Law and Jewish Difference - Ambivalent Encounters

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.

Product details

• Authors: Mareike Riedel, Mareike (Macquarie University Riedel
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.06.2024
• EAN: 9781316514870
• ISBN: 978-1-316-51487-0
• No. of pages: 292
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Law and Society
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Law > Civil law, civil procedural law; History of Ideas, PHILOSOPHY / Social, PHILOSOPHY / Political, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, RELIGION / Judaism / General, LAW / General, HISTORY / Social History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Jewish Studies, Social & political philosophy, social and political philosophy, Jewish Studies, Judaism, Relating to Jewish people and groups, Law & society, Social groups: religious groups and communities, Law and society, sociology of law