self-hating Jew

Self-hating Jew or self-loathing Jew is a pejorative term used for a Jewish person that holds antisemitic views. The concept gained widespread currency after Theodor Lessing's 1930 book Der Jüdische Selbsthass ("Jewish Self-hatred"), which tries to explain the prevalence of Jewish intellectuals inciting antisemitism with their extremely hateful view toward Judaism. Jewish self-hate has been described as a neurotic reaction to the impact of antisemitism by Jews accepting, expressing, and even exaggerating the basic assumptions of the anti-Semite. The term became "something of a key term of opprobrium in and beyond Cold War-era debates about Zionism". Similar accusations of being uncomfortable with one's Jewishness were already being made by groups of Jews against each other before Zionism existed as a movement.