How Jews hothoused cosmopolitanism. Cathy Gelbin wrote an essay in the Jewish Chronicle (7 Feb 2014) in relation to her AHRC project: 'When I was growing up behind the Wall in East Germany, cosmopolitanism was not a good word for the Jews. Hitler had persecuted us as 'rootless parasites'. And hushed up as they were, rumours of Stalin’s purges of Jews as 'rootless cosmopolitans' had not escaped me either.' Further information.