Isaac Deutscher and the Jews

JVL Introduction

Isaac Deutscher’s 1958 concept of the “The Non-Jewish Jew” is a badge of identity for many leftist secular Jews.

Sam Farber revisits it and finds it problematic, arguing that Deutscher shared a highly schematic Marxist view of Jews and the Jewish question, with no interest in the complexities of Jewish social life from which the non-Jewish Jew sprang.

He finds Deutscher’s analysis lacking in solidarity and proposes instead a concept of the “Internationalist Jew”.

Reposted with permission of the author.

This article was originally published by New Politics Vol. XIV No. 4, Whole Number 56, Winter 2014. Read the original here.