Kehre in the thought of Emmanuel Levinas

In an essay accompanying the reedition of "Quelques reflexions sur la philosophie de l'hitlerisme", Miguel Abensour reduces the entire work of Levinas to the "opposition from the start between paganism, enclosed in the world, unable to leave it, and Judaism, antipaganism of the first order, as it has no definitive foundation in the world". This essay omits the referral of or the later assimilation of paganism to liberalism, which Levinas effectively practices in "Etre juif", in which the Judaism described is entirely different from that portrayed in "Quelques reflexions". Thus the A. questions Abensour's conviction of being able to read in the work of Levinas the assurance "of a Jewish condition straightforwardly taken up". This turning point or "Kehre" between "Quelques reflexions" and "Etre juif", which affects the meaning of all of Levinas' categories, is not due to circumstances. It reveals, as the A. also affirms, the interior conflict which is the nerve center of the whole of Levinas' work: that between the literally problematic "belonging to Judaism", and the interesting "fidelity" to the "demands" which Judaism, as Levinas sees it, should always imply.