Philo-Semitism

Philo (Greek philos - " friend " - and Semitism ) has about 1880 a collective term for the Jews, Judaism or its cultural achievements over well-disposed attitude, the specific content and motivations are varied. It was originally used as a pejorative buzzword especially by anti-Semites.

Term

The term was originally a battle cry German Jews opponents against its non-Jewish opponents. It presupposes the concept of anti-Semitism that emerged around 1865 in Germany and Austria (see anti-Semitism # The term anti-Semitism ).

Heinrich von Treitschke spoke in the context of publishing his Berlin Antisemitism dispute in 1880 for the first time by the " philo -Semitic zeal ". He attributed this to the German Progressive Party, which opposed the claims of the former Antisemitenpetition. Prior to his opponent Theodor Mommsen had spoken of " pro-and anti -Semitic sentiments ," and Wilhelm Endner had non-Jewish German, the " Jewish principles " appropriated from his point of view, as " proselyte " devalued. By 1912 the term was used primarily philo in this sense to the polemic against the left-wing liberalism.

The Jewish missionary J.F.A. de la Roi designated in 1884 as a Christian philo-Semites, the " calling a love that no longer wants to carry the truth to victory " in the necessary " war of extermination " between Jews and Christians, so the gave up the goal of the conversion of all Jews to Jesus Christ.

The Socialist Franz Mehring used the term since 1890 as a polemic against conservative and liberal publicists: Your philo-Semitism was " nothing but the last ideological disguise of capitalism "; the socialist press must fight " capitalist philo " as well as " philo -Semitic capitalists ". If liberal Jews excited about anti-Semitic assaults as 1891 Xanten case of an alleged ritual murder, which was feigned:

" In Judaism, Mosse and comrades defend the possibility of buying and selling the conditions on which rests the glory of the capitalist world; so they press a grin an eye to when a Jew is crushed because his Judaism capitalism somehow gets in the way, but that they also raise a cry, when an anti-capitalist movement a Jew comes too close to his Judaism 's sake. Antisemitism is an anti-capitalist movement. "

This attitude met within social democracy to criticism of Eduard Bernstein, who warned in the New Age, that the anti-Semites would be given rights by the use of ambiguous key word " philo-Semitism " in the labor movement. Mehring is considered anti-Semitic because of these and similar statements by historians Robert S. Wistrich and Götz Aly today.

Walter Rathenau described in 1897 in his essay Hear, O Israel as philo those who denied the existence of a Jewish Question in the German Empire. He also said for liberals who do not nachsagten all, but individual Jews the German nation allegedly damaging behavior and it demanded only the application or at most moderate tightening of existing laws. Gave you Rathenau law.

Enemies of the Jews in the late 19th century called the representatives of the Enlightenment of the 18th century " philo-Semites " who did not know this term: as John Toland with his writing reasons for the naturalization of Jews in Great Britain and Ireland under equality with all other nations (1714 ), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his drama Nathan the Wise ( 1779) or Christian Konrad Wilhelm von Dohm with his manifesto on the Civic improvement of the Jews ( 1781-1783 ). Anti-Semitism researcher Alex Bein rejects this respect the term from as ahistorical rear projection, as many reconnaissance considers the peculiarities of the Jewish religion as to overcome barriers and consequently adherence devout Jews from rejected as a problem and stubborn obstinacy or that refusal would have favored.

Since 1945, the term is generally understood as a benevolent attitude of non-Jews against Jews or against what consider non-Jews as a typical and valuable concern of the Jews. In this sense philo was often interpreted and criticized as " reverse antisemitism ", which only the 'll accept what find non-Jews to Jews sympathetic.

Typing tests

Hans -Joachim Schoeps understood philo since 1952 as a pro-Jewish attitude of quite different motives. He distinguished five types:

• A religious guy who annähere from a decision of faith out Judaism. This was true for those referred to as " God-fearing " in Hellenism non-Jews who tended to convert to Judaism to follow strictly without all the commandments of the Torah.
• A Christian millenarian type: These exist let the Jews because they " in the last act of the drama world " before the expected return of Jesus Christ would play a role. Representatives of this type are spiritualists and enthusiasts of the 17th century such as Paul Felgenhauer and Andreas Kempe and subsequently formed communities such as the Adventists and Mormons.
• Not sharply demarcated it was the Christian missionary Type: This eighth Judaism with its quirks and pick up positive traits that show it to prepare the ground for a successful mission to the Jews so. After Michael Brenner "Jewish friends" of this type Jews defend themselves against their enemies, trying to fend theological prejudices about them and encourage understanding among Christians for them and strengthen, but have focused more on their conversion. This attitude had represented during the Reformation, including John Reuchlin, Christian Kabbalists as Christian Knorr von Rose Roth, representatives of pietism as Johann Christoph Wagenseil, later of liberal Protestantism as Franz Delitzsch and Hermann Strack.
• Of these, in turn, is not sharply defined, utilitarian type: he support the establishment of Jews in a country, because he promised to them political and / or economic benefits. As examples called Schoeps Hugo Grotius, who welcomed in 1615 the admission of Jews in the Netherlands, and Oliver Cromwell, the Jews in 1655 allowed immigration to England. Burner is one of the Christian Zionism do so because he supported Zionism and a non-European Jewish State, so as to achieve the "solution of the Jewish question " by exclusion of the Jews from Europe. Even political liberalism in the 19th century saw a Jewish group consciousness as a threat to the unity of the nation.
• A liberal- humanitarian type, " the wants of the Jews its principles of tolerance and equality ... prove" and therefore the Jewish emancipation demanded as a necessary contribution to the enforcement of universal human rights. Even the humanism of the Renaissance have therefore interested in Judaism. Classic document of this enlightened tolerance towards Jews was Lessing's Nathan the Wise.

Brenner added as a sixth type arisen after 1945 Philo, who was supported by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust survivors, therefore was working intensively with the Jewish culture and emphasize solidarity with the State of Israel, which also instill self-interests. Tying criticized Henryk M. Broder on the occasion of 2005, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel film An ordinary Jew a corny, unrealistic idea about Judaism in philo. Early as 1991, Broder had noted in an article in the daily newspaper that " do-gooders " hertrügen their philo like a monstrance.