Arendt was certainly right to note that Scholem was a man who did not enjoy being contradicted, but he also worked hard to maintain their friendship. Most of this time, they kept their ideological tensions under control through occasional familiar Yiddishisms like "tachles," witty barbs against common targets such as Scholem's "Love thy Buber as thyself," or careful silence (the name Martin Heidegger does not appear in any of the letters). Most often, however, it was their mutual commitment to the memory of Walter Benjamin that held their friendship together. Whenever disagreements arose, they reverted to Benjamin, and the ways in which they could advance his publications and good name, which was then virtually unknown. They both regarded Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the leading figures of the "Frankfurt School" of neo-Marxist critical theory, who had been Benjamin's erstwhile colleagues and patrons, as the enemies, determined to monopolize, misconstrue, or even hide Benjamin's work.

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