Judge Dennis Davis
The Non-Jewish Jew
Summary
The lecture focuses on Isaac Deutscher’s “non-Jewish Jew” and examines the tension between universalism and particularism in Judaism. Initially immersed in Hasidic Judaism, the discussion delves into his atheism and role in the Polish Communist Party. Deutscher’s complex views on Zionism, influenced by events like the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust, are also explored.
Judge Dennis Davis
Dennis Davis is a judge of the High Court of South Africa and judge president of the Competition Appeals Court of South Africa. He has held professorial appointments at the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand, as well as numerous visiting appointments at Cambridge, Harvard, New York University, and others. He has authored eleven books, including Lawfare: Judging Politics in South Africa.
Just precisely because I would not agree at all with Sharansky. I think that’s why, for me, Deutscher provides a methodology which is much more worthwhile of development.
To some extent, yes. To what extent they were influenced by the actual writings within Jewish tradition, I don’t know. But the fact is that they were Jewish and they felt outside of the broad community. That Judaism matter to some extent is what Deutscher is talking about which is what fueled the energy towards the broad theories that we’ve examined.
Yes, in a lot of his works, he certainly had doubt. The fact that he actually talks about this as a too painful a question to answer, is itself, a reflection of a kind of humility, which is sorely lacking in so much public discourse at the moment.