Furio Jesi and Judaism

Furio Jesi and Judaism This discussion examines Furio Jesi’s theory of the “mythological machine” as he elaborates its workings in its antisemitic manifestations. The very mechanism Jesi describes as operational in the non-genuine, “technicized” mythology directed toward a political objective can be found in antisemitic mythology ever since the medieval legend of the Wandering Jew, the blood libel, and its correlated myth of the Jewish Vampire; in sum, the myth of the Jew as other and powerful. At the same time, Jesi recognizes in these figures who stand at the border between life and death (the Wandering Jew, the Vampire) a model for poetry in general and specifically for himself. Jesi obliquely respresents himself standing at the border between Judaism and Christianity, mortality and immortality, creative writing and critical analysis, and between wisdom and the shadow. This shadow is the unpronounceable name of God with which people, individually and collectively, may tell their own stories and those of others, and in so doing may “pray”. Parole chiave: Furio Jesi, ebraismo, antisemitismo, macchina mitologica, vampirismo, esilio Keywords: Furio Jesi, Judaism, Antisemitism, mythological machine, vampirism, exile