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  • On the Concept of Self-Hatred:A Misnomer
  • Ilana Maymind (bio)

Terminology is the root of all unhappiness.

~ Anton Kuh

Introduction

Jewish existence is often said to be marked by two contradictory perils: hatred and acceptance. Reflecting on the historical past, I note that, at its extreme, hatred led to mass extermination (the Holocaust), whereas acceptance, ironically, had the potential to result in self-attrition through the massive loss of Jewish self-identification (assimilation).1 As a result of hatred, Jewish life was characterized by centuries of segregation and oppression, which of course affected the construction of Jewish identity. The advent of Jewish inclusion resulting from Enlightenment thought brought to light the issue of an identity grounded in conflict and hardship. For German Jews in particular, the opportunity to enter society at large forced the question of their perception as being European or German in addition to being Jewish.

The promise of freedom and the expectation of equality of the Enlightenment’s and subsequently the emancipation2 ushered in a heightened need to redefine and reconstruct not only one’s place in society but also one’s own identity. The promise of the emancipation included a separation between the public and private with the certain strings attached. A Jew became accepted into the larger society with the expectation that his religiosity will take a secondary role, particularly in public. In other words, Jew was expected to be a Jew at home and a French citizen in public. This idea of a ‘cosmopolitan’ Jew implicitly introduced the idea of self-rejection that in some cases was interpreted as self-hate. Given the dialectics of rejection and acceptance, I focus here on the connection between emancipation (acceptance in terms of freedom and equality) and assimilation and, further, between assimilation and self-hatred. I propose that in many cases, “self-hatred” is a misnomer and the application of the label suggests the tendency for outsiders to assign to a particular group certain sui generis features. When these features cannot be properly located, their absence is interpreted as a rejection of belonging to this particular group [End Page 19] and as the negation of one’s religious identity. Yet, this self-negation may have nothing to do with the person in question, but may instead be a perspective imposed from outside. On the other hand, I suggest that, in some cases, the idea of “self-hatred” may increase one’s involvement in issues of social justice by redirecting the focus on world brotherhood rather than merely on one’s own people. For the purposes of this paper, I am using the following definition of assimilation: “the decline, and at its endpoint the disappearance of an ethnic/racial distinction and cultural and social differences that express it.” 3

Self-Hatred

Joseph Chayim Brenner (1881–1921), an often overlooked Jewish existentialist, argues for the existence of Heidegger’s geworfenheit, which he interprets as Jewish “thrownness” or “givenness.” In his view, Jews are thrown into specific circumstances and conditions. His concept of thrownness predates the discussion of this concept by Martin Heidegger, who discusses it in Being and Time, published in 1927. For Brenner, thrownness is predicated upon the idea that Jewish existence is created ex nihilo but begins in the past rather than in the present. For Brenner the thrownness or givenness is predicated upon the fact that Jewish existence is not ex nihilo but begins in the past. In other words, for Brenner, it is the present that animates the past and not vice versa. Nonetheless, Jewishness is not a choice but a basic datum directly related to previous generations, their experiences, and history; thus, Jewishness is “coerced” upon the Jews as a facticity of their existence. This facticity is internal and has nothing to do with the ideology called religion. Brenner distances Judaism from religious ideology, moving it instead toward ethnicity.

He proposes a distinction between ideology and existence. Existence, contrary to any set of ideas (theories), is pre-conscious and instinctive. In Brenner’s view, it is immoral to build on ideas as a foundation for existence, since a moral attitude cannot be divorced from the existence of real people. Endorsement of Jewish...

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