Benjamin and us: Christianity, its Jews, and history

Abstract

In 2004, the author of this article published Le christianisme et ses juifs: 1800–2000, an essay that studied Christian anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, drawing insight from the connections between two histories: the microhistory of a village mystery play (Oberammergau, Bavaria) and the broad history of Christian anti-Semitism. Jeanne Favret-Saada's methodology resembles Walter Benjamin's in the "Theses on the philosophy of history." The work's reception led the author to question Benjamin's historical and intellectual commitments: his relation to Judaism, Europe, Nazism, materialism, and the methods of history as a discipline.