Orientalizing the Jew

For the past forty years the word ‘Oriental,’ and all words derived from it, have suffered a limited and politicized significance lent to them by Edward Said and all who followed his views, and debated his post-colonial analysis. It is against this weighty, but recent, linguistic convention that the title of Julie Kalman’s 2017 volume, Orientalizing the Jew: Religion, Culture, and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century France, serves as a reminder of the changed meanings of these related terms. ‘Orientalism’ originally denoted the study of languages and cultures of the Orient and Muslim countries. Scholars in those domains were ‘Orientalists.’ ‘To Orientalize’ referred to the ways in which Oriental sensibilities and influences changed western art forms dating back to antiquity. ‘Orientalizing’ is here applied to the veil through which European Jews are seen or imagined. Several scholars have shown how this projection fosters internalization, or ‘self-orientalism’, and examples include the adoption of Moorish styles in synagogue architecture, and, later, even the artistic production of European Jews in Palestine and Israel.

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