W hen Antonella Castelnuovo and Bella Kotik-Friedgut, two scholars and authors of the volume I am introducing, invited me to preface their study about L. S. Vygotsky and B. Bernstein in the light of the Jewish tradition, I accepted this invitation with great pleasure. It seemed to me a very original perspective from which we can look at the contribution of such important and contemporary social scientists. Nevertheless, it has not been an easy task; not least because, as far as I know, there

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... not any direct connection between the two authors during their scientific life, with the exception of Bernstein's letter 1 written to L. S. Vygotsky's widow after her husband's death. However, the Jewish tradition accompanies each of them, although in very different aspects of their theoretical studies and of their empirical research. With reference to both the authors, anyway, Judaism goes to the roots of their fundamental theoretical reflection. With reference to L.S. Vygotsky' work, the most relevant thematic is that included in his volume Thought and Language, which was posthumously published in 1934, and in particular the seventh and last chapter of the book.