Language:
French
Year of publication:
2014
Titel der Quelle:
Annales - Histoire, Sciences Sociales
Angaben zur Quelle:
69,4 (2014) 875-899
Keywords:
Antisemitism History
;
Christianity and antisemitism
Abstract:
Discusses David Nirenberg's "Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition" (2013) and presents a critique of his main assertions by examining some of the examples he brings to support his theories. Nirenberg asserts that Christian anti-Judaism represented the first fully developed form of anti-Judaism and was shaped by intra-Christian debate (i.e. not by contact with real Jews or Judaism), and that anti-Judaism has, throughout time, related mainly to "hermeneutic" or "textual" and not real Jews; it has offered non-Jews a tool for making sense of their world; and it has affected the fate of the Jews and determined politics in regard to them. Kriegel argues that some of the documents presented by Nirenberg may, in fact, be used to invalidate them, for example the correspondence between Augustine and Jerome, which Nirenberg views as testifying to the connection between biblical hermeneutics and anti-Jewish discourse. Contends, also, that Nirenberg exaggerates the degree to which the political and legal situation of the Jews in the Middle Ages was modeled after their hermenutic status, and that the way in which the Jews were viewed in this and later periods was affected by their concrete conditions, not the other way around. Argues also, in light of examples from the modern period, that Nirenberg overestimates the role of anti-Judaism in shaping Western thought, and questions Nirenberg's view of modern antisemitism as a sub-category of age-old anti-Judaism.
Note:
Includes a summary in English.
,
The spirit kills as well: "textual" Jews and "real" Jews in history.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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