Why should Karl Marx be included in Yale’s excellent Jewish Lives series when the subject of this fascinating book never referred to his Jewish origins? Shlomo Avineri, the eminent Israeli intellectual and academic, has attempted to unravel Marx’s connection to his Jewishness despite a paucity of historical information. Avineri raises some intriguing explanations, caveated by statements of speculation.
Marx was born in Trier in 1818, the son of parents who were both the children of rabbis. He came of age during a period of tremendous alienation and subsequent radicalisation of the Jewish intelligentsia in the Rhineland.
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