Full Description
From Ambivalence to Betrayal is the first study to explore the transformation in attitudes on the Left toward the Jews, Zionism, and Israel since the origins of European socialism in the 1840s until the present. This pathbreaking synthesis reveals a striking continuity in negative stereotypes of Jews, contempt for Judaism, and negation of Jewish national self-determination from the days of Karl Marx to the current left-wing intellectual assault on Israel. World-renowned expert on the history of antisemitism Robert S. Wistrich provides not only a powerful analysis of how and why the Left emerged as a spearhead of anti-Israel sentiment but also new insights into the wider involvement of Jews in radical movements.
There are fascinating portraits of Marx, Moses Hess, Bernard Lazare, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, and other Jewish intellectuals, alongside analyses of the darker face of socialist and Communist antisemitism. The closing section eloquently exposes the degeneration of leftist anti-Zionist critiques into a novel form of "anti-racist" racism.
Contents
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Jews, Zion, and Revolution THE ANTISEMITIC QUESTION 1. The Racist Temptation in the Labor Movement 2. Karl Marx, Moses Hess, and Jewish Emancipation 3. German Social Democrats on the Völkisch Movement 4. The "Jewish Question" from Engels to Bernstein 5. Anti-Capitalism or Antisemitism? The Enigma of Franz Mehring 6. Socialists and Antisemites in Europe before 1914 NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 7. Bernard Lazare: Anarchist, Dreyfusard, and Revolutionary Jew 8. Social Democracy and Judeophobia in Imperial Vienna 9. The Austro-Marxist Critique of Jewish Nationalism 10. Karl Kautsky and the Controversy over Zion 11. The Internationalism of Rosa Luxemburg 12. Leon Trotsky—A Bolshevik Tragedy ANTI-ZIONIST MYTHOLOGIES 13. From Lenin to the Soviet Black Hundreds 14. The Holocaust Inversion of the Left 15. Bruno Kreisky, Israel, and the Palestinian Question 16. Anti-Zionist Myths on the Contemporary Left 17. Great Britain: A Suitable Case for Treatment? 18. The Marxist-Islamist Alliance Archival Sources and Selected Bibliography Index
