Transnationalism and the Jews

Jakob Egholm Feldt is Associate Professor of Transnational and Global History at Roskilde University, Denmark. His research deals with the construction and development of ideas and concepts in the Humanities and modern intellectual culture. He is particularly interested in the construction and development of ideas, concepts and methods within modern Jewish history, anti-Semitism, Zionism, European-Middle Eastern cultural relations and cultural and historical philosophy.Over the past 10 years, he has published widely on cultural theory, Orientalism, and Jewish history including The Israeli Memory Struggle. History and Identity in the Age of Globalization (2007) and Lived Space (with Kirstine Sinclair, 2011) as well as edited volumes and articles in both English and Danish.

• Introduction /1 Transnationalism and Cultural Thought/ 2 Judaism, Zionism and Pluralism/ 3 The Jewish Land/ 4 The Genius of Adaption/ 5 Theodor Herzl, Cosmopolitanism, and Jewishness/ 6 New Futures, New Pasts/ 7 Judaism in Civil Space. Mendelssohn, Enlightenment, and the Question of Jewish Civility/ Bibliography/ Index

Jakob Egholm Feldt’s book is a masterful exploration of the ‘metaphorical landscape of Jewishness’. He tracks how the early twentieth-century concept of transnationalism has been lost and refound and he convincingly demonstrates its urgent implications for our own times. At the heart of his study is a reflection on how the particular history of Jews has become a universal experience.