The Imaginary Jew (Texts and Contexts) - Softcover

Finkielkraut, Alain

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803268955 ISBN 13: 9780803268951

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1997

Synopsis

The Holocaust changed what it means to be a Jew, for Jew and non-Jew alike. Much of the discussion about this new meaning is a storm of contradictions. In The Imaginary Jew, Alain Finkielkraut describes with passion and acuity his own passage through that storm. Finkielkraut decodes the shifts in anti-Semitism at the end of the Cold War, chronicles the impact of Israel's policies on European Jews, opposes arguments both for and against cultural assimilation, reopens questions about Marx and Judaism, and marks the loss of European Jewish culture through catastrophe, ignorance, and cliché. He notes that those who identified with Israel continued the erasure of European Judaism, forgetting the pangs and glories of Yiddish culture and the legacy of the Diaspora.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The Holocaust changed what it means to be a Jew, for Jew and non-Jew alike. Much of the discussion about the new meaning has been done by French writers of the left, but their work is a storm of contradictions. In The Imaginary Jew, Alain Finkielkraut describes with passion and acuity his own passage through that storm.

About the Author

Born in Paris in 1949, Alain Finkielkraut is the author of eight books, including The Wisdom of Love (Nebraska 1997). Kevin O’Neill is an associate professor of French at the University of Colorado, Denver. David Suchoff, an associate professor of English at Colby College, is the author of Critical Theory and the Novel: Mass Society and Cultural Criticism in Dickens, Melville and Kafka.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0803268955
• ISBN 13: 9780803268951
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 201