Jews and Leftist Politics: Judaism, Israel, Antisemitism, and Gender

390 Pages·2017·3.9 MB·English

by  Jack Jacobs

Jews and Leftist Politics
Therelationships,pastandpresent,betweenJewsandthepoliticalleft
remain of abiding interest to both the academic community and the
public. Jews and Leftist Politics contains new and insightful chapters
from world-renowned scholars and considers such matters as the
political implications of Judaism; the relationships of leftists and Jews;
thehistoriesofJewsontheleftinEurope,theUnitedStates,andIsrael;
contemporaryanti-Zionism;theassociationsbetweenspecificJewsand
CommunistParties;andtheimportanceofgenderedperspectives.Italso
containsfreshstudiesofcanonicalfigures,includingGershomScholem,
Gustav Landauer, and Martin Buber, and examines the affiliations of
Jews to prominent institutions, calling into question previously widely
held assumptions. The volume is characterized by judicious appraisals
made by respected authorities and sheds considerable light on conten-
tiousthemes.
jack jacobs is Professor of Political Science at John JayCollege and
theGraduateCenter,CityUniversityofNewYork.Heistheauthorof
anumberoftitlesincludingmostrecentlyTheFrankfurtSchool,Jewish
Lives,andAntisemitism(CambridgeUniversityPress,2015).Hewasa
Fulbright Scholar at Tel Aviv University in 1996–1997 and served as
FulbrightScholarattheVilniusYiddishInstitutein2009.

Jews and Leftist Politics
Judaism, Israel, Antisemitism, and Gender
JACK JACOBS
JohnJayCollegeandtheGraduateCenter,
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title:Jewsandleftistpolitics:Judaism,Israel,antisemitism,
andgender/JackJacobs.
description:NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress,2017.|Includes
bibliographicalreferencesandindex.
identifiers:lccn2016035544|isbn9781107047860(Hardback:alk.paper)
subjects:lcsh:Jews–Politicsandgovernment.|Jews–Intellectuallife.|
Jewishwomen–Politicsandgovernment.|Antisemitism.
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Contents
List of Contributors page vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
JackJacobs
part one political implications of judaism
1 The Strangenessof Jewish Leftism 29
MichaelWalzer
part two antisemitism and the left
2 The Dualisms of Capitalist Modernity: Reflections on History,
the Holocaust, and Antisemitism 43
MoishePostone
3 Marxism’s Other JewishQuestions 67
LarsFischer
part three israel, zionism, and the left
4 Socialist Zionism and Nation Building 87
AnitaShapira
5 Delegitimation of Israelor Social-Historical Analysis?
The Debate over Zionism asa Colonial Settler Movement 103
YoavPeled
6 Does the Left Have aZionist Problem? From the General
to aParticular 123
MitchellCohen
v
vi Contents
part four jews and communism
7 Jews and Communismin the Soviet Union and Poland 147
AntonyPolonsky
8 Jews and American Communism 169
HarveyKlehr
part five gendered perspectives
9 GesiaGelfman:AJewishWomanontheLeftinImperialRussia 183
BarbaraAlpernEngel
10 Manya Shochatand Her Traveling Guns: Jewish Radical
Women from Pogrom Self-Defense tothe First Kibbutzim 200
DeborahHertz
11 The Genderof Jews and the Politics of Women: AReflection 217
AliceKessler-Harris
part six canonical figures
12 GershomScholem and the Left 233
StevenE.Aschheim
13 The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer 252
MichaelLöwy
14 Martin Buber between Leftand Right 267
UriRam
part seven case studies
15 The Soviet Union,JewishConcerns, and the New York
ElectoralLeft, 1939–1944 291
DanielSoyer
16 Jews and the Left at theNew School 312
JudithFriedlander
17 Deutscherand theJews:On the Non-JewishJew –
AnAnalysis and PersonalReflection 331
SamuelFarber
Glossary 351
Index 355
Contributors
Steven E. Aschheim is Emeritus Professor of History at the Hebrew
University, Jerusalem, where he held the Vigevani Chair of European
Studies. He is the author of Brothers and Strangers: The East European
Jew in German and German–Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923 (1982);
The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890–1990 (1992); Culture and
Catastrophe: German and Jewish Confrontations with National Social-
ism and Other Crises (1996); In Times of Crisis: Essays on European
Culture, Germans and Jews (2001); Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer: Intim-
ate Chronicles in Turbulent Times (2001); and Beyond the Border: The
German–JewishLegacyAbroad(2007),andtheeditorofHannahArendt
in Jerusalem (2001). His latest book, At the Edges of Liberalism: Junc-
tions of European,German and Jewish History, appeared in 2012.
MitchellCohenisProfessorofPoliticalScienceatBaruchCollegeandthe
Graduate Center, City University of New York, as well as Co-Editor
Emeritus of Dissent. His books include Zion and State (1987) and The
Wager of Lucien Goldmann (1994). His articles and essays have
appeared in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, the London
Times Literary Supplement, andnumerous other publications.
Barbara Engel is Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado,
Boulder. She is the author of Mothers and Daughters: Women of the
Intelligentsia in Nineteenth Century Russia (1983); Between the Fields
and the City: Women, Work and Family in Russia, 1861–1914 (1995);
Women in Russia: 1700–2000 (2004); Breaking the Ties That Bound:
The Politics of Marital Strife in Late Imperial Russia (2011); and most
recently, with Janet Martin, Russia inWorld History (2015).
vii
viii Contributors
Samuel Farber is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Brooklyn
College, City University of New York, and the author of Revolution
and Reaction in Cuba, 1933–1960 (1976); Before Stalinism: The Rise
andFallofSovietDemocracy(1990);SocialDecayandTransformation:
A View from the Left (2000); The Origins of the Cuban Revolution
Reconsidered (2006); and, most recently, Cuba since the Revolution of
1959: ACriticalAssessment (2011).
Lars Fischer is Teaching Fellow in History and Hebrew and Jewish
Studies at UCL (University College London). He served as Councillor of
the Royal Historical Society from 2012 to 2015 and Secretary of the
British Association for Jewish Studies from 2010 to 2012. Among his
publicationsisthemonographTheSocialistResponsetoAntisemitismin
Imperial Germany(2007).
Judith Friedlander is Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College, City
UniversityofNewYork,whereshehasservedasDeanofSocialSciences
and Dean of Arts and Sciences. Among her published works are Being
IndianinHueyapan(1975)andVilnaontheSeine:JewishIntellectualsin
Francesince 1968(1990).Currently sheiswriting abookon thehistory
of the New School for Social Research, where she served as Dean of the
Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science (1993–2000) and held
theEberstadt Chair ofAnthropology.
Deborah Hertz is the Herman Wouk Chair in Modern Jewish Studies at
theUniversityofCaliforniaatSanDiego.SheistheauthorofJewishHigh
Society in Old Regime Berlin (1988) and How Jews Became Germans:
The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin (2007). The
working title of her current book project is “Sailing to Utopia: Jewish
Women’sJourneys from Odessato Jaffa.”
Jack Jacobs is Professor of Political Science at John Jay College and the
Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of On
Socialists and “the Jewish Question” after Marx (1992), of Bundist
CountercultureinInterwarPoland(2009),andofTheFrankfurtSchool,
JewishLives,andAntisemitism(2015);andistheeditorofJewishPolitics
inEastern Europe:The Bund at100 (2001).
AliceKessler-HarrisisR.GordonHoxieProfessorofAmericanHistoryat
Columbia University, where she is also Professor in the Institute for
ResearchonWomenandGender.HerbooksincludeInPursuitofEquity:
Women, Men and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth