Berkley Center

Jacques Berlinerblau's lecture distinguished different types of philo-Semitism, mindful that admiration for Jews may be based on motivations that run the gamut from sinister to pragmatic to altruistic. The subject of anti-Semitism is, quite possibly, one of the most thoroughly canvassed avenues of inquiry in the entire scholarly discipline of Jewish Studies. Philo-Semitism, by contrast, remains relatively unexplored and virtually untheorized. What does it mean, it was asked, to be a philo-Semite? Berlinerblau considered two major possibilities: should we regard such a person, using the terminology of Zygmunt Bauman, as an individual who sees Jews as radically unique and hence irrationally embraces the extreme of Judeophilia? Or, is genuine admiration for Jews and Judaism a possibility with redemptive significance in the post-Holocaust world?