Betraying Spinoza

In 1656, Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated from Amsterdam's Jewish community, becoming a renowned heretic at just twenty-three. He was already developing a radical secularist philosophy that would challenge religious thought. Rebecca Goldstein explores the man behind the rigorous rationality, investigating the reasons for the rift between Spinoza and his Jewish heritage. Goldstein suggests that the trauma of the Inquisition's persecution of Jewish converts influenced Spinoza's philosophy, arguing that both Spinoza and his excommunicators were reacting to early forms of racial anti-Semitism in Europe.