This is an augmented edition of a superb volume by one of the
foremost analysts of European institutions and ideas. Here the late
Erich Kahler turns his attention to the special character of the
Jewish people, formed uniquely through the interaction of internal
and external circumstances in which past and present merge.
The chapters in this book deal with persistent problems of
Jewish identity. Kahler claims these can be fully understood only
by awareness of the close interconnection between the singular
ethnic nature and the unique social structure of the Jewish people.
He discusses the Jews in Europe, specifically the historical
implications of a strict tribal ritual that yet permitted the
widest spiritual scope.
The second half of the book concerns anti-Semitism, in relation
to Jews and Germans. How did the German people, seemingly so
congenial to the Jews, develop a murderous revulsion against them,
ending a long and fruitful symbiosis? Kahler sees this as a
parallel to the parricidal rejection of the Jews by the Christian
church. His argument is deepened in an added chapter, new to this
volume, on the major forms and features of anti-Judaism, 'in which
the earlier theme of the universal and the specific are seen as
central not only to the inner history of Judaism but also to the
specific interaction of Jews and Gentiles throughout social
history.
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