Disfigured Friends
This paper addresses a fundamental structural paradox in the modern figure of the Jew as a friend. The paradox results from the essence of Jewish modernity as the time of Jewish integration within (i. e., becoming friends with) non-Jewish modernity, or simply within the non-Jewish, paradigmatically...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2020]
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| In: |
Jewish studies quarterly
Year: 2020, Volume: 27, Issue: 2, Pages: 109-129 |
| Further subjects: | B
anti-anti-Semitism
B political modern Judaism B Anti-semitism B Epistemology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (teilw. kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This paper addresses a fundamental structural paradox in the modern figure of the Jew as a friend. The paradox results from the essence of Jewish modernity as the time of Jewish integration within (i. e., becoming friends with) non-Jewish modernity, or simply within the non-Jewish, paradigmatically through political emancipation and socio-cultural assimilation. The process of assimilation, in which Jews relinquish their distinctiveness, implies loss of the specific, distinct form of Jewish existence − namely, a loss of the figure of the Jew, a dis-figuration. Thus, paradoxically, the modern Jew becomes the figure of disfiguration. The paper articulates the significance of this paradox through analysis of a central contemporary phenomenon of philo-Judaism, namely the post-Holocaust opposition to anti-Semitism - »anti-anti-Semitism« - in political philosophy. It claims that anti-anti-Semitism rejects anti-Judaism by de-legitimizing any figure or general idea of the Jewish − that is, by rejecting Judaism. |
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| ISSN: | 1868-6788 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Jewish studies quarterly
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1628/jsq-2020-0009 |