A (Profane) Judaism against the Grain: Daniel Bensaïd and Messianic Reason

Abstract

Known inside and outside the radical Left, Daniel Bensaïd’s political and intellectual trajectory entered a new stage in the second half of the 1980s amid the historical changes of the period. This essay estimates the importance of Judaism as an issue during this new phase of Bensaïd’s reflection, particularly emphasizing how the emergence of the issue in his thought is mediated by a very specific interpretation of Walter Benjamin.