This study focuses upon the challenge that diverse Brazilian writers of Jewish ancestry mount against the absolutist affirmation of ethnic or identity expression which frequently emerges today in discussions about plurality, multiculturalism and what is considered to be "politically correct." Amidst other themes, the topic of alterity is specifically referenced in order to underscore how Jewish expression in Brazil deconstructs the flagrantly traditional concept of "identity." This optic is much inspired by the short book of aphorisms by Leon Wieseltier, Against Identity as well as by the views of other thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, John Stuart Mill, Sigmund Freud, Zygmunt Bauman, Charles Taylor, and Edward Said. Here, the argumentation or exposition will basically draw upon certain works of fiction by Clarice Lispector and Samuel Rawet but also accompanied by brief references to other Jewish writers from Brazil such as Moacyr Scliar, Cíntia Moscovich and Bernardo Ajzenberg, in addition to the thinking of international artists, scholars, thinkers, and essayists, Jewish and non-Jewish, with the principal objective of understanding how these voices approach, via fiction and non-fiction, the idea of identity, belongingness and alterity, be it ethnic, group or individual.
identity; multiculturalism; Jewish writers.