Medieval Christianity repudiated Muslims at a distance but Jews from within

Evidence

Here, then, is the crucial distinction between the depiction of Jews and Muslims in medieval literature, which otherwise correspond in many respects: the Muslim community is located outside, on the outer borders of the Christian community, and therefore is repudiated, as it were, at a distance; the Jewish community, by contrast, is located both outside and inside, within the Christian community itself, and must therefore be repudiated by being abjected from within. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228

Here, then, is the crucial distinction between the depiction of Jews and Muslims in medieval literature, which otherwise correspond in many respects: the Muslim community is located outside, on the outer borders of the Christian community, and therefore is repudiated, as it were, at a distance; the Jewish community, by contrast, is located both outside and inside, within the Christian community itself, and must therefore be repudiated by being abjected from within. The Jewish community is defined as internal to the Christian community based not only on the actual presence of Jewish communities within the cities of western Europe (at least until the expulsions of the later Middle Ages), but also on the virtual presence of Judaism as a shadowy presence prior to Christianity. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 292

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely illuminating structural distinction — the inside/outside logic of abjection versus external repudiation — that explains a persistent asymmetry in Western treatments of Jews and Muslims.
• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s framing of ‘Orientalism and the Jews’ — the asymmetry between how Islam (external Other) and Judaism (internal abject) are positioned in Western imagination. Resonates with Said’s Orientalism architecture and the ‘intimate enemy’ concept.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228; Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 292