“…Important articles like those by Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin on the very concept of Diaspora in Jewish history, edited volumes such as Gilman and Shain's Jewries at the Frontier, and Biales' Cultures of the Jews all re-evaluate the long-standing division of Jewish history, society and individuals between conflicted (or bifurcated) Diaspora existences, on the one hand, and ostensibly healthy, complete national ones, on the other. 13 Works by Hacohen, Stanislawski, Slezkine and Sznaider have similarly attempted to elucidate the many nuances -and not simply the contradictions -between Jewish nationalism, Jewish cosmopolitanism and Jewish universalism. 14 In many senses, this article and the volume that it introduces are part and parcel of these ongoing conversations on the nature of Jewish history, the place of cosmopolitanism and Jewish cosmopolitans within this academic framework, and the relationship of these constructs to the path of modernity and the nature of modern communities and individual selves.…”