The Phantasm of the Jew in French Philosophy: From Jean-Paul Sartre to Alain Badiou

“ Between Sartre and the Jew in person, the Jew as idea, the phantasm of the Jew inter-vened. ” ¹ With this diagnosis, Benny Lévy, in his 1986 essay “ Sartre et la Judéité, ” points to a distinction that underlies some of the most intense philosophical debates concerning Jews and Judaism in the decades following Sartre ’ s Réflexions sur la question juive. This article reconstructs the development of the form, function, and fate of this “ phantasm, ” from Sartre ’ s contentious designation of the Jew as nothing but a construction of the antisemite to its openly antagonistic and highly problematic inflection in Alain Badiou ’ s call for the disappearance of the “ SIT Jew, ” who derives his identity from the triad Shoah, Israel, and the Talmud.