Writers who opted out of the referential system and who avoided or escaped the common experience are not part of the Jewish political tradition, even… - Michael Walzer

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Writers who opted out of the referential system and who avoided or escaped the common experience are not part of the Jewish political tradition, even if they are still Jews writing about politics. Karl Marx on class struggle, Sigmund Freud on transference and political leadership, Emile Durkheim on socialism and "moral education," George Simmel on the philosophy of money—these text do not fall within the tradition. Baruch Spinoza's political theology does, despite his excommunication, for Spinoza writes always with the tradition in mind: the Hebrew Bible is his first text; the greatest of medieval Jewish philosophers, Moses Maimonides, is his crucial reference. Modern secular writers like Ahad Ha-am (Asher Ginsberg) and Micha Josef Berdichevsky, schooled in the communities of eastern Europe, still know the tradition and work within it, or at least start from it—even if one of their purposes is an antitraditionalist critique: criticism is a form of engagement. Many of their successors, by contrast, are largely ignorant and entirely disengaged.