Boundaries of the nation: “the Jew” in the Swedish press, ca. 1810–1840

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores representations of Jews and different ways of how ‘the Jew’ was used and mediated in the Swedish press in relation to the idea of the Swedish nation during the period 1810–1840. Based on Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘the conceptual Jew’, this article explores how ‘the Jew’ was used to define identities in the emerging Swedish nation. Implicitly, discussions about ‘the Jew’ often revolved around the dismantling of the estate society. Although challenged, antisemitic notions were prevailing, and a fear that Jewish emancipation would damage the Swedish economy was frequently expressed. In many ways, discourses articulated in the Swedish press mirrored ideas common across Europe. There was not one mediated ‘Jew’ in the Swedish press but a plurality: foreign, honest, and usurer are explicit in the material. Writers occasionally distinguished between Orthodoxy, which was portrayed as unassimilable, and Reform, which was described as more in line with contemporary Christian society. I conclude that differences within liberalism and ideas of national belonging were to some extent defined and discussed in relation to ‘the Jew’.