What is the purpose of Jews in the world? The Bible singles out the Jews as God鈥檚 鈥渃hosen people,鈥� but the significance of this special status has been understood in many different ways over the centuries. What Are Jews For? traces the history of the idea of Jewish purpose from its ancient and medieval foundations to the modern era, showing how it has been central to Western thinking on the meanings of peoplehood for everybody. Adam Sutcliffe delves into the links between Jewish and Christian messianism and the association of Jews with universalist and transformative ideals in modern philosophy, politics, literature, and social thought.
The Jews have been accorded a crucial role in both Jewish and Christian conceptions of the end of history, when they will usher the world into a new epoch of unity and harmony. Since the seventeenth century this messianic underlay to the idea of Jewish purpose has been repeatedly reconfigured in new forms. From the political theology of the early modern era to almost all domains of modern thought鈥攔eligious, social, economic, nationalist, radical, assimilationist, satirical, and psychoanalytical鈥擩ews have retained a close association with positive transformation for all. Sutcliffe reveals the persistent importance of the 鈥淛ewish Purpose Question鈥� in the attempts of Jews and non-Jews alike to connect the collective purpose of particular communities to the broader betterment of humanity.
Shedding light on questions of exceptionalism, pluralism, and universalism, What Are Jews For? explores an intricate question that remains widely resonant in contemporary culture and political debate.
Adam Sutcliffe is professor of European history at King鈥檚 College London. He is the author of Judaism and Enlightenment and the coeditor, most recently, of Philosemitism in History, The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Early Modern World, and History, Memory and Public Life: The Past in the Present.
"Thoughtful and scholarly."鈥擜bigail Green, Times Literary Supplement
"As provocative as it is all-embracing, What Are Jews For? charts with ethical sensitivity and deceptive ease the historic tension between the Jewish obligations to preserve their particularity in relation to God, and to live in exemplary truth and justice for humanity as a whole. In a final tour de force, Sutcliffe shows how this tension drives today鈥檚 clashing views of Israel as a nation state. This is required reading for anyone interested in how this key strand of Jewish thought shapes the question of national identities in our times."鈥擩acqueline Rose, author of The Question of Zion
"Dozens of books have been written about Jewish history, but none has thought to raise the intriguing question posed by Adam Sutcliffe: Why? What is the purpose of Jews and the teleology of Jewish history? His book is an impressive survey of modern Jewish history and must be read by all."鈥擲usannah Heschel, Dartmouth College
"Highly stimulating and insightful, What Are Jews For? offers a fresh approach to the positioning of Jews, Jewishness, and Judaism in Western history, thought, and politics. This ambitious book achieves the rare feat of being both a broad synthesis and a sustained exposition of a striking and compelling argument. It makes a significant contribution to multiple fields as well as to public debate."鈥擝rian Klug, University of Oxford
"Building on Adam Sutcliffe鈥檚 wide knowledge of intellectual history, What Are Jews For? presents an original and arresting exploration of an important question that is usually avoided: Do Jews have a special religious, ethical, and historical purpose, and if so, what is it? This very good book is a thoroughly responsible investigation informed by exceptionally wide reading."鈥擱itchie Robertson, author of The 鈥淛ewish Question鈥� in German Literature, 1749鈥�1939
