The Jewish Question

The Jewish Question Synopsis

For figures ranging from Karl Marx to the luminaries of the Frankfurt School, the 'Jewish Question' — a set of problems related to emancipation and anti-Semitism, cultural assimilation and Zionism — raised significant controversies within Marxist theory. Renowned scholar Enzo Traverso carefully reconstructs this intellectual debate that runs over more than a century, discussing both its generative aspects and its blind alleys.

In The Jewish Question: History of a Marxist Debate, Traverso explores the causes and the forms of the encounter that took place, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the Holocaust, between the intelligentsia of a cosmopolitan minority and the most radical ideological current of Western modernity. This is the second edition, completely rewritten and updated, of a book already translated into many languages (originally published in French, then translated into English, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Turkish).