ABSTRACT
Readers who find a steady diet of books about the antisemitism of England's learned classes more unpleasant than exploratory surgery will find a welcome antidote in Gertrude Himmelfarb's learned, scintillating, and optimistic historical essay about the counter tradition that she calls English "philosemitism". As she uses the word, philosemitism among the English may take the form of love of Jews as "God's ancient people", or toleration of them, or admiration and worship of the Hebrew Bible, even when they call it "Old Testament", which for literate Jews is a calumny. The Jews' creation of Israel just a few years after the Holocaust, said Churchill, was an event of biblical magnitude, worthy of The People of the Book. There are no Churchills in England today. As the astute young English writer Paul Bogdanor has said to the author, "one would need the eyes of Argus to find any philosemitism in England now".
