Oren Gross

Progressive and Jew: Rereading Sartre in Light of Today’s Antisemitism

November 7, 2021

Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944, Anti-Semite and Jew, focuses on four protagonists. In addition to two groups of Jews, namely, the authentic and the inauthentic Jew, Sartre introduces the Anti-Semite and the Democrat. While Sartre’s essay was written against the backdrop of WWII, many of his insights are neither limited nor confined to that particular time and place and, indeed, have a relevance that applies to our own time and place. The talk, a part of a larger project, will position today’s progressives and their relationship to Jews within the context of Sartre’s observations.

Professor Oren Gross is the Irving Younger Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. He is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of international law and national security law. Professor Gross holds an LL.B. degree magna cum laude from Tel Aviv University, and LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard Law School. He has taught and held visiting positions at Harvard Law School and Princeton University. He is the author of numerous articles and two award winning books and is a member of the American Law Institute. Between 1986 and 1991, Professor Gross served as a senior legal advisory officer in the international law branch of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Judge Advocate General’s Corps.