Overview

Drawing on Sartre's writings, interviews, and conversations throughout his life, this work is a critical examination of his views on antisemites and Jews set against the backdrop of existentialism, Marxism, and his own sexuality. While Sartre is often considered an opponent of antisemitism, his near-total disregard for the fate of the Jews until the end of the Second World War, when he wrote Anti-Semite and Jew, suggests a different perspective. In particular, Sartre's claim that the antisemite is first a Manichaean who only later identifies the Jew as an embodiment of evil is interpreted as an attempt to minimize the gravity of antisemitism-a conclusion consistent with Sartre's own admission, late in life, that he had held antisemitic views.

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Reviews

“With antisemitism escalating worldwide, it is inevitable that people will be interested in a fresh and up-to-date account of and critique of Sartre’s still troubling and controversial Anti-Semite and Jew. This elegantly written, accessible, and consistently insightful book fills that need extremely well. Moreover, the general reflections on antisemitism will interest readers well beyond the Sartre community.” —Cary Nelson, author of Hate Speech and Academic Freedom “Written during WWII, Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew was among the first books on antisemitism to appear in the immediate postwar period.  Praised for some of his insights into the psychological origins and existential character of Jew-hatred, Sartre wrote about Jews themselves with little knowledge of who they actually are and how they conduct their lives. Rowan Dordick’s well informed and powerfully argued book goes far toward helping readers get the full picture of Sartre’s sometimes perceptive but often seriously flawed stance on Jews, Judaism, and antisemitism. At a time when anti-Jewish hostility is escalating on a global scale, this book will prove clarifying for many readers.” —Alvin H. Rosenfeld is the Director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University “As antisemitism, anti-Zionism and calls for Israel’s destruction explode in an orgy of hatred around the globe, especially among the cultural and academic elites in the West, it is necessary, indeed crucial, to evoke the problematic role that has been played by intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre in enhancing a malign image of the “Jew” and the “Israeli.” Rowan Dordick has written an important book doing just that. Whether Sartre was an antisemite is an open question, but Dordick’s knowledgeable and well-documented book, controversial as it may be in some respects, provides ample evidence of the ambiguity of his discourse about both the Jew and the antisemite.” —Elhanan Yakira, author of Post-Zionism, Post-Holocaust

Author Information

Rowan Dordick, an independent scholar and writer of both fiction and nonfiction with an M.A. in the history of science and philosophy from Indiana University, has long been interested both in antisemitism and the historical and legal background of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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