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Papers by Jack Jacobs

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2018

Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 17

Stuttgart-Munich, DVA, 2001,445 pages. Note de lecture rédigée par Claudie Weill, disponible sur ... more Stuttgart-Munich, DVA, 2001,445 pages. Note de lecture rédigée par Claudie Weill, disponible sur Cairn.inf

Judentum und Arbeiterbewegung, 2018

LangeZ eit spielten Juden eine führende Rolle in linken-sozialistischen, kommunistischen und anar... more LangeZ eit spielten Juden eine führende Rolle in linken-sozialistischen, kommunistischen und anarchistischen-Bewegungen. Auch an der Basis bestimmter linker Parteien engagierten sich in der ersten Hälfte des 20.J ahrhunderts zahlreiche Juden. Über die Teilnahme an allgemeinenl inken Bewegungen hinaus gründeten und unterstütztenJ uden in Osteuropa zudem mehrerej üdische sozialistische Parteien, die je ihr eigenes Geprägeu nd zusammen zehntausende Mitgliederh atten. Warum sympathisierten so viele Juden mit den Anliegen der Linken?Z ur Beantwortungd ieser Frageh aben namhafte Wissenschaftler auf vermeintliche jüdische Eigenschaften, den Einfluss bestimmter Vorstellungendes religiösen Judentums und die Marginalität der jüdischen Bevölkerungverwiesen. Es gibt jedoch gute Gründe, die ersten beiden Erklärungsansätze infragezustellen. Inzwischenüben linke Vorstellungen nicht mehr die gleiche Anziehungskraft aufJ uden auswie voreinem Jahrhundert. Das frühere engeV erhältnis vieler Juden zur Linken erweist sich als historischk ontingent.E se ntsprang bestimmten politischen, historischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen, die im Europa des späten 19.und der ersten Hälftedes 20.Jahrhunderts vorherrschten und die auch die politischenA nsichten vieler Juden in den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen Ländern, die eine große Anzahl jüdischer Einwanderer ausE uropa aufnahmen, prägten. In seinem 1911 erschienenen Buch Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie konstatierted er deutsche SoziologeR obert Michels "die besonders stark hervortretende Anwesenheit vonJ uden in der Führerschaft der sozialdemokratischen und revolutionären Parteien".Erverwiesauf "[s]pezifische Eigenschaften des Judentums",d ie seines Erachtens "[…]d en Juden zum geborenen Massenführer,Organisator und Agitator" machten. Michels zufolge zählten zu diesen Eigenschaften ein "die Massen mitreißender Fanatismus,d er felsenfeste, suggestivwirkende Glaube an sich selbst-das Prophetentum in ihm-,[…] und ein noch stärkerer Ehrgeiz und Drang zur Schaustellung eigener Leistungen sowie,inallererster Linie, seine schier unbegrenzteAdaptabilität".¹ Als Belegefür "die quantitative und qualitative Stärke der Juden" in linken Parteien führte er unter anderem Beispiele ausd em Deutschen Kaiserreich, Österreich, den Verei

Jewish Studies, 2020

The General Jewish Workers’ Bund, founded illegally, in Vilna, in 1897, ultimately became a signi... more The General Jewish Workers’ Bund, founded illegally, in Vilna, in 1897, ultimately became a significant political movement among Jews living in the tsarist empire. The Bund played a major role in organizing the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, created self-defense groups to combat antisemitic violence, and was heavily involved in combating tsarism. It was characterized by its sympathy for Marxism, its advocacy of national cultural autonomy for Russian Jewry, and its critique of Zionism. The Bund opposed Lenin’s ideas on party organization from the beginning of the 20th century onward. This opposition presaged the bitter disagreements between leading Bundists on the one hand and the Bolshevik Party on the other following the overthrow of the Provisional Revolutionary government in October 1917. But the Bund ultimately split over its relationship to Bolshevism into two, opposing, organizations—the Kombund (eventually absorbed into the Communist Party) and the Social Democrati...

Contemporary Political Theory, 2018

Lars Rensmann's book, The Politics of Unreason, which is devoted to explaining and engaging with ... more Lars Rensmann's book, The Politics of Unreason, which is devoted to explaining and engaging with the Frankfurt School's ideas vis-à-vis antisemitism, is both important and timely. Rensmann first became interested in exploring the actuality of Critical Theory's approach to the study of antisemitism decades ago, and published a groundbreaking work on that subject, Kritische Theorie über den Antisemitismus, at the end of the twentieth century (Rensmann, 1998). The volume under review here, however, is by no means simply a translation or a rehash of his earlier study. Rensmann has continued to read widely, and think deeply, about relevant matters in the period since he issued his earlier book. His work, moreover, appears at a moment during which the subjects on which Rensmann focuses haveonce again-become highly pertinent to contemporary political affairs, and to political theory. Rensmann has chosen to blend the ideas of the first generation of Critical Theorists, and to present these ideas thematically (rather than, for example, in the historical contexts in which these ideas were created). He argues that 'it is tenable to speak of the Frankfurt School or Critical Theory collectively because they had a shared project…' (p. 430). He does a fine job presenting the psychoanalytically grounded components of the approach taken by Critical Theory, writes very clearly, and devotes several portions of his book to detailed and compelling examinations of key texts, including, most prominently, the well-known chapter on 'Elements of Antisemitism' in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment, and those parts of The Authoritarian Personality written by Adorno. Those texts, to be sure, have been closely examined by others. One could, perhaps, quibble with the breadth of Rensmann's contention that 'the relevance and indeed … centrality of the challenge of antisemitism for the evolution of' the Frankfurt School '… has only marginally been the subject of scholarly inquiry' (p. 1). But few-if any-of the earlier authors who have written on relevant themes have matched Rensmann's thoroughness. Moreover Rensmann discusses not only the

Choice Reviews Online, 1997

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2014

FROM AMBIVALENCE TO BETRAYAL: THE LEFT, THE JEWS AND ISRAEL By Robert Wistrich. Lincoln: Universi... more FROM AMBIVALENCE TO BETRAYAL: THE LEFT, THE JEWS AND ISRAEL By Robert Wistrich. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, for the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012.Robert Wistrich has been writing about the relationship between Jews and the Leftfor many years, and has contributed a great deal to our understanding of that subject. He has published any number of works on related themes, based on extensive research in archives and libraries in Europe, Israel, and the US, and, in the course of his research, has located significant amounts of important, previously unknown, source material. Books by Wistrich dealing with subjects discussed in his latest volume include Revolutionary Jews from Marx to Trotsky (1976), Socialism and the Jews (1982) and Between Redemption and Perdition (1990).Indeed: those who have read Prof. Wistrich's earlier works are likely to find substantial portions of his newest book quite familiar. The chapters of From Ambivalence to Betrayal dealing with figures like Marx, Bernstein, Luxemburg, Kautsky, Trotsky, and Kreisky, for example, often rehearse material Wistrich has discussed at other points in his career. To be sure, Wistrich's bibliography in From Ambivalence to Betrayal lists many works published after Wistrich released his first books, such as Enzo Traverso's Die Marxisten und die Judische Frage (1995) and Lars Fischer's excellent monograph The Socialist Response to Antisemitism in Imperial Germany (2007). Wistrich, however, appears not to have been heavily influenced by these or other more recent studies, and does not seriously engage with their arguments.Wistrich states his thesis clearly and explicitly: "A poisonous anti-Jewish legacy can be found in Marx, Fourier, and Proudhon, extending through the orthodox Communists and 'non-conformist' Trotskyists to the Islamo- Leftist hybrids of today" (xii). In general, Wistrich finds that contemporary leftist anti-Zionism entails contemporary leftist antisemitism, and argues that "whether intended or not, the 'anti-Zionist' campaign on the Leftstrikes not only at Israel but at the security and standing of all Jews" (470). Those anti-Zionists who are of Jewish origin, Wistrich suggests, regularly suffer from self-hatred.It is certainly the case that there have been-and are-vicious antisemites on the Left. But, as Wistrich is well aware, there are also profoundly important examples of leftist leaders, including orthodox Communists, who were not antisemitic. Vladimir Lenin was wrong on many crucial matters. He was, however, not an antisemite. In a recording made at the end of March, 1919 (from which Wistrich quotes one phrase) Lenin proclaims that "only the most ignorant and downtrodden people can believe the lies and slander that are spread about the Jews. . ..It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. . . . Among the Jews there are working people, and they form the majority. They are our brothers, who, like us, are oppressed by capital; they are our comrades in the struggle for socialism." Lenin's strong condemnation of antisemitism, moreover, was not exceptional. In more recent times, for example, Fidel Castro-surely a major leftist-can and should be criticized for having dictatorial policies, but cannot be fairly criticized for his treatment of or statements about Jews. …

Women Refugees of the Nazi Period

International Review of Social History, 1985

Karl Kautsky's views on the Jewish question are of great import precisely because they are Ka... more Karl Kautsky's views on the Jewish question are of great import precisely because they are Kautsky's. In the years following Engels' death, Kautsky was the leading orthodox Marxist theoretician, executor of Marx's literary estate, editor of Die Neue Zeit, and a prolific author of popular Marxist tracts. It was Kautsky who drafted the theoretical part of the Erfurt Program of 1891, and Kautsky who wrote the classic rebuttal to Bernstein. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that an entire generation of socialists around the world were taught Marx through Kautsky. There is a sense in which Kautsky's views on the Jewish question were even more influential than were his views on other matters. For Kautsky was perceived as an authority on the Jewish question even by many Marxists who were, or eventually became, sharply critical of his views on other questions.

Exile, Science and Bildung, 2005

When, in 1934, Max Horkheimer, Director of the Institute of Social Research, went into exile in t... more When, in 1934, Max Horkheimer, Director of the Institute of Social Research, went into exile in the United States, he was a Marxist.1 By the time that he returned to Frankfurt am Main, in 1949, Horkheimer had distanced himself considerably from Marxism of any kind.2 This general tendency in Horkheimer’s work was particularly evident in Horkheimer’s writings on anti-Semitism.3 It was, moreover, also clear in the work on that subject done during the exile years by many of Horkheimer’s closest collaborators in the Institute of Social Research. The reassessment of the nature and significance of anti-Semitism made by the Critical Theorists while in exile may have contributed to the overarching alteration of Critical Theory itself. The changes in Horkheimer’s approach to anti-Semitism, however, were linked not so much to his American experiences as an exile as to the growing influence of Adorno and to the Institute’s recognition of events in Europe.

The Frankfurt School, Jewish Lives, and Antisemitism