Two faces of universalism: Jewish emancipation and the Jewish question

Abstract

Universalism shows two faces to Jews: an emancipatory face manifest in movements for legal recognition of Jews as equal citizens and for social recognition of Jews as equal human beings; a repressive face manifest in a reading of the ‘Jewish question’ as the question of what is to be done about the harm Jews do to humanity at large. While the former declares that human beings count as such, regardless of whether they are Jewish or not, and demands that all exclusions be contested, the latter turns ‘the Jews’ into a unitary category incapable of meeting the universal standards of humankind. This paper explores the intimate relation between Jewish emancipation and the Jewish question at three historical moments: 18 th century Enlightenment, 19 th century revolutionary thought, and 20 th century cosmopolitanism.