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"Universalism has always shown two faces to the world: one emancipatory and inclusionary, the other repressive and exclusionary. Jewish experience of universalism has been correspondingly equivocal. Antisemitism and the left provides an original and stimulating study of modern antisemitism, tracing the intellectual and political struggles between these two opposed perspectives. At times, universalism has acted as a stimulus for Jewish emancipation, for civil, political and social inclusion. But it has also been used to justify hatred of Jews, depicting them as hostile to the entire human race, in ways even more sinister than those found in pre-modern and largely Christian traditions of anti-Judaism. A key feature of this repressive and exclusionary universalism and the distinctly modern form of antisemitism it has generated has been the construction of a putative 'Jewish question', which somehow needs to be 'solved'. This book provides conceptual analysis of the struggles waged within the Enlightenment, Marxism, critical Jewish thought and the contemporary left, engaging with such key authors as Mendelssohn, Marx, Adorno and Horkheimer, Arendt and Habermas, to critique the very notion of the 'Jewish question' and rescue universalism from the antisemitic morass into which it has too often fallen. 

Antisemitism and the left will appeal to students, lecturers and the general reader interested in antisemitism and/or in principles of universalism, spanning the fields of politics, sociology, history, philosophy and Jewish studies.
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jewish question --- universalism --- antisemitism

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This book investigates the long-term continuity of large-scale states and empires, and its effect on the Near East’s social fabric, including the fundamental changes that occurred to major social institutions. Its geographical coverage spans, from east to west, modern-day Libya and Egypt to Central Asia, and from north to south, Anatolia to southern Arabia, incorporating modern-day Oman and Yemen. Its temporal coverage spans from the late eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE during the rise of Islam and collapse of the Sasanian Empire. The authors argue that the persistence of large states and empires starting in the eighth/seventh centuries BCE, which continued for many centuries, led to new socio-political structures and institutions emerging in the Near East. The primary processes that enabled this emergence were large-scale and long-distance movements, or population migrations. These patterns of social developments are analysed under different aspects: settlement patterns, urban structure, material culture, trade, governance, language spread and religion, all pointing at movement as the main catalyst for social change. This book’s argument is framed within a larger theoretical framework termed as ‘universalism’, a theory that explains many of the social transformations that happened to societies in the Near East, starting from the Neo-Assyrian period and continuing for centuries. Among other influences, the effects of these transformations are today manifested in modern languages, concepts of government, universal religions and monetized and globalized economies.

empire --- state --- near east --- universalism