Maimonides and the Whiteness of Jewish Philosophical Theology

In addition to the Introduction to Philosophy course I am also teaching another with the title “Nature, Cosmos, God” (basically a survey of theories of nature in the monotheisms and Darwin). We are going to read some selections from Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed and as I was prepping for that lecture I came across a passage where Maimonides displays some explicit racism. I thought this was interesting in the light of our book event on Carter’s Race because it calls into question some of his claims. I’ll quote the relevant section and then outline some of what I think might be going on here, but I’m no expert in Jewish thought and so am looking forward to what Bruce and Adam might have to say.