On the Origins of Jewish Self-hatred

• Author(s): Paul Reitter,
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Pages: 166
• ISBN_13: 9780691119229
  ISBN_10: 0691119228
  
• Language: en
• Categories: History / General , History / Jewish , History / World , History / Social History , Religion / Judaism / General , Science / Earth Sciences / Geography , SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural , Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social , SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / General , SOCIAL SCIENCE / Minority Studies , Social Science / Jewish Studies ,

Description:...

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 tendencies—their "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.