Peter Marshall
Caught in the Crossfire
The Jews and the Reformation
By Kenneth Austin
Yale University Press 295pp £30
It is both a truism and a provocation to observe that modern anti-Semitism has a long history. It seems self-evident that the irrational and murderous hatred that is 20th-century anti-Semitism has deep roots in a millennium and more of hostility to ‘Christ killers’. Some scholars, however, have wanted to insist that the religiously motivated anti-Judaism of the medieval and early modern eras was fundamentally different from the racialised, pseudo-scientific anti-Semitism dreamt up in the 19th century. Martin Luther, icon of the Protestant Reformation, exemplifies the problem. The Nazis enthusiastically reprinted Luther’s anti-Jewish writings, and the party’s most odious anti-Semitic propagandist, Julius Streicher, notoriously remarked that Luther deserved a place (of honour) alongside him in the dock at Nuremberg. But perhaps Luther’s attitudes were no more than the conventional prejudices of his day, there being no justification for labelling (or libelling) him as the ‘father of the Holocaust’.
Kenneth Austin, in this deft and judicious treatment of a difficult subject, is no apologist for Luther’s outbursts about the Jews, which were, even in an intolerant age, unusually violent and extreme. But he does think ‘we must detach Reformation-era attitudes towards the Jews from the ends to which they
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk