This article explores the political and philosophical significance of Judaism in the thought of the European Enlightenment and the resonance of these debates in Western thought since the 18th century. Judaism and the Jews persistently served as a troublesome limit case, a destabilizing challenge, and a probing test for enlightenment rationalism. Attempts to divide the Enlightenment into “anti-Semitic” and “philosemitic” strands are doomed to failure; rather, the intellectual relationship is inescapably complex and unstable. Because of this, Judaism can provide a unique bulwark against univocal rationalist authoritarianism.
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