Books

Set across France and North Africa, The Postcolonial Jewish Question offers a critical genealogy that uncovers how Jews responded to and engaged with questions of colonialism, race, and difference in the postwar period. From the height of the struggles for decolonization in the 1950s through debates about “Muslim anti-Semitism” in the early 2000s, I demonstrate how the colonial question was a central point of reference through which Jewish thinkers and organizations made sense of their own place within the French postcolonial landscape. As Jews negotiated their political, social, and philosophical position in France, they did so by situating themselves in relation to the dynamics of postcolonial politics and culture. At times, Jews sought to forge connections with anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, while at other times, they sharply differentiated themselves and asserted their place within a newly imagined Judeo-Christian world. This book captures that sense of familiarity and strangeness and offers a critical appraisal of what I call the postcolonial Jewish question.

[Status: Under Review]