The Spanish Left has always been extremely anti-Semitic(something that is odd, considering that Marx himself and a number of other founders of Communism/Socialism were Jews), and it is refreshing to see someone on the left who actually questions this. Marx was not Jewish. He was a childhood convert to Lutherenism and a notorious hater of Judaism. Go read
On the Jewish Question.
Since in civil society the real nature of the Jew has been universally realized and secularized, civil society could not convince the Jew of the unreality of his religious nature, which is indeed only the ideal aspect of practical need. Consequently, not only in the Pentateuch and the Talmud, but in present-day society we find the nature of the modern Jew, and not as an abstract nature but as one that is in the highest degree empirical, not merely as a narrowness of the Jew, but as the Jewish narrowness of society. Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism -- huckstering and its preconditions -- the Jew will have become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, and because the conflict between man's individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished.
The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.
Communism is anti-Semitic.
The right has tended to be more sympathetic - Franco, for example, permitted Jews fleeing Hitler to come to Spain, and in fact Spain gave asylum to more fleeing Jews than did the US. Franco believed that the Jews, as the people of Jesus Christ, should be protected.
It is more complex. Classical Spanish nationalism, from the Reconquista through the Spanish monarchy was anti-Semitic. Jews were considered an enemy of Catholic Spain (even though Jews were in Hispania before Catholics!). If you will note, Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and for the next 200 years, converts and their families were troubled by the Inquisition. I believe that Jews were only allowed to return to Spain after Napoleon invaded.
Francisco Franco came from a family of conversos. Franco and Bahamonde were common Jewish surnames in Spain.
"Marx was not Jewish". That is kind of misleading, don't you think? Especially given the outlines of the argument of the posted article - a very thoughtful presentation on the origins of the current wave of European Antisemitism I might add.
I agree Marx was a protestant; it was his father who had him baptized as a protestant. Karl later went on to be confirmed as a protestant...and never received a traditional Jewish education of any kind.
However, to deny that Karl Marx was Jewish doesn't really tell the story, as I understand it. His father was a son of a rabbi - and the family was openly Jewish, until the Prussian laws appeared that prevented Jews from serving in any high professions. The Marx family rejected Judaism under duress (an irony given the Spanish connection in the current article).
Karl Marx's father original name was Hirschel ha-Levi Marx; this family line was descended from famous Talmudic scholars. This was true as well for Karl Marx's mother, Henrietta Pressborck. Karl Marx's dad, however, decided to deny this cultural legacy to Karl when he was very young. It was a kind of lie of fantastic proportions to put upon a little kid.
Thus, Karl Marx was raised within the echos of two lines of Talmudic imprint.
I don't think it's wise to downplay the impact of the choices of his Jewish parents on the formation of the communist ideology he set forth in Das Kapital. I don't think it's wise to downplay ANY of the ingredients of a stew of ideas that inspired the murder of tens of millions.
Communism is a kind of lie of fantastic proportions....