Trauma: An Essay on Jewish Guilt

You can’t escape the question of identity. In 1995 various authors contributed essays to a book called The Jew in the Text, Modernity and the Construction of Identity. Prefacing the collection, the editors explain:

It had struck us, and not surprisingly many others at around the same time, that the category of the ‘Jew’, not the history of Jews, Judaism or Jewish culture, but the way in which the ‘Jew’ had been perceived in modern culture, was relatively unexplored. While issues surrounding race, identity, colonialism, and Eurocentrism have become the focus of endless debate and scrutiny, the ‘Jew’ had largely been left out. It is as if the issue of the ‘Jew’ is just as much an embarrassment to contemporary cultural theorists as it was to their European ancestors.¹ Read more