A Marxist-Psychoanalytical Appraisal of the “Jewish Question”

Zionism to this day has been driven by two powerful myths. The first is that the history of the Jews is one of unmitigated persecution - sometimes labelled the ‘lachrymose theory’ - that the world always has been divided into Jews and innate anti-Semites. The second myth is that the Jews withstood the unrelenting onslaught of the Gentile world, ensuring their survival as a people, because of their devotion to religious Judaism and to nationalist ideals. The portrayal is especially interesting given that many other ancient peoples - the Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and ancient Egyptians - were assimilated into dominant cultures and disappeared as distinct ethnic groups. So what isn't mythical?

Abram Leon in his The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation argued instead that the Jews formed a vital social group with distinct economic functions, firstly commerce and later, because of church injunctions, usury. Ancient Palestine was a crucial corridor for goods. The region became thickly populated with great cities thriving on commerce. Hence, geographical position, above all else, explains a robust trend of Jewish emigration and its attendant commercial character. The Jews therefore, were a ‘people-class’ whose economic activities enabled them to preserve a common ethnic identity based on shared religious and linguistic features. This is not to say all Jews were merchants any more than all Romans were soldiers.1

During the first millennium, following the Roman conquest of ancient Israel/Palestine but also after the fall of the Roman Empire, Jews were the principal traders in western Europe and moved from one region to another, creating and fulfilling new economic needs. Opportunities abounded for commerce within feudal society too, mostly through selling goods to feudal lords. Leon argued that the deeper the economic decay, as in the case of the Roman Empire, or the less developed the society, as in early feudal Europ