On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred

About this book

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 tendenciestheir "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.