Cosmopolitanisms and the Jews adds significantly to contemporary
scholarship on cosmopolitanism by making the experience of Jews
central to the discussion, as it traces the evolution of Jewish
cosmopolitanism over the last two centuries. The book sets out from
an exploration of the nature and cultural-political implications of
the shifting perceptions of Jewish mobility and fluidity around
1800, when modern cosmopolitanist discourse arose. Through a series
of case studies, the authors analyze the historical and discursive
junctures that mark the central paradigm shifts in the Jewish
self-image, from the Wandering Jew to the rootless parasite, the
cosmopolitan, and the socialist internationalist. Chapters analyze
the tensions and dualisms in the constructed relationship between
cosmopolitanism and the Jews at particular historical junctures
between 1800 and the present, and probe into the relationship
between earlier anti-Semitic discourses on Jewish cosmopolitanism
and Stalinist rhetoric.