Jewish pariah status in Europe prevented Jewish orientalists from colonial triumphalism.

Evidence

Hess provides some concrete support for the “Jews-as-colonials” argument. The German biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis (1717–91) was an orientalist and an anti-Jewish polemicist. Hess notes that Michaelis came up with a colonialist solution to the “problem” of the Jews as the Asiatic residents of Europe. He suggested turning Europe’s Jews into real colonials—by exporting them to “sugar islands” in the West Indies, where they would labor to benefit the German economy. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 78 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Jews’ absence from imperial enterprise enabled their exclusion as a non-Western race; Jewish orientalists could not endorse the European civilizing mission that denied them rights; European orientalists proposed solving the Jewish question by exporting Jews as colonial laborers — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 78 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• European orientalists proposed solving the Jewish question by exporting Jews as colonial laborers #complicates (0.80) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 78