“The Strange Fact That the State of Israel Exists”: The Cold War Liberals Between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism

Abstract

The Cold War liberals constituted a cosmopolitan anticommunist intelligentsia. Many of them were of Jewish origin, so they had to negotiate between their European homelands, Jewish nationalism, and cosmopolitan ideals. Out of their national dilemmas emerged novel visions of liberal pluralism, but the tensions between liberalism and nationalism were also a source for ambiguities and, occasionally, blunders. This article focuses on five intellectuals, illustrating the spectrum of positions on the Jewish Question among West European Cold War liberals: Raymond Aron (1905-83), the French patriot,- Isaiah Berlin (1909-98), the liberal pluralist; Karl Popper (1902-94), the cosmopolitan anti-Zionist; Manes Sperber (1905-84), the Jewish cosmopolitan ; and Jacob Talmon (1916-80), the Zionist. Increasingly identifying themselves as Jewish, timidly promoting a Jewish agenda, and recognizing a stake in the Zionist project, the Cold War liberals reflect a major transformation in the identities of the West European Jewish intelligentsia in the aftermath of the Holocaust and Israel.