ABSTRACT

The evolving image of the Black in the history of Jewish culture is being traced here in the conceptual framework of recent post-modern theories of the 'other'. The study focuses on the mechanisms by which an ethno-religious minority group considered by the dominant majority to be the inferior 'other' identifies its own inferior other. While until recently most scholarly attention has been devoted to the attitudes towards the Jews as 'other', this is the first comprehensive discussion of the attitudes of the Jews to their own 'others'.

chapter |8 pages

INTRODUCTION

chapter 1|6 pages

DREAM AND INTERPRETATION

‘Two blacks, hideous to see’

chapter 2|38 pages

SOURCES OF THE SYMBOL

‘I am black but comely’

chapter 3|7 pages

IN THE BIBLE

‘The children of Cush’

chapter 4|62 pages

IN THE LITERATURE OF THE SAGES

‘Ugly and black’

chapter 5|27 pages

IN THE CULTURAL WORLD OF ISLAM

‘Speech in its least developed form’

chapter 6|47 pages

IN THE LATIN–CHRISTIAN CULTURAL WORLD

‘Beasts in all their ways’

chapter 7|28 pages

IN THE WAKE OF EXPLORATION

‘Naked and awash in lust’