WHEN PRIDE BECOMES PROVOCATION: A CAUTION ON JEWISH EXCEPTIONALISM
A Position Paper in Response to the WSJ Article “Jewish History Is the Antidote to Antisemitism”
From the essay
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article, “Jewish History Is the Antidote to Antisemitism” celebrating a major National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to the Tikvah Fund for a sweeping research initiative into Jewish history, philosophy, and theology. The tone of the article was triumphant. Its author, echoing Tikvah’s leadership, insisted that previous approaches which treated Jews as “one nation among nations” were mistaken. Instead, the project would embrace Jewish exceptionalism, portraying the Jewish people as unique, different from all others, and even essential for the survival of Western civilization.
Adapted from PDF pages 1.