The anti-journalist

Karl Kraus (1874-1936) has been regarded by many of his contemporaries and present-day scholars as a Jewish antisemite, a second Weininger. Indeed, Kraus's invectives against Jewish journalism and "feuilletonism" of the early 20th century and his criticism of Heine leave the impression that he shared many intellectual anti-Jewish attitudes of his time. Admitting that Kraus indeed was influenced by some antisemitic theorists (e.g. by H.S. Chamberlain), dismisses the accusation of his Jewish self-hatred. Kraus was primarily a cultural critic; given that antisemitism of his time was a widespread cultural code, it is no wonder that he used anti-Jewish imagery in his critiques. Rather than stemming from sincere antisemitism, Kraus's attacks constituted an innovative critique of mainstream German Jewish strategies for assimilation, the existing model of German Jewish self-fashioning. Some of Kraus's contemporaries - Kafka, Scholem, and Benjamin - managed to see in him a "Jewish heart" and shared some of his ideas. Concludes that Kraus's idea to create "anti-journalism" as a counterpoise to "Jewish feuilletonism" failed. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)