I have this book sitting on my shelf, and I have actually dipped into it on occasion. It is quite learned and a useful resource, but not directly relevant to this post. Its subtitle is "The Western Tradition," and it traces "anti-Judaism" from antiquity to modernity. It really is about "anti-Judaism" rather than "antisemitism" in the sense that it traces hostility to the Jewish religion--in Paganism, Christianity, and modern thought--rather than the Jews as a people. There is a good deal of debate about whether such a distinction is valid, but that's another question.
Here is the antisemite Georg Gadow attacking Emil du Bois-Reymond in 1883 and confirming your point on how antisemites have always longed for dictators:
Es ist wohlfeil, die „Verein deutscher Studenten“ an die Rockschöße einer politischen Partei zu hängen; ein Gebahren, das freilich bei dem strebsamen Schildknappen eines Eugen Richter nicht auffallen kann. Die „Verein deutscher Studenten“ sind so wenig „politisch“ in dem heute geltenden Sinne, daß sie vielmehr in dem instinktiven Widerwillen gegen die kleinliche Interessenpolitik des, die nationale Einigkeit in einem Dutzend von Fractionen und Fractiönchen illustrirenden Parlaments eine der Hauptwurzeln ihrer Kraft besitzen. Und wahrlich, die Zeit wird kommen, in welcher eine, unter den unauslöschlichen Eindrücken des nationalen Einigungswerkes aufgewachsene Generation die noch in den Vorurtheilen der Tage der Schwäche und Schmach befangenen Parlamentshabitués ersetzen wird.“
Source: Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft und Herr Dubois-Reymond. Eine zugleich an die Adresse des Herrn Max Spangenberg, ehemaligen Vorsitzenden der „Freien wissenschaftlichen Vereinigung“ a. d. Universität Berlin, gerichtete, aber nicht „im Auftrage“ herausgegebene Betrachtung (Giessen: Fehsenfeld, 1883), p. 30.
Since I must use Google Translate™ to make sense of the above, and I'm not alone in that, please tell me if I have this right:
It criticises a „Volkisch“ group as being the servant of multiple political parties, and expresses the hope-cast-as-prediction that the project of German unity will sow in the breasts of the rising generation the eventual demand that Parliamentary debate and jockeying be thrown-over for a unifying force.
(Do not feel the need excessively to cater to those of us not good at a particular language, but please remember that we are here.)
I sincerely apologize for posting quotations in German. It's kind of obnoxious and definitely lazy. It is possible to acquire the language as an adult, but I can't recommend it, as it took me four years of daily study. Thank you for your summary and reminder.
Great analysis - well written, cogent, with real explanatory power. But what is to be done about antisemitism? What has worked before? Are we in for a minor infection or headed to a society-wide, wrenching convulsion?
Adorno says the only useful thing is just teaching people that fascism ended badly for the Germans and that it's therefore not in the anti-Semite's self-interest. Kind of agree?
Really enjoyed this. I've been wondering to what extent there are limits to the analogizing between European and American anti-semitism, since, as Hannah Arendt points out in "Totalitarianism", the Jews had a very specific social status in the European countries where anti-semitism was most prominent, as permanent, priveleged social outsiders with some kind of financial or intellectual relationship to the state, that really was never the case in America, where the Jewish experience tracks along many other immigrant experiences.
Post-WWII anti-Semitism on the national level, for me, seems to me best explicable by what you go into the in the last paragraph here, where the taboo placed on it by its association with the worst crime in history acts as a magnetic draw for all sorts of regressive energies across the political spectrum. I also think, in certain cases, like "black anti-Semitism," there's a deep identification with the iconography of Jewishness as a chosen people destined to wander and suffer, and so resentment at the Jews for having usurped this favored position in the eyes of God and history.
I also found it funny, revisiting Arendt, that the quote all the wine moms were reading to get to was on like page 400, on the other end of a really dense and complex analysis of anti-Semitism that presumes a high level of cultural knowledge about Germany, France and Russia.
I Visited Exhibition about Hitler in Nuremberg and there I learnt that Nazi Party, byname of National Socialist German Workers’ Party. It behaved as socialist party and probably saw Jew more rich and smart definitely capable to build more wealth in Germany. That is why A 1938 Nazi Law Forced Jews to Register Their Wealth. I’m more interested in antisemitism in Africa, I grew up with the idea that Jews are bad people, in Muslim influenced countries there is more hate against Jew that needs better education. I was surprised when I met first jew student in Romania. They were kind and friendly and looked too European. I knew the black Jew in our country that suffered discrimination. I was too small when one of them visited our house to bless the birth of my brother. I haven’t met others. John is first jew I read more constantly and I’m convinced there is alot to be done about antisemitism.
An interesting and consequential instance of anti-Semitic Proudhonian revolutionary socialism (of a sort) is the Makhnovschchina of post-WWI Ukrainian peasants. As is often the case, however, Makhno’s anti-Semitism was in many ways a stand-in for opposition to wealthy German Mennonite farmers. Large-scale Jewish landholding was virtually non-existent in Makhno's Ukraine, of course, but the "predatory Jew" was a ready-made signifier for the evils of agrarian exploitation.
I spent 2-3 years researching a book idea that finally went nowhere. The working title was "Modernism and the Jews." I was (and am) interested in the relationship between anti-modernism and antisemitism in Germany and France circa 1880-1930. Somewhat more controversially, I wanted to argue that there really was a relationship between modernism and the Jews. Slezkine's book, which you have discussed, was one important source for me. Perhaps more important was Mosse's small book "German Jews 'Beyond Judaism'" (originally a series of five lectures), which I found invaluable. I wanted to argue that the psychological condition of modernism is ambivalence, whereas traditional culture has played an affirmative vis-à-vis the social order. The reactionary impulse is to bannish ambivalence and reassert traditional authority. It is doomed to fail, of course, but that's another matter.
More recently, I read Miriam Leonard's "Socrates and the Jews," which is quite helpful in tracing anti-Jewish tropes in various modern thinkers (the subtitle is "Hellenism and Hebraism form Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud").
I'm curious: which of Winnock's books (or articles) were you quoting from?
Question for John: Does the fact that America has never really had a history of state-sponsored or -tolerated anti-Semitic terror distinguish the way anti-Semitism functions and circulates here?
Just as anti-Semitism allows people who believe themselves to be strongly pro-capitalist to criticise capitalism:
The branding of reaction, theocracy, and authoritarianism as faithfulness to an Higher Authority (divine, or The Founders or indistinguishably both) allows what seem to me to be a mass made-up largely of 'authoritarian follower' types to feel both obedient and rebelliously cool.
Just a wonderful piece John. There is a book “Anti-Judaism” which I’ve been meaning to read and which I think elaborates on this.
I have this book sitting on my shelf, and I have actually dipped into it on occasion. It is quite learned and a useful resource, but not directly relevant to this post. Its subtitle is "The Western Tradition," and it traces "anti-Judaism" from antiquity to modernity. It really is about "anti-Judaism" rather than "antisemitism" in the sense that it traces hostility to the Jewish religion--in Paganism, Christianity, and modern thought--rather than the Jews as a people. There is a good deal of debate about whether such a distinction is valid, but that's another question.
Interesting and thank you.
Here is the antisemite Georg Gadow attacking Emil du Bois-Reymond in 1883 and confirming your point on how antisemites have always longed for dictators:
Es ist wohlfeil, die „Verein deutscher Studenten“ an die Rockschöße einer politischen Partei zu hängen; ein Gebahren, das freilich bei dem strebsamen Schildknappen eines Eugen Richter nicht auffallen kann. Die „Verein deutscher Studenten“ sind so wenig „politisch“ in dem heute geltenden Sinne, daß sie vielmehr in dem instinktiven Widerwillen gegen die kleinliche Interessenpolitik des, die nationale Einigkeit in einem Dutzend von Fractionen und Fractiönchen illustrirenden Parlaments eine der Hauptwurzeln ihrer Kraft besitzen. Und wahrlich, die Zeit wird kommen, in welcher eine, unter den unauslöschlichen Eindrücken des nationalen Einigungswerkes aufgewachsene Generation die noch in den Vorurtheilen der Tage der Schwäche und Schmach befangenen Parlamentshabitués ersetzen wird.“
Source: Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft und Herr Dubois-Reymond. Eine zugleich an die Adresse des Herrn Max Spangenberg, ehemaligen Vorsitzenden der „Freien wissenschaftlichen Vereinigung“ a. d. Universität Berlin, gerichtete, aber nicht „im Auftrage“ herausgegebene Betrachtung (Giessen: Fehsenfeld, 1883), p. 30.
Since I must use Google Translate™ to make sense of the above, and I'm not alone in that, please tell me if I have this right:
It criticises a „Volkisch“ group as being the servant of multiple political parties, and expresses the hope-cast-as-prediction that the project of German unity will sow in the breasts of the rising generation the eventual demand that Parliamentary debate and jockeying be thrown-over for a unifying force.
(Do not feel the need excessively to cater to those of us not good at a particular language, but please remember that we are here.)
I sincerely apologize for posting quotations in German. It's kind of obnoxious and definitely lazy. It is possible to acquire the language as an adult, but I can't recommend it, as it took me four years of daily study. Thank you for your summary and reminder.
Great analysis - well written, cogent, with real explanatory power. But what is to be done about antisemitism? What has worked before? Are we in for a minor infection or headed to a society-wide, wrenching convulsion?
Adorno says the only useful thing is just teaching people that fascism ended badly for the Germans and that it's therefore not in the anti-Semite's self-interest. Kind of agree?
Everyone knows how it ended with the Germans. They don’t care. They just think, “This time it’s different “
Really enjoyed this. I've been wondering to what extent there are limits to the analogizing between European and American anti-semitism, since, as Hannah Arendt points out in "Totalitarianism", the Jews had a very specific social status in the European countries where anti-semitism was most prominent, as permanent, priveleged social outsiders with some kind of financial or intellectual relationship to the state, that really was never the case in America, where the Jewish experience tracks along many other immigrant experiences.
Post-WWII anti-Semitism on the national level, for me, seems to me best explicable by what you go into the in the last paragraph here, where the taboo placed on it by its association with the worst crime in history acts as a magnetic draw for all sorts of regressive energies across the political spectrum. I also think, in certain cases, like "black anti-Semitism," there's a deep identification with the iconography of Jewishness as a chosen people destined to wander and suffer, and so resentment at the Jews for having usurped this favored position in the eyes of God and history.
yes, but, to your last point, that's a big part of American protestantism in general
Definitely agree. I think that's why it's a constitutive aspect of evangelical anti-Semitism.
I also found it funny, revisiting Arendt, that the quote all the wine moms were reading to get to was on like page 400, on the other end of a really dense and complex analysis of anti-Semitism that presumes a high level of cultural knowledge about Germany, France and Russia.
terrific essay!
I Visited Exhibition about Hitler in Nuremberg and there I learnt that Nazi Party, byname of National Socialist German Workers’ Party. It behaved as socialist party and probably saw Jew more rich and smart definitely capable to build more wealth in Germany. That is why A 1938 Nazi Law Forced Jews to Register Their Wealth. I’m more interested in antisemitism in Africa, I grew up with the idea that Jews are bad people, in Muslim influenced countries there is more hate against Jew that needs better education. I was surprised when I met first jew student in Romania. They were kind and friendly and looked too European. I knew the black Jew in our country that suffered discrimination. I was too small when one of them visited our house to bless the birth of my brother. I haven’t met others. John is first jew I read more constantly and I’m convinced there is alot to be done about antisemitism.
An interesting and consequential instance of anti-Semitic Proudhonian revolutionary socialism (of a sort) is the Makhnovschchina of post-WWI Ukrainian peasants. As is often the case, however, Makhno’s anti-Semitism was in many ways a stand-in for opposition to wealthy German Mennonite farmers. Large-scale Jewish landholding was virtually non-existent in Makhno's Ukraine, of course, but the "predatory Jew" was a ready-made signifier for the evils of agrarian exploitation.
I spent 2-3 years researching a book idea that finally went nowhere. The working title was "Modernism and the Jews." I was (and am) interested in the relationship between anti-modernism and antisemitism in Germany and France circa 1880-1930. Somewhat more controversially, I wanted to argue that there really was a relationship between modernism and the Jews. Slezkine's book, which you have discussed, was one important source for me. Perhaps more important was Mosse's small book "German Jews 'Beyond Judaism'" (originally a series of five lectures), which I found invaluable. I wanted to argue that the psychological condition of modernism is ambivalence, whereas traditional culture has played an affirmative vis-à-vis the social order. The reactionary impulse is to bannish ambivalence and reassert traditional authority. It is doomed to fail, of course, but that's another matter.
More recently, I read Miriam Leonard's "Socrates and the Jews," which is quite helpful in tracing anti-Jewish tropes in various modern thinkers (the subtitle is "Hellenism and Hebraism form Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud").
I'm curious: which of Winnock's books (or articles) were you quoting from?
A really good one John! And thanks for reminding about the exploits of Stenka Razin!!
Question for John: Does the fact that America has never really had a history of state-sponsored or -tolerated anti-Semitic terror distinguish the way anti-Semitism functions and circulates here?
Just as anti-Semitism allows people who believe themselves to be strongly pro-capitalist to criticise capitalism:
The branding of reaction, theocracy, and authoritarianism as faithfulness to an Higher Authority (divine, or The Founders or indistinguishably both) allows what seem to me to be a mass made-up largely of 'authoritarian follower' types to feel both obedient and rebelliously cool.