The Frankfurt School’s 1941 anti-semitism project praised Jewish enlightenment rationalism

Evidence

As late as 1941 the outline of the Research Project on Anti-Semitism' in SPSS had stated: The levelling that results from abstract thinking is a prerequisite for the development of the world, in a truly human sense, for this type of thinking divests human relationships and things of their taboos and brings them into the realm of reason. Jews have therefore always stood in the front ranks of the struggle for democracy and freedom.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1367

Categorization

• SHARE: A pointed nugget for someone studying antisemitism studies or the Frankfurt School: the Institut’s own 1941 text credited Jewish abstract-rationalism as democratic rather than alienating.
• SEED: Angles as a piece on how the Frankfurt School’s own earlier pro-Enlightenment, pro-Jewish stance prefigured (and complicates) their later dialectic-of-enlightenment turn.
• XREF: connects to: The early Frankfurt School’s instinct-liberation project shifted toward a theological reading of Judaism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1434; The Institut subordinated Jewish identity and anti-Semitism to social class analysis — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 162

Broader Connections

• The Institut subordinated Jewish identity and anti-Semitism to social class analysis #complicates (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 162
• The early Frankfurt School’s instinct-liberation project shifted toward a theological reading of Judaism #expands (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1434