- 176 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred
About This Book
A new intellectual history that looks at "Jewish self-hatred" Today, the term "Jewish self-hatred" often denotes a treasonous brand of Jewish self-loathing, and is frequently used as a smear, such as when it is applied to politically moderate Jews who are critical of Israel. In On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred, Paul Reitter demonstrates that the concept of Jewish self-hatred once had decidedly positive connotations. He traces the genesis of the term to Anton Kuh, a Viennese-Jewish journalist who coined it in the aftermath of World War I, and shows how the German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing came, in 1930, to write a book that popularized "Jewish self-hatred." Reitter contends that, as Kuh and Lessing used it, the concept of Jewish self-hatred described a complex and possibly redemptive way of being Jewish. Paradoxically, Jews could show the world how to get past the blight of self-hatred only by embracing their own, singularly advanced self-critical tendenciesâtheir "Jewish self-hatred."Provocative and elegantly argued, On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred challenges widely held notions about the history and meaning of this idea, and explains why its history is so badly misrepresented today.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Half title
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part One: Genealogical Imperatives
- Part Two: The Birth of âJewish Self-Hatredâ and the Spirit of Interwar Europe
- Part Three: Prominence: The Making of Theodor Lessingâs Book Jewish Self-Hatred
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Acknowledgments