Isaac Deutscher, historian and Hassidic rabbi, was immersed in the Talmud and Torah. His classic essay, ‘The Non-Jewish Jew’, notes the paradox that Jewish heretics belong to a characteristically Jewish tradition. Foremost was the great ethical philosopher Spinoza, considered wicked and excommunicated from the 17th-century Jewish community. More recently, Arendt, too, was accused of lacking ahavat Israel - love for the Jewish people - as a consequence of her universal stance on questions of justice.
