The Last Jewish Intellectual: Derrida and His Literary Betrayal of Levinas

Abstract

This chapter examines Jacques Derrida as a Jewish intellectual, locating in his work expressions of his identity as an intellectual and as a Jew. It applies insights from Derrida's philosophy of literature to his relationship with Emmanuel Levinas, probing the similarities and differences in their experience of these identities. Derrida's ambivalence toward Jewish community, in particular that aspect that imposes obligations and makes claims, was not separate from his awareness of familial overtones in his relationship with Levinas. Although Derrida discussed his Jewishness in various ways and contexts, it was through Levinas that he did and did not identify with the category of Jewish intellectual. In recounting a pair of anecdotes reported by Derrida, in which he revealed private comments made to him by Levinas, the chapter then exposes in the closeness of their relationship the operation of secrecy and betrayal, and the role of irony in constructing and subverting intimacy.