Modern Jewish Politics

Modern Jewish politics comprises several overlapping fields of Jewish political activity in the era roughly between the late 18th century and the present. Characteristic of the larger Jewish experience in the modern world, the concepts of “Jewish” and “political” are subject to an immense diversity of competing definitions and interpretations. Nonetheless, in broadest strokes, modern Jewish politics can be understood as the interaction between five types of political activity and five kinds of actors. In this taxonomy, Jewish politics consists of (1) collective mobilization in political movements, both Jewish and non-Jewish; (2) formal self-advocacy and self-representation in domestic, regional, and global political frameworks; (3) legal activism and diplomatic work on behalf of local and distant Jewish communities, especially with regard to issues of citizenship, migration, anti-Semitism, and violence; (4) intellectual and legal projects of collective self-definition within or in opposition to existing conventional categories of modern politics, such as state and nation; and (5) the exercise of political sovereignty in the State of Israel. Each of these spheres in turn is populated by multiple Jewish political actors: (1) individual Jews; (2) Jewish communal groups and legally constituted Jewish substate communities; (3) informal Jewish networks of activists; (4) international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and (5) the government of the State of Israel. This essay seeks to map out representative studies and academic resources of all of these different actors and activities, without, however, claiming to present an exhaustive view of any one subject area or topic. The focus throughout is on highlighting works that specifically engage larger questions of Jewish politics from a variety of methodological and ideological viewpoints.