Laqueur - The changing face of antisemitism: from ancient times to the present day

Praise for
The Changing Face of Antisemitism:
From Ancient Times to the Present Day

Once more, Walter Laqueur has brought his formidable learning, incisive style, and sheer brilliance in writing concise and yet gripping history to a subject matter of extraordinary complexity. The result is vintage Laqueur and an extremely valuable contribution to the subject of the history of antisemitism.Michael Stanislawski, Nathan J. Miller Professor of Jewish History, Columbia University

An interesting general analysis of the variations of anti-Semitism over the past 2000 years.... Laqueurs major strength is his critique of contemporary issues, especially the role of Israel in anti-Semitic thought, and the question of the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.Library Journal

Walter Laqueur has written a thoughtful book about a difficult subject, bringing history and his own keen analytical skill together in a new way. Engagingly written, it offers both an overview of the past and an analysis of the new antisemitism. He treats anti-Semitism sympathetically, even as he largely avoids the apologetics that characterize so much writing on the subject.Mark R. Cohen, author of Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages

A remarkable and eminently readable review of anti-Semitism throughout history from the persecution of the early Israelites in Egypt to the recent attacks on Jewish targets in twenty-first-century Europe. Laqueur describes with skill and precision antisemitisms context in every erabe it economic, religious, social, or political.Rabbi Andrew Baker, Director of International Jewish Affairs, The American Jewish Committee

A brilliant, lucid and compelling survey of a social, psychological, cultural, political and intellectual malady that has preoccupied and distorted European and Arab societies, Christian and Muslim civilizations, and both the political right and the political left. In this short volume, Laqueur provides an elegant, fast-paced and immensely readable account of a complex, confounding and still-mutating condition that continues to afflict our world. This book is a vital contribution to our understanding of an important and disturbing dimension of our pastand, as Laqueur so incisively shows, of our present and our future. There is no other book like it.Walter Reich, Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University

From Ancient Times to the Present Day

WALTER LAQUEUR

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Copyright 2006 by Walter Laqueur

First published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 2006

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First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2008

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Laqueur, Walter, 1921

The changing face of antisemitism: From ancient times

to the present day / Walter Laqueur

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN978-0-19-534121-8

1. AntisemitismHistory. 2. Christianity and antisemitism.

3. JudaismRelationsChristianity. 4. Christianity and other religionsJudaism.

5. JudaismRelationsIslam. 6. IslamRelationsJudaism. I. Title

DS145.L325 2006 305.8924009dc22 2005030491

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR ANTISEMITISM? It has a very long history, but this history has been written only during the past century. There is no Thucydides or Plutarch of antisemitism; not one of the great historians and sociologists of the past has written about it in any detail. The endeavors to explain and interpret it are of even more recent date. Only after the Second World War and the disaster that befell European Jewry were the many attempts to analyze and understand it generated. Many questions remain open, and some will probably remain unresolved as far as one can look ahead.

They include the questions of whether there was antisemitism before the advent of Christianity or whether antagonism toward Jews at that time was no more than normal xenophobia; whether, as others argue, antisemitism can be traced back not to early Christianity but only to the late Middle Ages. This, in turn, raises the questions of whether and to what extent there has been continuity between the traditional, religious antisemitism that prevailed up to the second part of the nineteenth century and the racialist antisemitism that succeeded it and that led to the mass murder of the Second World War. A related debate concerns whether and to what extent contemporary antisemitism is rooted in the antisemitism of the past or whether it is mainly connected with the existence and the policies of the state of Israel as well as with anti-Americanism, antiglobalism, and other contemporary roots and movements.

While up to 1945 antisemites did not on the whole mind being called antisemites, there has been since that time indignation on the part of many, however hostile to the Jews, at being painted with the antisemitic brush. The question arises whether their angry feelings are justified. This also raises the question of whether what was historically predominantly a preoccupation of sections of Christian churches and right-wing movements has become in our time far more frequent among Muslim and left-wing groups; is this base calumny or undeniable fact?

The debate continues with regard to the questions of whether and to what extent economic and psychological motives are involved in antisemitism or whether historically antisemitism was simply the consequence of Jews rejecting Christianity and Islam. It involves the question of whether antisemitism is the more or less inevitable result of the anomalous social, economic, and political position of the Jews among other peoples which had a negative effect on Jews as a collective and as individuals.

This short review does not pretend to present yet another theory of antisemitism or to answer the many unresolved questions. Nor is it an apologetic or polemical statement; it merely attempts to summarize research and debates that have been going on for decades. It also deals with the present character of antisemitism and its future prospects.

One of the most renowned intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky, has stated that antisemitism is no longer a problem, fortunately, and this could be quite correct as far as certain parts of the state of Massachusetts as well as some other regions of North America are concerned. But it is less certain that this statement still holds if one moves a little farther afield. Even a mile or two from the campus of MIT, the president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, has pointed to a widespread current of opinion that encourages a functional antisemitism marked by disproportionate preoccupation with Jews and the Jewish state: serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are antisemitic in their effect if not their intent. (And what of people who are less serious and thoughtful?)