Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

If you think about it, it is a miracle that European Jewry survived centuries and even millennia of various forms of anti-Semitism, including persecution, expulsions, and forced conversion. Alan Edelstein poses the question from an academic point of view how was that possible. The answer in his book, “An unacknowledged harmony: philo-Semitism and the survival of European Jewry,” stands on four legs. First, there has been a constant present streak within Christian theology that preferred the physical protection of Jews (often in the hope of later conversion). Second, the fact that Jews were useful in economic terms for society by the roles they filled in helped their survival. Third, with the advent of the Enlightenment the ideas and powers of humanism gained acceptance and human rights got extended to Jews. Finally, early versions of nationalism expanded emancipation to Jews as long as they ended their cultural, but not religious separation. (This succinct summary is based on Hans E. Segal‘s review of the book in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 470, Nov., 1983, pp. 192-193.)

Before finishing this review I have to make sure that the readers are aware that Edelstein does not belittle the historic anti-Semitism. He is just looking for answers and a redefinition of philo-Semitism. He writes (page 26) that it is a belief system that

1. sees Jews in positive light
2. may take a multitude of forms
3. has attitudinal and behavioral components
4. in its weakest sense entails anti-anti-Semitism
5. may or may not lead to overt actions
6. may or may not be consistent
7. may exist for numerous reasons.

As they say, the rest of the book is a commentary on the above.