Language:
English
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
Judaism; a Journal of Jewish Life & Thought
Angaben zur Quelle:
45,1 (1996) 79-98
Keywords:
Lyotard, Jean-François,
;
Kristeva, Julia,
;
Girard, René,
;
Holocaust (Christian theology)
;
Antisemitism History 1945-
Abstract:
Examines the theories on Jews and antisemitism expressed in works by the postmodern thinkers Jean-François Lyotard, Julia Kristeva, and René Girard. For Lyotard, "the jews" (theoretical "jews" as opposed to real Jews) constitute a break with the pagan-Christian West. They are the unassimilable and unassimilating; they resist the forgetting of the forgotten. Exile is the Jewish ideal, and Jewish diaspora culture is favored over nationhood. Kristeva regards antisemitism as the revolt of the repressed pagan and feminine against the law, imposed by the Jews through Christianity, and the symbolic; as such, antisemitism is programmed into Western culture. In Girard's view, the Jews are the victims of sacrificial violence, a religious-social mechanism, invented by all religions in order to prevent the escalation of "contagious violence". Antisemitism is the result of a misinterpretation of Christianity. All these theories reveal a lack of knowledge about Judaism on the part of the theorists and sometimes a recurrence of old ideological biases about Jews, prone to stereotyping. Kristeva and Girard regard Christianity as a religion which is higher and more consistent than Judaism.
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