The Ashes of Isaac and the Nature of Jewish Philosophy

To what extent should Jewish philosophy seek to avoid accomodationism? Yoram Hazony calls Jewish philosophy ‘accomodationist’ when it seeks to ‘provide a mirror in which the Christian philosophical tradition can admire itself’ (2015, 194). He means to pick out a style of Jewish philosophy that seeks to air-brush over differences between Christian and Jewish ways of thinking. According to Hazony, it is precisely this style of philosophising that Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the great leader of American Modern Orthodox Judaism, inveighed against as an affront to the ‘martyrdom of millions’ of Jews in the face of religious persecution (Ibid. 197). How dare Jews paper over the differences that their ancestors were willing to die for?