Publisher's Synopsis
This work explores the attitudes and ideologies of late 19th- and early 20th century Marxist and social democratic intellectuals towards Zionism, anti-Semitism, Jewish socialist movements and the nature and future of Jewry.;Analysing the outlook of such prominent figures as Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg and Eduard Bernstein, Jack Jacobs argues that there was a rainbow of perspectives within the socialist world on "the Jewish question". Socialists, Jacobs argues, were neither naturally inclined toward anti=Semitism, nor immune from anti-Semitic sentiments, nor were they united in their attitudes toward assimilation and Jewish nationalism. Jacobs' exhaustive culling of primary and secondary sources from a variety of countries and in a number of languages clearly illustrates that differing family backgrounds and national contexts, as well as changes in the political environment over several decades, are, in large part, responsible for the range of attitudes exhibited by socialists.;An original study, this book should interest anyone concerned with the history of socialist thought, European intellectual history and the Jewish experience.
