Anti-Semitism, Judaism, and the “Treason of the Intellectuals”

“The Treason of the Intellectuals,” writes Adam Kirsch, “is one of those books that is famous even though almost no one actually reads it.” Its author, Julien Benda, lambasts the people he calls clercs (a word that bears a religious connotation that “intellectuals” does not) for forsaking integrity and truth-seeking in favor of populist fads, and thus failing in their duty to society. Delving into the historical backdrop to the 1927 book, and especially the Dreyfus affair—in which a Jewish army captain was framed on charges of espionage—Kirsch points to its connections to the situation of French Jewry, and the flaws of its argument.