Essene who believed in low-flying Angels, because his fly happened to be undone! Try that on your Comrade Stalin and see where it takes you! Trust me, Walter – my brother is a communist, and he smells like cabbage.

                We are looking forward to your piece on Heinrich Heine, Moses Mendelsohn, and the Question of Latkas. I cannot imagine this progressing without a knowledge of Hebrew, which, as far as I can tell, you still haven’t bothered to learn. Your laziness astounds me. To that end I have spoken to a friend at the budding University of Jerusalem (the Arts faculty at present consisting of myself, 3 rabbis, one angry Hegelian Jew from Koln and 3 chickens (that belong to the rabbis)) to recruit you for the faculty, and to send you, in order to entice you to our mother tongue, a stipend of considerable sum to come here to study Hebrew. I hope, by hook, crook, or shekel, to draw you over here as soon as possible.

With greatest kicks in the tuchus,

-Gerschom Scholem

P.S. The Arab question here is, I will be honest, worsening by the day. These fellows are intolerable and most un-European. I have personally got into a row with a nasty fellow named Abdelhadi, with whom I had the misfortune of meeting at a supper, and, having accidently trod on his toe, demanded immediate satisfaction or the purchase from him of a herd of goats. I am nearly at my wits end, and am on the cusp of purchasing the animals due to his constant harassment. Particularly irksome is his method, which involves hiring a Bedouin troupe to strategically and maliciously leave camel droppings in hidden areas around my common haunts. Clearly he learned these guerrilla tactics from Lawrence during the war. I am nearly at my wits end with him.

Liebe Gerhardt

Either your last letter carried with it the geistige scent of the Holy Land, or you must cease mixing garlic with cardamom in your supper. I am more than excited to hear about the stipend. Please have it sent over as soon as possible – I feel myself suddenly compelled, as if by a higher entity, to begin again the study of that tongue which I have for so long avoided as “stupid, hard, and totally gay”. In the meantime, I must beg your tolerance of Asja. I don’t know what Hannah may have said about her, but I assure you they really are that big. But she not only offers a testing ground for philosophical manoeuvres – she has also introduced me to many in her circle.

 Perhaps the most exciting is one Bertolt Brecht – a true Marxist who, upon meeting me, slapped me in the face and begun shining my shoes, claiming that a proletarian must do both at the same time. His play How I Met Your Mother, based on Gorky, has made me re-appraise the entire question of Rom-Coms.

I have abandoned the Latkas bit for a piece in a similar, though perhaps more secular vein – namely, Dialectical Materialism and the Mechanical Reproduction of Croissants in the Age of Baudelaire*. You will forgive this vein of inquiry – to be honest, I feel a true split, one side of me longing for the theological categories of our shared mystical youth, and the other, to knock hats off of bourgeois gentlemen in the street while screaming “hoopla!” I can only hope that Asja continues to drop her spoon every time the argument gets too heated – a trick, I admit, that has won over many for the Party before me.

With mostly smiles,

-Walter Benjamin

P.S. I am sorry to hear about this Abdelhadi. Have you tried reasoning with him, or is it a case of kismet on the brain? What will you do with goats, Gerhardt? I hear these Arab nobles have a great fondness for chess – perhaps you could challenge him to a game, the winner walks away with satisfaction, and the loser, the goats? Remember the opening I always taught you, and be sure you do not use it. It is a horrible opening.

* The unfinished drafts of this essay were later purchased by Kanye West, who used their theories on speedy confectionary to great effect in "I Am a God".

Liebe Walter,

I am surprised by your last letter. My friend at the University claims you have already received the stipend – a move I in no way approved of, since it will surely mean your endless procrastination of the trip itself. You are sketchy as an Alexanderplatz fruit salesman sometimes, dear Walter. I am sure you have already spent the cash to pad out your lavish collection of children’s books. What was the last one you showed me? A first edition of Der Struwwelpeter, in which all the naughty boys and girls are subjected to torture by an evil Demiurge. Fate, Walter. I wonder that you do not see your own doomed end in the dilly-dallyings you have with this Muscovite BBW.

In short, Walter, communism is stupid. I have met this Brecht once before – it was at a dinner in Berlin. I accidentally trod on his toe, and the nasty fellow, dressed like a cab-driver in all leather, demanded that I buy a row of tickets for some awful show of his. In all honesty, Walter, I am happier with the goats.

In suspense of your latest sus move,

-Gerschom Scholem

P.S. I took your advice and challenged Abdelhadi to a game. I do not know if it was the strong Turkish coffee or the heat of the afternoon. Try as I might, Walter, I could not help but use your terrible opening. The day was lost, all is lost, except the goats, which have run rampant in the yard. I fear for my rosebushes.

Liebe Gerhardt,

                Excuse my brief letter, which cannot possibly make up for the last one you sent, as well as the charming essay you forwarded on The Golem and its Relationship to Professional Wrestling. Thank you very much for translating it out of Hebrew. I will get right on that stuff, I swear.

You are quite right! The money did make it over after all. It turns out that it really didn’t go very far. I am planning to begin to make preparations to embark for Jerusalem at once. I will go by way of Spain, and the lovely islands of Majorca. You cannot imagine how poor I am, Gerhardt. Nobody will buy shit from me. I tried to pawn off a marvellous essay on the Origin of German LOLspiel to the Warburg Institut but they were having none of it. Only that creepy guy with the weird eyes who always mutters under his breath about jazz – you remember him from that awkward party in the Freienwald? Adorno! He and his gang are showing the slightest bit of interest in me. You wonder why I turn to Marxism – it pays the bills, Gerhardt! Judaica can barely be sold to wrap a wurst in.

P.S. I am sorry, truly sorry, that you fell into the temptation to use my awful opening, and are now in possession of far too many goats. I only assume you did not sell them right away because you were observing the Sabbath. Or is there another reason? I am wondering if you mightn’t send one over here to teach me Hebrew. Those goats pronounce it so beautifully, don’t you think?