The Naked Crowd: The Jewish Alternative to Cunning Humanity

In this book, Jose Faur articulates the political dimension of Judaism, the essence of the Jewish alternative to the cunning societies of world history. As Faur describes, thousands of years ago, the Jewish nation became what Nobel laureate Elias Canetti called a ''naked crowd''; a society built on transparency and inclusiveness, impervious to the attempts of would-be tyrants to control the ''crowd'' through mind-games, linguistic manipulation, and mass hysteria. While the Jewish people have, over the course of history, occasionally lost touch with this foundation of their society, they have never lost the dream of a truly free society for all. This book serves as a comprehensive introduction to Judaism from the perspective of the Western political tradition. The last section examines Pauline Christianity and its origins in Greek and Roman pagan thought and culture.