The Jew as Legitimation

"This volume brings together an array of distinguished scholars to pose a new and stimulating question: how have the Jews--or more accurately, the idea of the Jews--served as a source of legitimation for non-Jews? Ranging from the Augustinian notion of Jewish witness to the Catholic deployment of Jews in the post WWII opening, these essays chart out the wide, though largely unexplored, terrain between triumphalist and lachrymose accounts of the Jewish past. David Wertheim is to be applauded for encouraging the contributors to shed new conceptual light on old, but important, questions." (David N. Myers, University of California, Los Angeles, USA) "This book is one of the most important collections dealing with the tenuous and often conflict-riddled relationships between various forms of Judaism and Christianity in Western Europe from the early Church to the post war periods. Each essay brings new and important insights into how Jews and Judaism have been made to seem instrumental to arguments that often have little to do with actual Jews or Jewish practice. This book is more than useful; it's an important addition to our understanding of the public use of Jews in contexts that define as well as limit them." (Sander L. Gilman, Emory University, USA)

This book traces the historical phenomenon of “the Jew as Legitimation.” Contributors discuss how Jews have been used, through time, to validate non-Jewish beliefs.This book traces the historical phenomenon of “the Jew as Legitimation.” Contributors discuss how Jews have been used, through time, to validate non-Jewish beliefs. The volume dissects the dilemmas and challenges this pattern has presented to Jews.
Throughout history, Jews and Judaism have served to legitimize the beliefs of Gentiles. Jews functioned as Augustine’s witnesses to the truth of Christianity, as Christian Kabbalist’s source for Protestant truths, as an argument for the enlightened claim for tolerance, as the focus of modern Christian Zionist reverence, and as a weapon of contemporary right wing populism against fears of Islamization.
This volume challenges understandings of Jewish-Gentile relations, offering a counter-perspective to discourses of antisemitism and philosemitism.