Religion and the Birth of Jewish Radical Politics Adam Sutcliffe

he disproportionate presence of Jews in embraced universalism with a singular pas- the history of left-wing political move- sion. Spinoza can be interpreted as a case in Tments has been widely noted—by his- point, and certainly his lucidly geometric torians, Jewish leftists themselves (who have philosophy has been lauded by many as the often proudly romanticized this lineage), and purest possible antithesis of the particularistic their right-wing adversaries (among whom legalism of his birth community. The eager it has served as an enduring anti-Semitic espousal of universal values by Jews, then, theme). Radical Jews have almost always should be seen as an inversion of normative been vigorously anticlerical, and are usually Judaism rather than as an exit from it, and as considered as antithetical to religion in every such not only defined in relation to religion way. In light of recent work by Talal Asad, but also in a sense itself religious. Jose Casanova, Charles Taylor, and others that The place and meaning of religion in has complicated the relationship between European society was never more in flux religion, politics, and the slippery process than in the early nineteenth century, and we describe as “secularization,” however, the for nobody was this more so than for Jews place of religion in the emergence of Jewish negotiating the rapid transformations of political radicalism in the first half of the the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras. nineteenth century is due for reexamina- Jews in this period reformulated the Jewish tion. Despite their hostility to all traditional religion, adopted mainstream secular cul- religious practice and their ambivalent or ture with an eagerness that has often been even hostile attitude to the Jewish collectiv- described as quasi-religious, and were also Ludwig Börne. Universitätsbibliothek Johann ity, the trace of a Jewishly religious approach Christian Senckenberg, shelf number disproportionately drawn to radical political to the ethical meaning of history infused S36_F03093. movements that were tinged with religious the thought of this first wave of Jewish idealism. It is interesting, for example, to note radicals, up to and including Marx himself. the significant number of Jews drawn to the In his excellent book Redemption and early utopian socialist movement led by the Utopia (1988), Michael Löwy noted the large an immensely compelling, inspirational figure French count Henri de Saint-Simon. Typically number of early twentieth-century central to many on the political left, and to left-wing young, assimilated or assimilating, and from European Jewish thinkers, such as Martin Jews in particular. Despite his uncompromis- affluent banking families, these Jewish Saint- Buber, Walter Benjamin, Georg Lucàcs, and ing rejection of Jewish law and rabbinical Simonians embraced both the messianic and Gershom Scholem, who were drawn to uto- authority, the emancipatory impulse of Spino- the productivist facets of this movement. One pian and libertarian visions of the future za’s philosophy is expressed in religious terms. of them, Gustave d’Eichtal, who retained a inspired both by German Romanticism and Blessedness, he writes at the close of his post- strong attachment to his Jewishness despite by Jewish messianism. Despite their utter humous Ethics, in not the reward for virtuous his childhood baptism into Catholicism, was alienation from traditional Judaism, they living, but is itself the knowledge, conscious- so convinced of the affinity between Judaism found within the religion a pulsing source of ness, and love of the unity of all things in God and Saint-Simonianism that he instigated a radical, antinomian energy, in stark contrast that enables the wise individual be truly virtu- proselytizing mission to the largest synagogue to the clinical rationalism that the sociolo- ous and happy. Spinoza’s other major work, in Paris, and argued that the female messiah gists Max Weber and Werner Sombart were meanwhile—his Theologico-Political Treatise whom the group actively anticipated would then identifying as Judaism’s central hallmark. (1670)—is a close analysis of the Hebrew Bible, not be a gentile but a Jewess. Löwy argues that this secular radicalization building a universalist argument against the- In Germany, the dominant influence of Judaism emerged only toward the end of ocracy and for freedom of thought and speech on the first generation of Jewish radicals was the nineteenth century, almost exclusively on the particular example of ancient Jewish Hegel. The political energy of France, however, in Germanic Europe. Jewish radicalism has history. made a strong impression on many of them, an earlier history too, however, the religious David Biale, in his penetrating recent and when the July Revolution broke out in undercurrents of which have not been seri- study of the Jewish secular tradition, Not Paris in 1830, the French capital immediately ously explored. in the Heavens (2011), makes the important became an irresistible magnet for several All roads in the history of Jewish radical point that the Jewish embrace of universal- German Jews who found a special role medi- politics lead back to Spinoza. Both the Jewish- ism is itself marked with Jewish particularity: ating between these two cultures. Heinrich ness and the religiosity of this most famous because Judaism stands in Western culture Heine is the most famous member of this outcast from the Sephardic community of as the essence of particularity, Jews seeking group, but more interesting politically is the Amsterdam have been endlessly contested, but to escape this position have often rejected essayist Ludwig Börne. Born in the Frankfurt since his death in 1677 he has certainly been particularism with intense vehemence and ghetto in 1786, Börne became steadily more

34 AJS Perspectives radical through his adulthood, dying in Pari- The religious universalization of Judaism emphasizing a universalism that was con- sian exile in 1837 a committed revolutionary. is more explicit in a work identified by some sciously antipodal to the tribal particularism He was often extremely pointed in his writ- as the first explicit articulation of German that they, like their non-Jewish peers, strongly ings on Jews and Judaism, emphasizing the socialism: Moses Hess’s Holy History of Human- associated with Judaism. However, their dis- alienating fiscal preoccupation of the world ity (1837). In this rather tortuously Hegelian avowal of Jewish particularity was not clear- of his upbringing, and sharply critical of tome, Hess divides history into three eras. cut. The Jews were almost invariably cast in an Frankfurt’s most famous Jews, the Rothschilds. Judaism dominated the first era, and Christian- important role in the future unfolding of his- Despite, his Protestant baptism in 1818, how- ity the second; the third, modern era had been tory, whether as a national exemplar (for the ever, he retained an identificatory concern heralded by the messianic genius of Spinoza, later Hess), a source of quasi-prophetic insight with the political rights and collective future and in its imminent egalitarian and utopian (for Börne), or a group whose necessary trans- of German Jewry. He also explicitly connected culmination the Jews were finally destined formation was central to a wider overcoming his commitment to freedom and cosmopoli- to fulfill their universal historical mission. of the pernicious social impacts of commerce tanism to his Jewish background: “The Jews Despite Hess’s avowed atheism, an intensely and finance (a pervasive belief among early are the teachers of cosmopolitanism,” he Jewish messianism suffused his writing in nineteenth-century reformists and radicals). famously wrote. Only in his final years did he this period: not for nothing was he mockingly This final association, most famously and vig- become explicitly interested in religion, and nicknamed by his comrades “the communist orously asserted by another radical Jew, Karl when he did so it took a Christian form. In rabbi.” His universalist messianic radicalism Marx, in his On the Jewish Question (1844), is of the mid-1830s, Börne encountered the work is little changed—beyond the declaration that course deeply particularly thorny and prob- of the democratic socialist French Catholic, the Jews will fulfill their historical destiny lematic. However, it also should be understood Félicité Lamennais, and with great enthusiasm by establishing their own state—in his much as in part religious: a political rearticulation translated into German his aphoristic Words better-known, later Zionist work, Rome and of a messianic utopianism in which the Jews of a Believer. This religious turn should not be Jerusalem (1862). retained an uncomfortably central and heavily dismissed as an expression of confused, even The connection between Judaism and overdetermined importance. self-hating, apostasy. As with the cultic “New political radicalism, then, has a deep history. Christianity” of the Jewish Saint-Simonians, Echoing and sometimes invoking Spinoza, Adam Sutcliffe is senior lecturer in European although the framing of Börne’s late religiosity Jewish radicals in the era of the emergence History at King’s College London. His most was Christian its political essence was univer- of socialism espoused political visions of recent book, co-edited with Jonathan Karp, is sal and the impulses leading him to it were the future that were shaped by Judaism both Philosemitism in History (Cambridge profoundly shaped by his Jewish background positively and negatively. They drew on reli- University Press, 2011). and social position. gious traditions of utopian messianism, while

Table of Contents Part One: History ▫ The History of Zionism - Moshe Maor ▫ The Yishuv: The Jewish Community in Mandatory Palestine - Aviva Halamish ▫ Israel and the Holocaust - Shlomo Aronson ▫ The Israeli-Arab War of 1948 - Yoav Gelber ▫ Jewish Settlement in the Land of Israel/Palestine – Ilan Troen

Part Two: Society and Culture ▫ Women in Israel - Anat Maor ▫ Multicultural Realities - Guy Ben-Porat ▫ Religion in Israel – Ilan Fuchs ▫ Israeli Culture – Dalia Liran-Alper ▫ Israel and its Arab Minority - Yitzhak Reiter ▫ Media in Israel - Michael Widlanski - A comprehensive online anthology covering Israeli history, politics, ▫ Israel’s Economy 1986-2008 - Rafi Melnick and Yosef Mealem economy and culture. ▫ The History of Hebrew Literature in Israel - Michal Ben-Horin ▫ Art in Israel – Michael Widlanski - Contributors include Israel Prize winners Amnon Rubinstein Part Three: Israeli Democracy and Aharon Barak, in addition to other top Israeli scholars. ▫ Israel’s Partial Constitution: The Basic Laws - Amnon Rubinstein

▫ The Values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State - Aharon Barak - Students and professors can download any or all chapters for ▫ Human Rights and the Supreme Court in Israel - Doron Shultziner classroom use at no charge. ▫ National Government Institutions – David Nachmias

- Chapters will continue to be added and updated to Part Four: Wars and the Peace Process keep up with current thought and events. ▫ The Sinai War and Suez Crisis 1956-7 – Motti Golani ▫ The 1967 Six-Day War - David Tal - To Access: ▫ The 1973 Yom Kippur War - Uri Bar-Joseph www.JewishVirtualLibrary.com → Publications → ▫ Israel’s War on Terrorism - Arie Perliger Israel Studies: An Anthology ▫ The Peace Process - Galia Golan

Part Six: International Relations ▫ The United States and Israel: 1948-2008 – Avraham Ben-Zvi ▫ Israel and the Arab World – From Conflict to Coexistence – Alexander Bligh

FALL 2011 35