What Are Jews For?: History, Peoplehood, and Purpose

Adam Sutcliffe

Published by Princeton University Press 2019

What Are Jews For?

History, Peoplehood, and Purpose

Adam Sutcliffe

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691201931

Overview
Contents

About this book

A wide-ranging look at the history of Western thinking since the seventeenth century on the purpose of the Jewish people in the past, present, and future

What is the purpose of Jews in the world? The Bible singles out the Jews as God’s “chosen people,” but the significance of this special status has been understood in many different ways over the centuries. What Are Jews For? traces the history of the idea of Jewish purpose from its ancient and medieval foundations to the modern era, showing how it has been central to Western thinking on the meanings of peoplehood for everybody. Adam Sutcliffe delves into the links between Jewish and Christian messianism and the association of Jews with universalist and transformative ideals in modern philosophy, politics, literature, and social thought.

The Jews have been accorded a crucial role in both Jewish and Christian conceptions of the end of history, when they will usher the world into a new epoch of unity and harmony. Since the seventeenth century this messianic underlay to the idea of Jewish purpose has been repeatedly reconfigured in new forms. From the political theology of the early modern era to almost all domains of modern thought—religious, social, economic, nationalist, radical, assimilationist, satirical, and psychoanalytical—Jews have retained a close association with positive transformation for all. Sutcliffe reveals the persistent importance of the “Jewish Purpose Question” in the attempts of Jews and non-Jews alike to connect the collective purpose of particular communities to the broader betterment of humanity.

Shedding light on questions of exceptionalism, pluralism, and universalism, What Are Jews For? explores an intricate question that remains widely resonant in contemporary culture and political debate.

Author / Editor information

Adam Sutcliffe is professor of European history at King’s College London. He is the author of Judaism and Enlightenment and the coeditor, most recently, of Philosemitism in History, The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Early Modern World, and History, Memory and Public Life: The Past in the Present.

Reviews

"Highly stimulating and insightful, What Are Jews For? offers a fresh approach to the positioning of Jews, Jewishness, and Judaism in Western history, thought, and politics. This ambitious book achieves the rare feat of being both a broad synthesis and a sustained exposition of a striking and compelling argument. It makes a significant contribution to multiple fields as well as to public debate."—Brian Klug, University of Oxford

"Building on Sutcliffe’s wide knowledge of intellectual history, What Are Jews For? presents an original and arresting exploration of an important question that is usually avoided: Do Jews have a special religious, ethical, and historical purpose, and if so, what is it? This very good book is a thoroughly responsible investigation informed by exceptionally wide reading."—Ritchie Robertson, author of The “Jewish Question” in German Literature, 1749–1939

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface and Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction. What Are Jews For? History and the Purpose Question Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Religion, Sovereignty, Messianism Jews and Political Purpose Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
2. Reason, Toleration, Emancipation Jews and Philosophical Purpose Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
3. Teachers and Traders Jews and Social Purpose Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
4. Light unto the Nations Jews and National Purpose Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
5. Normalization and Its Discontents Jews and Cultural Purpose Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Conclusion. So What Are Jews For? Jews and Contempor ary Purpose Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	264
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	339
A NOTE ON THE TYPE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	359