G. Daniel Cohen

Despite many ambiguities, expressions of empathy towards Jews have challenged the exceptionality of the Jewish condition in European history. Yet there is no comprehensive study on the positive meanings of Jewishness in post-Holocaust Europe. I trace the evolution of “philosemitic” discourse and sentiment from 1945 to the present, when the Jewish trope allowed prominent figures to reconstruct European ethics. This movement did not hinder the persistence of anti-Semitism and at times reified old anti-Jewish themes under cover of Judeophilia. It nonetheless laid the foundations for an unprecedented moral revolution in contemporary European history.