Philo-Semitism in Nineteenth-Century German Literature by Irving Massey. Condicio Judaica 29. Studien und Quellen zur deutsch-judischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 2000. Pp. 199. 98,00 DM paper.

Irving Massey's study aims to offer analyses of a "number of nineteenth-century works of literature, mainly in German, by Gentile authors, in which Jews and/or Judaism are presented in a favorable, or at least not unfavorable light" (9). The topic presents a dual challenge because the corpus of philo-Semitic literature is rather slim, and, moreover, the literary quality of these texts is often lacking. Statements such as "it is hard to extract much of ...