The Rise of Anti-Semitism

By SETH STERN

 

Two new books published this fall warn about a rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world. Recent headlines make the authors, Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman and Phyllis Chesler, sound downright prescient. 

In recent weeks, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's claim that Jews control the world during a speech was applauded by Muslim leaders. And simultaneous bombs destroyed two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey and killed 29.

But some, including Arthur Hertzberg, argue that anti-Semitism should not be the first priority for American Jews. Are Foxman and Chesler being too alarmist? To get some additional perspective, JBooks.com asked several leading scholars to reflect on the state of anti-Semitism.

Their responses suggest Foxman and Chesler are anything but too panicky. Anti-Semitic rhetoric viewed as taboo since the Holocaust is gaining new credibility in the Muslim world and beyond.

What follows are excerpts from interviews with the six scholars.

 

Steven T. Katz, Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University

"There was a taboo as a result of the Holocaust that people respected that anti-Semitism was an ugly thing and should be avoided. Now that taboo seems to have been broken with impunity. The best evidence is the French diplomat in London who called Israel, 'that shitty little state.' He was not recalled or disciplined. The poet laureate of England talked about murdering Jews on the West Bank. Something fundamental about the myth of the Jew has resurfaced. The notion that Jews are mythic creatures is well circulating in our culture."

 

Michael Dobkowski, Professor of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges

"We're entering a different stage here. There is a greater willingness to call Israelis racists and there's a shrill tone to the rhetoric. It seems in the last two or three years it has been open season on making these claims. No one has any shame anymore in characterizing Sharon as a Nazi. The Holocaust has been turned on its head."

"The misuse of that imagery is troubling. Jews are delegitimized in people's minds, mischaracterized, and they are misattributed powers or ill intentions that they don't have. We're seeing the idea of Jewish power and control coming much more forcefully than before. In a peculiar way, the state of Israel—just by existing and having an independent Army—adds fuel to the stereotype. More people believe it and it's taken on now both a political and religious form."

 

Ruth Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University

"The last real wave of anti-Semitism prior to this one began in Europe in the 1870s and kept gathering steam until Hitler succeeded in destroying European Jewry. Organized political opposition to Jews today in the Arab world is more virulent than in Europe in the 19th century."

"In Europe, there were some voices raised against anti-Semitism even if they proved ineffectual. Such voices in the Arab world, you can count on your fingers.  Germany at its worst never made heroes of Jew-killers, displaying pictures of people running death camps, carrying portraits in the streets. In the Arab world, these people are canonized for killing Jews."

"More importantly,  I would say there are so many problems in the Arab world that are getting more and more difficult to solve and anti-Semitism is organized to detract attention from social problems. The difficulties in Arab society are infinitely greater than Europe in the depths of the Depression."

"Anti-Semitism in the Arab world is so huge, it frightens others and they defer to it and find reasons to blame Jews for aggression against them. This is not a new phenomenon—liberals traditionally find ways to hold Jews responsible for aggression against them. Many of them want to have an explanation, they feel sure every problem can reasonable be solved. There's no way to make Arabs stop targeting Israel short of war, so liberals therefore have to blame the Jews."

 

Arnold Eisen, The Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and Religion at Stanford University

"There's incredible anxiety about what seems to be the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe and the seeming indifference of European leaders to it. You're not an anti-Semite just because you criticize the Israeli government. What is problematic is if you say every group in the world has a right to national self-determination except the Jews. This is what you find some in Europe saying—that Jews don't have a right to a state because of alleged injustices. It's both left and right in Europe. No other state's right to exist is challenged because it's unjust in their eyes."

 

Bruce Pauley, Professor of History, University of Central Florida

"There's a failure by a lot of publications in the US to understand what are the motivations of some of the people who are critical of Israel. It's often passed off as, 'Here we go again, this is just like the anti-Semitism of the 1930s.' But I don't think much of this is religiously or culturally inspired. It's very different from the '30s because today the primary motivation is Israel and the policies of the Sharon government and his methods of suppressing the Palestinians. There's little mention 40 percent of the land of the Gaza Strip is possessed by 6,000 settlers. Not a word that Israelis use nine times as much water per person as the Palestinians have. Not a word about the fact the number of settlers has quadrupled since the Oslo peace accord."

 

Jonathan Sarna, Professor of Jewish History and Director of Brandeis University's Sarnat Center for the Study of Anti-Jewishness

"I think that the most interesting insight I have read is not what I have read in those two books, but the extent to which anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism have been linked in many areas of the world. The notion that both represent the great evils and that Jews control America and that America is the great danger facing the world. This allows one to say what otherwise would seem so absurd, that a tiny community of Jews, not really even one percent of the world of Muslims, is somehow a threat to Islam. I do think some very important changes have gone on where this kind of rhetoric can appear in so public a way."