The Invention Of Racism In Classical Antiquity
Posted 3/24/2005
By Ralph Amelan (the Jewish Press)
Title: The Invention Of Racism In
Classical Antiquity
Author: Benjamin Isaac
Publisher: Princeton University Press
563 pp., $45
Reviewed by Ralph Amelan
In the world of Athens and Rome, all men were brothers. The Persians? "Impetuous, truculent, devious, and insolent." The Syrians? "Drenched in perfume." The Egyptians? "Intolerable in their wantonness." The Phoenicians? "Skilled in deceiving, and ever ready to prepare stratagems in the dark." And the Jews? "Malodorous and unmanageable."
Yes, in classical times, every week was National Brotherhood Week.
[...]
And were the Jews also victims of racism, then as now? No, claims the author, surprisingly. There was certainly considerable animus against Jews, and Isaac reproduces a torrent of abuse that classical authors directed at them. But this abuse had limits. The greedy moneylender motif was unknown. The blood libel, a Christian invention, was also absent.
[...]
Looks interesting.
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