Jews and cosmopolitanism from the early modern age to the global era 1

In modern times, Jews have often been portrayed as the quintessential cosmopolitans. In the Greco-Roman period, however, when the very term “cosmopolitan” first gained currency, Jews were seldom viewed as “citizens of the world.” On the contrary, they were often portrayed as a self-segregating, exclusionary and antisocial people who ate apart, slept apart and adopted ritual circumcision (according to Tacitus) “as a mark of difference from other men.” Indeed, Tacitus (56 c.e.–117 c.e.) singled out “hatred of mankind” (odium generis humani) as the prevailing characteristic of this ostensibly deplorable people (Tacitus 1894: 195). In this and other cases, Jews were portrayed not as cosmopolitans, but as the exact opposite: parochial, clannish, disloyal.