PARTISAN REVIEW
in the Christian drama of salvation. Sartre mentions
this
only to
dis–
miss it. It was once true but is no longer true. Again his psychology
is better than his history. "Have we ever stopped to consider the
intolerable situation of men condemned to live in a society that
adores the God they have killed? Originally, the Jew was a murderer
or a son of a murderer- which in the eyes of a community with a pre–
logical concept of responsibility amounts inevitably to the same thing
-it was as such that he was taboo. It is evident that we cannot find
the explanation of modern antisemitism here.... "
No, not
the
explanation but one which goes a long way to
explain the
persistence
of antisemitism in a world that recognizes
the difference between Jew and non-Jew, and in which the Christian
dogma-Sartre rightly calls it a legend- that the Jews killed Christ
is still taught at some time or other to almost every non-Jewish
child. And it is the child who conspicuously lives by the pre-logical
concept of responsibility. Even when the legend fades out of the focus
of consciousness or belief, the natural horror and resentment, the
curl of repuJs.ion and hateful rejection, leave scar-tissue deep in the
unconscious which bursts into angry infection later in adult life often
to the surprise of the carrier. This does not have to be universally true
to be generally true. There are exceptions. The community, too, has
its cultural scar tissue-e.g., the use of the term "Jew" as an epithet
of disparagement-which may act as host to any passing evil germ.
And there obviously cannot be a germ-free life. This is not past history
but present history, and its meaning is reinforced by the findings of
modern psychiatry.
There is, of course, an antisemitism which precedes Christianity;
and there is, and probably will continue to be, an antisemitism in
Moslem countries. But these antisemitisms are of the same kind as
oppositions between Moslem and Christian, Christian and pagans, or
between Christians of different sects. They are not so integral to one
another as antisemitism is to the Christian epic.
That is why it is safe to predict that antisemitism will endure
as long as orthodox Christian religious education which pictures the
Jew as a deicide. That is why, for genuine democrats, religion must
be a private matter in fact as well as profession, why secular human–
ism and not Christian humanism is a safer, as well as truer, philosophy
for democratic life. That is why every revival of religious orthodoxy,
