This volume contains a selection of essays based on papers presented at a conference organized at Yale University and hosted by the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA) and the International Association for the Study of Antisemitism (IASA), entitled “Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity.” The essays are written by scholars from a wide array of disciplines, intellectual backgrounds, and perspectives, and address the conference’s two inter-related areas of focus: global antisemitism and the crisis of modernity currently affecting the core elements of Western society and civilization. Rather than treating antisemitism merely as an historical phenomenon, the authors place it squarely in the contemporary context. As a result, this volume also provides important insights into the ideologies, processes, and developments that give rise to prejudice in the contemporary global context. This thought-provoking collection will be of interest to students and scholars of antisemitism and discrimination, as well as to scholars and readers from other fields.

Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.

This is the first book to bring together the major essays and lectures of Leo Strauss in the field of modern Jewish thought. It contains some of his most famous published writings, as well as significant writings which were previously unpublished. Spanning almost 30 years of continuously deepening reflection, the book presents the full range of Strauss's contributions as a modern Jewish thinker. These essays and lectures also offer Strauss's mature considerations of some of the great figures in modern Jewish thought, such as Baruch Spinoza, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Theodor Herzl, and Sigmund Freud. They also encompass his incisive analyses and original explorations of modern Judaism (which he viewed as caught in the grip of the "theological-political crisis"): from German Jewry, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust to Zionism and the State of Israel; from the question of assimilation to the meaning and value of Jewish history. In addition Strauss's two sustained interpretations of the Hebrew Bible are also reprinted. These essays and lectures cumulatively point toward the "postcritical" reconstruction of Judaism which Strauss envisioned, suggesting it rebuild along Maimonidean lines. Thus, the book lends credence to the view that Strauss was able to uncover and probe the crisis at the heart of modern Jewish thought and history, perhaps with greater profundity than any other contemporary Jewish thinker.

A comprehensive examination of pre-Nazi violence against Jews in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany

This volume presents a selection of the papers presented at the "Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity" conference organized at Yale University by YIISA/ISGAP in August 2010. It is one of five volumes reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the conference as well as the diverse nature of the subject of antisemitism in general. These volumes will be of interest to students and scholars of antisemitism and discrimination, as well as to scholars and readers from other fields. Rather than treating antisemitism merely as an historical phenomenon, they place it squarely in the contemporary context. As a result, the papers presented in these volumes also provide important insights into the ideologies, processes, and developments that give rise to prejudice in the contemporary global context. Volume III examines the manifestations and impacts of antisemitism in various regional contexts. Some of the papers focus on historical cases, while others focus on recent or contemporary matters. The following papers appear in this volume: Introduction, Charles Asher Small; Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the "New" South Africa: Observations and Reflections, Milton Shain; The Politics of Paranoia: How-and Why-the European Radical Right Mobilizes Antisemitism, Xenophobia, and Counter-Cosmopolitanism, Lars Rensmann; Penalizing Holocaust Denial: A View from Europe, Aleksandra Gliszczynska-Grabias; The Judeo-Masonic Enemy in Francoist Propaganda (1936-1945), Javier Dom�nguez Arribas; "Artisans ... for Antichrist": Jews, Radical Catholic Traditionalists, and the Extreme Right, Mark Weitzman; Post-war Antisemitism: Germany's Foreign Policy Toward Egypt, Ulricke Becker; Great Expectations: Antisemitism and the Politics of Free-Speech Jurisprudence, Stephen M. Feldman; A Brief History of Iberian Antisemitism, Lina Gorenstein; Antisemitism in Contemporary Poland, Marek Kucia; Anti-Jewish "Propaganda" in Brazil under Dutch Occupation, Daniela Levy; Antisemitism According to Victor Klemperer, Miriam Oelsner; Antisemitic Anti-Zionism Within the German Left-Die Linke, Sebastian Voigt; Two Thousand Years of Antisemitism: From the Canonical Laws to the Present Day, Anita Waingort Novinsky.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Finalist for the American Library in Paris Book Award From an award-winning journalist, a provocative, deeply reported exposé of the history and present crisis of anti-Semitism in France--and its dire message for the rest of the world.

Enlightenment in the Colony opens up the history of the "Jewish question" for the first time to a broader discussion--one of the social exclusion of religious and cultural minorities in modern times, and in particular the crisis of Muslim identity in modern India. Aamir Mufti identifies the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India as a colonial variation of what he calls "the exemplary crisis of minority"--Jewishness in Europe. He shows how the emergence of this conflict in the late nineteenth century represented an early instance of the reinscription of the "Jewish question" in a non-Western society undergoing modernization under colonial rule. In so doing, he charts one particular route by which this European phenomenon linked to nation-states takes on a global significance. Mufti examines the literary dimensions of this crisis of identity through close readings of canonical texts of modern Western--mostly British-literature, as well as major works of modern Indian literature in Urdu and English. He argues that the one characteristic shared by all emerging national cultures since the nineteenth century is the minoritization of some social and cultural fragment of the population, and that national belonging and minority separatism go hand in hand with modernization. Enlightenment in the Colony calls for the adoption of secular, minority, and exilic perspectives in criticism and intellectual life as a means to critique the very forms of marginalization that give rise to the uniquely powerful minority voice in world literatures.