Islamic scholars’ reverence for Goldziher contrasted with Jewish contempt that depressed him.

Evidence

Goldziher admired what he saw as the rational nature of Islam, and by comparison, detested the irrationality that seemed to characterize the Judaism in which he was raised, becoming especially contemptuous of the social dimensions of Hungarian Jewish life. … One can safely assume this reverence was to a great degree determined by the fact that the sheikhs at Al-Azhar were in awe of his knowledge. In contrast, he remained a prophet without honor among his Hungarian co-religionists, falling into deep depression and misanthropy, for which he earned an unenviable reputation and the nickname among congregants as “the roshe,” the Yiddish term for an evil person. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 403

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how intellectual recognition from an out-group can shape a scholar’s self-image and worldview more than acceptance from their own community.