Reply To: Anti-Semitism refuted by Non-Jewish Philosopher

“I noted earlier that anti-Semitism is a passion.
Everyone understands that emotions of and anger are involved.

But ordinarily hate and anger have a provocation:
I hate someone who has made me suffer, someone who contemns or insults me.
We have just seen that anti-Semitic passion could not have such a character.

It [anti-Semitism] precedes* the facts that are supposed to call it forth; it seeks to nourish itself upon them; it must even interpret them in a special way so that they may become truly offensive.

Indeed, if you so much as mention a Jew to an anti-Semite, he will show all the signs of a lively irritation.”

SOURCE: Anti-Semite and Jew (chapter 1, page 17) by Jean-Paul Sartre in year 1944, translated from French to English by George J. Becker, published by Schocken Books in NYC in year 1995, distributed by Pantheon Books, ISBN 0805210474

* PERSONAL COMMENT: Since anti-Semitism “precedes the facts that are supposed to call it forth”, this indicates that anti-Semitism is not based on truth or logic.