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In his article “The New Thinking”, published in 1925, Franz Rosenzweig states that The Star of Redemption is not a “Jewish book” but a “philosophical system.” A few pages later in the same article, however, he asserts that “it is indeed a Jewish book.” How can we understand the meaning of these two apparently antithetical statements? In what sense could The Star both be and not be a “Jewish book,” while at the same time being a “philosophical system”? To answer these questions, this article analyzes the radically new way in which Rosenzweig understands the meaning of the “philosophical system” that he presents in The Star, and discusses the status that the Jewish reference occupies in it.