A review by justin_bustin_chustin
Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (Revised) by Jean-Paul Sartre

3.0

Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew is a powerful critique of antisemitism and the failure of the liberal democratic society that allows the ideology to fester. In the book, Sartre utilizes his renowned existential philosophy to paint a portrait of the anti-semite that inauthentically creates an imagined enemy to avoid the horror of the human condition; the democrat whose naiveté makes him complicit with the violence against the Jews; and the Jews that must deal with this tragic situation he is thrown in, authentically or inauthentically. The book is also a call to action. It is a work that calls for gentiles to stand in solidarity with Jews, stating that "what must be done is to point out to each one that the fate of the Jews is his fate." 

There are parts of this book that are a little weird and bad. But since I don't wish to do a gentile-splaining to anyone and since Michael Walzer's preface to the book already provides a devastating critique of the worst parts of the book, I will write about the part I like the most in the book: Sartre's characterization of the anti-semite.

Sartre rejects the view that takes antisemitism as an opinion that deserves discussing in a democratic society. He observes that antisemitism is not a conclusion reached through experience, nor is it supported by any real evidence. Antisemitism is an a priori obsession, a passion. He writes, "far from experience producing his idea of the Jew, it was the latter which explains his experience. If the Jew did not exist, the anti-semite would invent him." Moreover, this antisemitic passion that, manipulated by the ruling class, often emerges from the middle-class milieu stems from a refusal to be moved by reason; from a desire to claim an "us" alongside the ruling class by creating an imaginary "them"; from a will to be impenetrable, to be superior, and to reject all that is valuable in authentic living. "Antisemitism," Sartre writes, "is a fear of the human condition. The anti-semite is a man who wishes to be pitiless stone, a furious torrent, a devastating thunderbolt––anything except a man." I think this view of the anti-semite is useful in understanding not only antisemitism but also all kinds of bigotry, at least on an individual level. 

(Idk where else to say this but Michael Walzer's critique of this book in the preface is just so hilariously brutal. How can any Marxist recover from having "indeed, he is a liberal, for all his Marxizing sociology" in THE PREFACE OF THEIR OWN BOOK LMAO??? It's a great preface tho)