Antisemitism and the left

Robert Fine was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of WarwickPhilip Spencer is Emeritus Professor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Kingston University and Visiting Professor in Politics at Birkbeck, University of London

• Introduction: universalism and the Jewish question1 Struggles within Enlightenment: Jewish emancipation and the Jewish question2 Marx’s defence of Jewish emancipation and critique of the Jewish question3 Antisemitism, critical theory and the ambivalences of Marxism4 Political life in an antisemitic world: Hannah Arendt’s Jewish writings5 The Jewish question after the Holocaust: Jürgen Habermas and the European left6 The return of the Jewish question and the double life of IsraelIndex

‘Fine and Spencer are excellent in showing how universalism both offered a progressive pathway to emancipate Jews and a means to suppress their particularity. They meticulously probe the conundrum of whether, in Enlightenment thought and practice, Jews could only be humans and never Jews.’Robin Cohen, University of Oxford‘Fine and Spencer have contributed some very sensitive, and sensible, analyses of attitudes towards antisemitism and the Jewish question from universalist thinkers, beginning with the Enlightenment and going on through to current debates on the left about Israel.’Steven Beller, Independent scholar, Washington D.C., Patterns of prejudice, 2017, Vol. 51, No. 5‘Fine and Spencer should be applauded for convincingly demonstrating, in such a short work, the need for the left to confront the Jewish question in order to pursue its political mission.’Benjamin Bland, Royal Holloway, University of London, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 54, No. 1'Allegations of antisemitism have been directed at Corbyn and his newly-modelled Labour Party, both from within British Jewry and from within his own party; those same allegations have been rejected by many of Corbyn’s supporters as a politically-motivated smear. Robert Fine – who has sadly passed away since this book was published – and Philip Spencer tried to explain this apparent revival of antisemitism on the left by reference to the history of the Jewish question in European politics.'Dave Rich, Deputy Director of Communications Community Security Trust, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3, (2020)