Marx and antisemitism

In this short article, which was first published on 'Normblog' in 2009, Geras speaks of the inclination of certain Marxists, as well as others who admire Marx's work, to deny the antisemitic material there is in his essay On the Jewish Question. Geras brings in this article Bruno Bauer's argument that the political emancipation of the Jews, their availing themselves of political and civil rights within the democratic state, was incompatible with their Jewish particularism and Marx's counter-argument that political emancipation, so far from being incompatible with religious particularisms, presupposes them. None of this, however, can obscure the themes which Marx deploys in the second part of his essay and the article presents a key passage from it. It is fruitless to pretend that these themes are expressed merely ironically when there is no clear supporting evidence that they are to be read in that way rather than straightforwardly.