Challenging Colonial Discourse (Jewish Studies and Protestant Theology in Wilhelmine Germany)

On the basis of postcolonial theory, this study shows how Jewish scholars, in the controversies about the “essence” of Judaism and Christianity at the beginning of the 20th century, challenged the intellectual hegemony of Liberal Protestantism in Germany. By carefully examining the impact of the political circumstances—the loss of relevance of political liberalism, the spreading of antisemitism, and the crisis of Jewish identity in an age of contested emancipation and assimilation—on the theological discourse, it provides a critical analysis of anti-Jewish implications of Protestant theology in the 19th and 20th centuries and discusses the function of Jewish polemics against Protestant distortions of Jewish history, religion and culture. Furthermore, it develops important guidelines for a contemporary interdisciplinary relationship between Jewish Studies and Christian theology.