I guess what I was looking for (it's been a few months now) was some idea of where the Russian Orthodox Church stood in relation to Jews. In other words were the pogroms mainly a secular phenomenon and/or was the state church used to foment anti-semiticism?
In Germany there seems to have been a kind of silence coming from the Christian religious quarters. I haven't read anything on this particular subject in either country but it' curious that religious authorities seem to turn the other cheek. I also got the feeling that the German Catholic establishment were more likely to support the growing anti-semiticism (post-WWI). Maybe that's just an artifact of Strauss reading Paul de La Garde a french Catholic and Schmitt also a Catholic.
At the moment I am wondering my way through Radical Enlightenment (J. Israel). Spinoza does seem to get a lot of play. But I think it's because he was so vehemently anti-religious---no quarter given and no apologies. Of course I am only part way through the Theological Political Tractus.
It's a slow slog since I am not really that interested in seventeenth century religious, political and philosophical controversies. I mean we have resolved most of that---or were to supposed to until the US right decided to take us all backward.
CG