Mourning the American Jewish intellectuals who died in 2004.

I don't know if there's something peculiar aobut this year's deaths or whether it's just my own awareness this time. Still I can't escape the feeling that there is something odd about the deaths of Sontag and Derrida following so closely on each other's heels. I can't say I followed Derrida very much or at all except perhaps for reading snippets here and there and attending a university where he is an idol among others. For no good reason I've followed Sontag more closely, or perhaps her readings have just been more readily accessible (in fact, I'm quite sure that is the case). In any even there have been an outpouring of obits, not surprisingly, about the two, and more recently, a comparative obit, if such a genre exists, on these two "luminary figures" oh, for the sarcasm point Slate's Josh Greeman wisely suggested http://www.slate.com/id/2111172. And here is for Sontag/Derrida comparative obit, you will need a username and password to get in but it is free so sign up http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-smackdown9jan09,1,4731644.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions&ctrack=3&cset=true. One thing the obit failed to take note of: both these luminaries were Jews, and both clearly were of the apologetic sort (uncomfortable with the ancestry, nation, religion they were born into). Why are American Jewish intellectuals so poisoned against their own kind is a fascinating phenomenon worth examining though I doubt any real insight can come of it beyond some unlikely-to-surprise revelations about self-doubt and insecurities--the kind that was essentially responsible for the birth of the American Jewish intellectual in the first place.