polity
Originally published in French as Exclu le juif en nous by Jean-Luc Nancy. Copyright © EDITIONS GALILEE 2018
This English edition © Polity Press, 2020
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4274-1
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nancy, Jean-Luc, author. | Clift, Sarah, translator.
Title: Excluding the Jew within us / Jean-Luc Nancy ; translated by Sarah Clift.
Other titles: Exclu le juif en nous. English
Description: English edition. | Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | “Originally published in French as Exclu le juif en nous by Jean-Luc Nancy. Copyright © Éditions Galilée 2018.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A leading philosopher argues that anti-Semitism is rooted in the structures of Western thought”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020001435 (print) | LCCN 2020001436 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509542727 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509542734 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509542741 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Antisemitism--Philosophy. Classification: LCC DS145 .N2713 2020 (print) | LCC DS145 (ebook) | DDC 305.892/4001--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001435
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001436
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I put the finishing touches on this text for the English translation of this book in early November 2018, just days after the most serious antisemitic attack in US history took place, on October 27 in Pittsburgh. Evidently, imitators are still emboldened by the anathemas of John Chrysostom, the diatribes of Luther, the rantings in Protokoly Mędrców Syjonu [The Protocols of the Elders of Zion], and the ideology of Mein Kampf to claim that “the Jews are children of Satan” before shooting them in the middle of an American city whose motto is benigno numine (“by a benevolent divine power,” “by the favor of heaven”).
This rapid geographical expansion of antisemitic violence might be seen as the symptom of a general increase in incidents of impulsive or impassioned violence (insofar as this type can be distinguished from others, for example social, economic, or political violence) that are taking place in a disoriented world. But, even if that were the case, it still has to be understood in terms of its stupefying continuity with, and continuation of, a disease and a derangement that has belonged to the West since its very inception.
That this is how such a ferocious hatred, unique in the history of civilizations, would reach the continent and country where the West underwent its most major expansion before spreading everywhere—this is what gives the present book its horrible justification: to expose the originary and constitutive role played by antisemitism in the development of the symbolic, ethical, and emotional structure of this West.