SOURCE: “Philhellenism and Antisemitism: Matthew Arnold and his German Models,” in Comparative Literature, Vol. 46, No. 1, Winter, 1994, pp. 1-39.

In the following essay, Gossman claims that Arnold's criticisms of “Hebraism” obscure a vision of society that is inclusive of both culture and religion and that his work cannot be equated with antisemitism.

No one says it, but every one knows that pantheism is an open secret in Germany. We have, in fact, outgrown deism. We are free and don’t want any thundering tyrant. We are of age and need no parental care. Nor are we the botches of any great mechanic. Deism is a religion for servants, for children, for the Genevese, for watchmakers … and every deist is, after all, a Jew.

—Heinrich Heine¹

With some notable exceptions, such as George Eliot, virtually everyone who put pen to paper in the nineteenth century, it seems, is vulnerable to...