Interchapter II The Dialectics of Ownership

Abstract

“Your Jewish Studies is not our Jewish Studies.” Unpacking my academic library in some humbler version of Walter Benjamin’s famous self-accounting, thus was I welcomed to a private college by a standard-bearing member of its academic Jewish Studies faculty. “Guilds and their vicissitudes,” I’m sure I reflected to myself, softening the edginess with obliging humor. As the great Jewish satirist Victor Borge used to say, “It’s your language; I’m just trying to use it.” Promptly filed away as a mordant piece of ...