Jean-Paul Sartre

Anti-Semite & Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate

Schocken Books (Jan 13, 1965)

9780805201024

| Paperback

154 pages | 109 x 180 mm

$ 16.00 | Value: $ 16.00

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Dewey * 662

LC Classification Adult

LC Control No. 48009237

Genre

Adult / Nonfiction

Subject

662 Jewish Community: Society & Arts / Society / Jews In The World / Anti-Semitism 662

Plot

"Jean-Paul Sartre's book is a brilliant portrait of both anti-Semite and Jew, written by a non-Jew and from a non-Jewish point of view. Nothing of the anti-Semite either in his subtle form as snob, or in his crude form as gangster, escapes Sartre's sharp eye, and the whole problem of the Jew's relationship to the Gentile is examined in a concrete and living way, rather than in terms of sociological abstractions." -- Back cover.

Personal

Owner	Antisemitism
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Index	1301
Added Date	Jan 05, 2016 17:59:22
Modified Date	Jul 18, 2022 19:23:47

Value

Retail Price	$ 16.00
Value	$ 16.00

Notes

Amazon Review: 90% of this book is great in examining the mindset of the anti-semite and the Jew that wants to assimilate but can't because of the anti-semite. Sartre is brilliant when he talks about the anti-semite's passion for the Jew (which explains why many anti-semites from Farrakhan to Christian Identity movements call themselves "the real Jews"), the assimilated Jew's overcompensation, the historical roots of anti-semitism, and the liberal democrat's damaging and weak defense of Jews on the basis of their common humanity at the expense of their Judaism (As the Napoleaonic position stated = "To the Jew as a man everything, to the Jew as a nation nothing").

Where the book fails is when Sartre tries to gauge the mindset of the Jew that doesn't want to assimilate and the mindset of the Jewish people as a whole. He claims that society makes Jews Jewish and that there is neither a national nor a religious identity holding them together. This was before Israel was a fact of life and when many Jews wanted to assimilate without a trace of guilt over the fact. Most of the Jews that he knows aren't particularly fond of the religious dimension of their lives and he reflects that. He is also erroneous when he characterizes an "authentic" Jew as someone who has thrown off universalism. Judaism believes in universalism but not at the expense of Chosen People status. Of course, what Sartre sees as a problem - Jews trying to assimilate but being pushed into being Jewish, Judaism sees as evidence of being a Chosen People.

Sartre's ignorance about religious Judaism aside, this is still an excellent book in the cause of multiculturalism and pluralism. He argue that ultimately anti-semitism is not a Jewish problem but a problem in his native France and that as long as anti-Semitism exists, no one is secure. He takes 150 pages to make the argument and some of the roads he takes to get there are questionable but it's still an excellent book in that respect.

Links

Library of Congress