Sander Gilman, an authority on both German literature and medical history, has already published several important studies of stereotyping, most recently Difference and Pathology (1985). Stereotypes are not based on objective perceptions of social groups: ‘the very concept of color is a quality of Otherness, not of reality’ (p. 6). Instead, they belong to systems of representations which are distorted by the power-group's desire to withhold cultural authority and political power from the encroaching Other. In this book Gilman moves into new territory by discussing the reactions of a minority group, the German Jews, to the stereotyping applied to it by the majority. The first substantial study of Jewish selfhatred, this supersedes everything previously written on the topic.

The introduction explains with remarkable clarity the complex generation of self-hatred. The power-group is always divided, since it claims that whoever satisfies its criteria may join its ranks, yet preserves its identity by defining those criteria so elusively that outsiders can never fully satisfy them. Unable to admit that the power-group they long to join is flawed by contradiction, the outsiders introject this division, and thus place themselves in a double bind. To join the power-group, outsiders must accept its values. But this means admitting that their own distinctive qualities must always exclude them from the power-group.

The immutable qualities of German Jews were thought to include linguistic distinctiveness. Since Jews in the Diaspora were normally bilingual, their peculiar languages, Hebrew and Yiddish, always aroused suspicion. ‘Jewish books’ were publicly burnt in 1244 as well as in 1933. After the eighteenth century's elevation of language as the most intimate expression of national identity, Jews were thought incapable of mastering German without somehow contaminating it by their ‘hidden language’. Gilman's ample documentation justifies him in making this concept central to his analysis of self-hatred, though his concentration on written texts prevents him from considering other aspects of language, such as intonation, gesture, and facial expression, which were supposed to distinguish the Jew.

The immutable qualities of German Jews were thought to include linguistic distinctiveness. Since Jews in the Diaspora were normally bilingual, their peculiar languages, Hebrew and Yiddish, always aroused suspicion. ‘Jewish books’ were publicly burnt in 1244 as well as in 1933.