Language:
English
Year of publication:
1999
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Social Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
6,1 (1999) 111-129
Keywords:
Funkenstein, Amos
;
Antisemitism
Abstract:
Discusses the impreciseness and, hence, the lack of usefulness of the word "antisemitism." Refers to it as an "inflated" term that has become a stereotype that posits a single phenomenon beyond time and space. The historian Amos Funkenstein distanced himself from such a global usage of the term in his rejection of a connection between medieval Christian anti-Judaism and post-emancipation political antisemitism. The latter, in its specific, German, historical context is considered to have been "atheist" and racist. For Funkenstein it would have been anachronistic to use the term in relation to the Middle Ages. Engel rejects Funkenstein's connection of 19th-century racist ideas with the mass killing of Jews by the Nazis. Concludes that the term "antisemitism" is not a useful analytic tool. Recommends replacing it by focused study in order to determine the ideas that the Nazis used to justify the genocide they perpetrated on the Jews and the sources of these ideas.
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