Antisemitism in the political left wing? I’m shocked! Shocked, I say!
What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need; self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money. Very well, then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time. […]Never mind there only being a “political left”, since to them there is no difference between “political” and “social”.
The monotheism of the Jew, therefore, is in reality the polytheism of the many needs, a polytheism which makes even the lavatory an object of divine law. Practical need, egoism, is the principle of civil society, and as such appears in pure form as soon as civil society has fully given birth to the political state. The god of practical need and self-interest is money.
Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man — and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world — both the world of men and nature — of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and man’s existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it.
The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange. …
— Karl Marx, On “The Jewish Question”, 1844