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Sophie Bessis: The notion of 'Judeo-Christian civilization' is a sham

The historian questioned the relevance of a "semantic aggregate" that became very fashionable on the other side of the Mediterranean.

Sophie Bessis: The notion of 'Judeo-Christian civilization' is a sham

The historian Sophie Bessis in January 2025.

Franco-Tunisian historian and intellectual Sophie Bessis was born in 1947 in Tunis, into a Tunisian Jewish communist family. In her latest essay "The Judeo-Christian Civilization: Anatomy of a Deception" (Les Liens qui libèrent, 2025), she meticulously deconstructed the term "Judeo-Christian," which became, in the 1980s, a mantra of the dominant Western political discourse aimed at relieving Europe of the burden of its history of anti-Semitism and integrating Israel into the West in opposition to the Arab-Muslim world.Why do you use the term "deception" to describe the concept of "Judeo-Christian civilization?"As it is used today in political language, this binary has no content. Until the 1980s, the term remained an attribute of scholarly studies, as Christianity originates from Judaism. The...
Franco-Tunisian historian and intellectual Sophie Bessis was born in 1947 in Tunis, into a Tunisian Jewish communist family. In her latest essay "The Judeo-Christian Civilization: Anatomy of a Deception" (Les Liens qui libèrent, 2025), she meticulously deconstructed the term "Judeo-Christian," which became, in the 1980s, a mantra of the dominant Western political discourse aimed at relieving Europe of the burden of its history of anti-Semitism and integrating Israel into the West in opposition to the Arab-Muslim world.Why do you use the term "deception" to describe the concept of "Judeo-Christian civilization?"As it is used today in political language, this binary has no content. Until the 1980s, the term remained an attribute of scholarly studies, as Christianity originates from Judaism. The...
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