This chapter explores the American discourse surrounding three scientists/inventors: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Albert Einstein. All three are regarded as “great” in the areas of science and quantitative intelligence. Due to that, each is also elevated more broadly into wisdom curators, individuals who ought to possess great answers to questions beyond their expertise. These instances betoken Americans’ belief that greatness in one field ought to translate into some near-mystical sort of intuition in all others. In all three cases, greatness was remarkably compromised. America’s reaction and reassessment suggest something very important about the contours of great men in the United States.

The chapter argues that prior to Hitler’s accession, Germany’s corporate elite was fatefully ambivalent toward Jews: sympathetic to those who were part of it, suspicious of those who were critical of it or newly arrived in the country. This ambivalence meant that corporate executives were generally neither antisemites nor anti-antisemites or that they were simultaneously both.

Lucian’s position as a commentator on religion has been debated intensely since late antiquity: for most of the last two millennia, it has been the main focus for commentators. This is primarily due to Lucian teasing Christians in a couple of places (although in fact they get off relatively lightly); but he is also, and indeed much more insistently, scathing about aspects of Greco-Roman ‘paganism’. This chapter begin by unpicking some of this reception history, and showing how modern scholarly perspectives remain locked into nineteenth-century cultural-historical narratives (which were designed to play ‘Hellenism’ off against ‘Christianity’, in various forms). It then argues that we should set aside the construct of Lucian’s status as a religious ‘outsider’— a legacy of nineteenth-century thinking — and consider Lucian instead as an agent operating within the field of Greek religion, and contributing richly (albeit satirically) to ongoing, vital questions over humans’ relationship with the divine. He should be ranged, that is to say, alongside figures like Aristides, Pausanias, and Apuleius as keen observers of the religious culture of the time.

Once Christian Europe’s most paradigmatic internal Other, Jews are now mostly seen as a well-integrated and successful religious minority group. For centuries, Jews faced political, social, and legal exclusion. Now, politicians proudly invoke the West’s shared ‘Judeo-Christian’ heritage. Compared to the past, public expressions of antisemitism have become increasingly taboo. Jews have seemingly moved from being paradigmatic outsiders to accepted insiders. Despite this undoubted success, there are still moments when this position can become suddenly unsettled. There are not only the terrible attacks on Jewish life, such as the synagogue shootings in Halle in 2019 and a year earlier in Pittsburgh, the still alarming rates of antisemitic violence, the groups of white supremacists chanting in the streets that Jews will not replace them, or the flourishing antisemitic conspiracy theories in the online and offline worlds. Uneasiness with Jews and Judaism also still manifests in less extreme and less overtly hostile ways in the midst of society on the terrain of liberal law.

This chapter concentrates on the painful zigzag course of Jewish emancipation during the first half of the nineteenth century. It begins with the Prussian legislation of 1812, with special emphasis on the attitude of the national-liberal movement in the various parts of Germany with regard to emancipation but also to other relevant issues of the time. It then tells of the emerging new kind of antisemitism at the time, beginning with Fichte’s ambivalence, through Wilhelm von Humboldt’s principled stand on equality and the outright antisemites, Fries and Rühs. The upheavals known as the Hep-Hep attacks on the Jews in 1819 are then briefly described, followed by quotes regarding ongoing integration in the following decades. Finally, the ambivalent situation of young Jewish scholars, who could now study at the best institutions, but were refused academic posts, is described through the biography of Eduard Gans and the changing fortunes of the young Heinrich Heine.

This chapter explores the interplay between Christian ambivalence and the law from the late Middle Ages to the period of emancipation. I begin my discussion by exploring how theological arguments about Jewish inferiority and difference entered both canon law and secular laws during the late medieval period, turning Christian supersessionism into Christian domination in the sociolegal realm. I also consider the increasing racialisation of Jewish difference through the purity of blood doctrine that solidified boundaries between Jews and Christians in Spain at a time when large numbers of Jews had converted to Christianity. Focusing on the crucial period of Jewish emancipation, I then trace how Christian ambivalence further seeped into the secular legal imagination, shaping ideas about what constitutes a proper ‘religion’ in the modern secular nation state. Throughout this chapter, I explore some of the shifting dynamics of conversion and assimilation and their intersections with the racialisation of Jewish difference, which cast doubt on the possibility of Jewish equality.

By way of conclusion, this final chapter briefly discusses the Flemish ban on religious slaughter without prior stunning, which was confirmed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2020, and restates the main arguments of the book. Moreover, I take the Flemish case to briefly outline three further questions that have emerged from the story this book has told. These questions relate to the relationship between Christian ambivalence and legal progress, the role of Jewish engagements with secular law, and the entanglement of Jewish and Muslim questions in the contemporary politics of religious difference.

The epilogue brings the narrative from the early years of the new century to recent events, just before sending the manuscript to print, in mid 2024. It tells of the changing attitudes in Germany both towards Jews living in that country and towards Israel and its policies of occupation in the Palestinian West Bank. The unique German–Israeli relationship during the last two decades is sketched against the background of the past, and finally, it is attempted to draw a balance between the apparent achievement of a decent Jewish life in Germany, on the one hand, and the new dangers of a rising politically organized right, simultaneously with a growing critique of Israel and the apparent emergence of a new antisemitism, on the other hand.

This chapter argues that throughout history many religions have proved themselves capable of sparking and fueling hostility toward outsiders and even toward people in the same faith who are viewed as unacceptable for one reason or another. We examine recent manifestations of extremism in Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam, explaining that analysts often disagree about the extent to which religious beliefs and institutions are causally important. Key terms such as religious extremism, fundamentalism, radicalization, and terrorism are defined, noting the crucial importance of maintaining a distinction between the religious extremist and the extremely religious. Though we suggest researchers face many methodological challenges, we explore a broad range of empirical studies on related topics. The chapter also reviews theory and research on why and how people become religious extremists. We further draw on the psychology of radicalization, arguing that nowadays most scholars believe that there are cognitive and behavioral processes at work. Some people may move directly to carrying out terrorist deeds without acquiring much group ideology or religious belief.

This chapter presents Jewish and Christian documents leading up to and including the destruction of European Jewry, which reflect on the Christian contribution as well as those who were proactive in opposing Nazism. This period also witnessed the establishment of Jewish–Christian dialogue organisations, as well as the emergence of a small number of scholars who re-evaluated Jewish–Christian relations and helped establish the foundations of modern dialogue.

This chapter shows how antisemitism built on Christian anti-Judaism, including blood libel accusations but also the appearance of Christian philosemitism. Documents show Zionism was a reaction to antisemitism as well as to the rise of nationalism and also benefited from Christian restorationism.

Linguistic citizenship is anchored in a decolonial critique of knowledge construction and power relations. It is an act of innovation but also an act of opposition. By wanting to strengthen agency it is inventive. But it also threatens to reclaim spaces that managers seek to control. Studies have referred to universities as ‘colonial enterprises’ and 'ruthless corporations' where complaints against racism are routinely dismissed. If universities are not multicultural spaces where diversity of communication modes is acceptable and practical ways to accommodate them are explored and if necessary constantly revised, then as institutions they cannot play a credible role in leading the promotion, construction and defence of multicultural and multilingual spaces in their immediate civic environments. The university cannot be a civic university if it refuses to decolonise. Multilingual Manchester (MLM) succeeded in shaping a novel concept of linguistic citizenship. Elements of the city language narrative are likely to stay. But there is a real risk that their content will be diluted as they are appropriated to serve corporate branding and profitability interests.