Law and Jewish Difference

Ambivalent Encounters

Mareike Riedel

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2024
• Topic: Law
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009089296
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

After centuries of persecution and discrimination, Jews are today often seen as a successful and well-integrated religious minority group in a 'Judeo-Christian West'. This book qualifies this narrative by exploring the legacy of Christian ambivalence towards Jews in contemporary secular law. By placing disputes over Jewish practices, such as infant male circumcision and the construction of eruvin, within a longer historical context, the book traces how Christian ambivalence towards Jews and Christianity's narrative of supersession became secularised into a cultural repertoire that has shaped central ideas and knowledge underpinning secular law. Christian ambivalence, this book argues, continues to circumscribe not only the rights and equality of Jews but of other non-Christians too. In considering the interaction between law and Christian ambivalence towards Jews, the book engages with broader questions about the cultural foundations of Western secular law, the politics of religious freedom, the racialisation of religion, and the ambivalent nature of legal progress.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter One Introduction: Jewish Questions Past and Present Secular Law and Christian Normativity
• Chapter Two From Jewish Other to Citizen of the Mosaic Faith: A Brief Legal History of Christian Ambivalence
• Chapter Three Contentious Cut: Male Circumcision, Christian Ambivalence, and Children’s Rights
• Chapter Four The Body of the Other: A German Controversy over Circumcision
• Chapter Five Dividing Lines: The Eruv, Urban Space, and Public Religiosity
• Chapter Six When Orthodox Judaism Goes Public: An Eruv Dispute in Australia
• Chapter Seven Persistent Ambivalence: Concluding Thoughts
• Bibliography
• Index