The Great Hatred

by Maurice Samuel

Writing neither in defense of the Jews, nor in the hope of converting Anti-Semites, the author rejects as inadequate and dangerous the economic and sociological interpretation of Anti-Semitism. He sees in it, not a form of ordinary racial intolerance or religious bigotry or political trickery, but a far deeper condition of the Western Christian mind. This analysis carries with it an indictment of the religious and lay leadership, Christian and Jewish, that has shrunk from the recognition of the true nature of Anti-Semitism and by their own timidity, become a feature of the same disease. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1940, this edition contains a new introduction by Maurice Wohlgelernter, as well as a Series Introduction by the editor, Jacob Neusner.

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Maurice Samuel (February 8, 1895 – May 4, 1972) was a Romanian-born British and American novelist, translator and lecturer.

Born in Măcin, Tulcea County, Romania, to Isaac Samuel and Fanny Acker, Samuel moved to Paris with his family at the age of five and about a year later to England where he studied at the Victoria University. His parents spoke Yiddish at home and he developed strong attachments to the Jewish people and the Yiddish language at early age. This later became the motivation for many of the books he wrote as an adult. Eventually, he left England. Samuel emigrated to the United States and settled in New York in 1917.

A Jewish intellectual and writer, he is best known for his work You Gentiles, published in 1924. Most of his work concerns Judaism or the Jew's role in history and modern society, but he also wrote more conventional fiction, such as The Web of Lucifer, which takes place during the Borgias' rule of Renaissance Italy, and the fantasy science-fiction novel The Devil that Failed. Samuel also wrote the nonfiction King Mob under the pseudonym "Frank K. Notch". He and his work received acclaim within the Jewish community during his lifetime, including the 1944 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his non-fiction work, The World of Sholom Aleichem. He received the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish literature posthumously in 1972.

He died in 1972 in New York City.

Reviews

[Julie-Anne Borgias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still very relative today when looking at the permissive politics that overlook the othering of jewish people and denial of anti-semitism via lack of understanding of the issue.