The “Reason for Being” or Justification of Jewish Existence: A Reading of Emmanuel Levinas’s “Être juif”.

In 1947, Emmanuel Levinas published a short essay entitled “Being Jewish” (“Être juif”) in the magazine Confluences. Starting from a reflection on “the Jewish question” or “problem” (Judenfrage), Levinas inquiries into the “reason for being” or justification of Jewish existence. His essay has been the subject of a reappropriation by some interpreters who make Levinas’s claim of “being Jewish” the fulcrum of an ontological conversion or Heideggerianization of his thought. This paper aims to critically analyze one of these hermeneutic perspectives, that of Sarah Hammerschlag, addressing two decisive questions opened by Levinas’s text: Jewish identity and Judaism in history. An alternative approach to the 1947 text is set out, which involves another way of understanding the meaning of Levinas’s analysis of being Jewish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]