This is an abridgement of a longer work. To view the full survey, along with comprehensive annotation, please download the Holocaust Foundation App via: www.holocaustfoundation.com
“An antisemite is one who hates Jews more than absolutely necessary.”
In many cultures, antisemitism is a given. This is exemplified by the above statement, believed to have originated in Hungary.
The fact of antisemitism may be a constant. Its form, however, morphs and adapts from age to age and culture to culture. This brief article provides a survey of some of antisemitism’s current manifestations and some of the social groups in which antisemitism is prevalent.
By most accounts, the term anti-Semitism was first coined by German journalist Wilhelm Marr in 1879 as a functional equivalent to Judenhass—Jew-hatred. While the term is modern, the hatred itself dates back more than 3000 years.
The spelling antisemitism is to be preferred to anti-Semitism for at least two reasons:
- there is no such thing as Semitism
- to dull the impact of those who engage in the etymological fallacy by insisting that Arabs cannot be anti-Semites because they too are Semites
Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group is the definition provided by Merriam-Webster.
IHRA’s working definition begins as follows:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
The non-binding definition is significantly strengthened by an accompanying set of examples considered to form part of the definition. The full text of the IHRA definition, along with its examples, appears in the full version of this survey.
Antisemitism has proven to be remarkable in its persistence, pervasion, and versatility. It will reinvent itself as the need arises.
Anti-Zionist Antisemitism
To understand, anti-Zionism one must first define Zionism. While historically it is a broad and non-monolithic movement, Zionism can be seen as:
The movement supporting the return of Jews to their ancestral indigenous homeland and their right of national self-determination in the now established State of Israel.
Among modern antisemites of all stripes, the weapon of choice is frequently anti-Zionism. For that reason, it is mentioned first in this survey.
With the 1948 advent of the modern state of Israel, antisemites were provided a new target for their antagonism. While Jewish individuals and Jewish communities have for centuries been marginalised (and worse), focusing instead on the Jewish state can now lend the ancient hatred the pretence of respectability in the West. It is somehow deemed acceptable to vilify the Jewish state, especially if one first claims to have Jewish friends.
While the term is modern, the hatred itself dates back more than 3000 years
Of course, criticism of the Jewish state is not automatically antisemitic, and definitions such as IHRA’s correctly acknowledge this fact. But criticism of Israel that applies a standard that is applied to no other nation is usually antisemitic.
Anti-Zionism often denies to one people group (the Jews) what it readily grants to others, and as such, is plainly antisemitic. A denial of the right of self-determination in one’s indigenous homeland, or the right of appropriate retaliation against a genocidal enemy, are but two examples that expose the antisemitic core of most anti-Zionism.
Far-Right Antisemitism
Today’s white supremacy and neo-Nazism stand in continuity to 1930-40s Nazism. Traditional Christian antisemitic ideas and xenophobic nationalism play an important role along with conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.
In the UK, Europe, and USA, far-right antisemites pose a significant threat to Jewish communities. A 2018 attack by a white supremacist on Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue saw eleven murdered. In the period since the massacre, the city has become a pilgrimage destination for white supremacists who view the perpetrator as an inspiration.
Riding on a wave of anti-immigration sentiment, far-right political parties in France, Germany, Austria and elsewhere, have achieved significant gains and have contributed to a surge in antisemitism.
The rise of ethnonationalism in Eastern and Central Europe has been accompanied by Holocaust distortion in which local perpetrators and collaborators have been recast as national heroes. Antisemitism has risen accordingly.
Laws have been passed effectively exonerating nationals of complicity in the Holocaust and potentially making an accurate telling of Holocaust history a criminal offence.
Progressive Leftist Antisemitism
Amidst the identity politics, wokeness, victimhood olympics, and anti-liberal “liberalism” that mark the progressive left, antisemitism is readily apparent and too often gets a free pass.
America’s academia and broader culture have been greatly influenced by Critical Race Theory, under which, according to Dr James Lindsay, Jews are represented as having “an intolerable privilege they need to check”.
Ethnic Studies initiatives have promoted BDS and, in the words of one critic, “cleansed Jews from history”. The post-colonialist embrace of anti-Zionism similarly results in difficult conditions for Zionist Jews.
Black Lives Matter protests have seen synagogues vandalised and crowds chanting “dirty Jews”. Certain leaders of the Women’s March have been reported as openly antisemitic.
Intersectionality brings together disparate causes and has demonstrated great utility in advancing antisemitism. Hatred for “the Zionist entity” seems to function both as a ticket for admission and a glue that binds, as is evident in the red-green axis. Protests over police brutality have, in some cases, led to an upsurge in Jew-hatred.
The uniqueness of Jewish history, culture and identity, resilience despite centuries of oppression, and national self-determination, ill-fit a progressive movement fixated on power structures, grievance, anti-nationalism and sameness of outcome.
Among the many long-held ideals targeted by Critical Race Theory is a meritocracy. Perhaps because Jews have flourished in societies where they have been granted freedom, they are now assigned to the “white oppressor class” – despite the fact that the majority of Jews are non-white and that Jews are one of history’s most oppressed people groups.
Islamic Antisemitism
While all societies exhibit antisemitism to some degree, Jew-hatred is disproportionately evident within Islamic communities. In many nations with large Muslim populations, Jews are viewed “very unfavourably” by the overwhelming majority. ADL reports antisemitic attitudes at 49% in Germany’s Muslim community as against 14% amongst Christians.
Islamic antisemitism makes use of a full range of themes and tropes, including conspiracies, theological justifications, and racial slurs. Calls for the destruction of Israel and Holocaust denial can be heard in mosques, even in Western nations.
Understanding and responding to antisemitic incidents is sometimes made more difficult by the reluctance of authorities to correctly apportion blame when the incidents are perpetrated by Moslems.
Christian Antisemitism
Traditional Christian antisemitism relied heavily on the deicide charge and the blood libel. While these may still be in use, the more “respectable” versions of Christian antisemitism will now use anti-Zionism and human rights concerns.
Undergirding Christian antisemitism is replacement theology, or more formally, supersessionism. While it varies in its nomenclature and justification, it always includes the concept that the church has in some way displaced, replaced, superseded, disenfranchised, or fulfilled Israel and Israel’s biblical status and national promises.
Technically, such thinking does not inexorably generate antisemitism. In practice, however, over time, it has done so. Efroymson, commenting on the theology of Tertullian, observed: “The road from here to Auschwitz is long and may not be direct, but you can get there from here.”
Antisemitic statements made by Luther in 1543 were used by Hitler to justify his mass murder of Europe’s Jews. Today’s most influential Christian antisemites muster theology, professed concern for Palestinians, and anti-Zionism, particularly to undermine evangelical support for Israel.
Prominent examples are the Christian aid agency World Vision and Rev Dr Stephen Sizer, a UK cleric censured by his own Anglican Church for antisemitic activities, and endorsed by former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, also accused of antisemitism.
Human Rights Antisemitism
Human rights organisations currently provide one of the most effective vehicles for antisemitism. The Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement (BDS) is transparent in its goal to see the elimination of the Jewish state. BDS critiques of Israel frequently compare her conduct to that of Nazi Germany, with the “apartheid Israel” charge being equally popular. BDS has been designated “antisemitic” by Germany, and numerous American states have passed anti-BDS resolutions or laws.
The UN exhibits a severe bias against Israel and has a remarkable record of anti-Israel resolutions, in many cases issued under the pretext of human rights concern for the Palestinians.
London based Amnesty International is another human rights body that has been shown to have a strong antisemitic record.
Racial Antisemitism
Most prevalent in Nazi and Muslim circles, racial antisemitism may now be less common in the West, having been displaced by other forms of Jew-hatred.
References to Jews as “descendants of apes and pigs” remain common within Islamic rhetoric along with such descriptors as “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world”.
The Darwinian theories of the time leant justification to the view that the Nazis must “exterminate” the Jews in the interests of Aryan racial purity.
The Khazar theory remains popular. It attempts to sever the link between Jews of the biblical period and the present day by asserting that Ashkenazi Jews are largely descendants of Turkic peoples who converted to Judaism over a thousand years ago.
Economic Antisemitism
William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice portrays Shylock “the Jew” as avaricious and cruel. Jewish stereotypes of this kind have persisted in literature and discourse to the present day and readily cross-pollinate other categories of antisemitism presented in this survey.
Jews are held to be excessively wealthy (such wealth achieved by dishonest means and ignoring the many Jews of modest means), greedy and mean (despite Jews being disproportionately represented amongst philanthropists), and use their wealth to further expand their covert control of media, international politics, world opinion, et al. The incoherence of this form of antisemitism sees Jews accused of driving both capitalism and communism.
Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan provides an example of economic antisemitism: “The Rothschilds financed both sides of all the European wars. They always wanted to get their hands on the Central Bank of America. And they finally did.”
Conspiratorial Antisemitism
Many conspiracy theories feature Jews front and centre. Accusations of Jewish control of media, orchestration of financial crises and wars, paedophilia rings, and more flourish on social media and in far-right groups.
Twenty per cent of Britons apparently believe Jews concocted the Covid pandemic for financial gain. Throughout the world, many have blamed the Jews for 9/11. Jews have even been held responsible for the Holocaust.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 1903, set out a blueprint for global Jewish domination. Despite being demonstrated to be a fabrication in the 1920s, it has remained a key document in fuelling antisemitic conspiracy theories to this day. Henry Ford funded and distributed 500,000 copies in the USA, and translations of The Protocols continue as important texts for antisemites in Muslim nations.
Universalist Antisemitism
The uniqueness and distinction of the Jewish people, their sacred texts and history, longevity and non-assimilation, religious and social separateness, and especially their moral and ethical legacy, have long been a thorn in the side of universalism. A significant theme of 19th-century German philosophy was a determination to break the shackles of particularist religion: “…the hegemony of revelation had to be broken. Jews and Judaism were linked to that precise biblical revelation that the Enlightenment wanted to free itself of…”
Most riling of all is the concept of Jewish chosenness. Despite the Hebrew Scriptures creating at the outset an inextricable link between Jewish chosenness and benefit to all nations, chosenness has been construed as elitism, supremacy and arrogance.
The repudiation of uniqueness and particularity by some Jews has done little to alleviate antisemitism. Those Jews who became enamoured with German culture and embraced assimilation in early 20th century Germany, even converting to Christianity and de-Judaising their names, were no less likely to be found in the cattle trucks destined for Auschwitz.
In the modern period, Israel and the Jews remain distinct. Even those who wholeheartedly embrace progressive leftist causes can find themselves ostracised if they retain a commitment to Israel.
Jewish Antisemitism
There is often a reflexive rejection of the assertion that Jews can be antisemitic. Examples, however, are not difficult to find.
Karl Marx, one of the most influential individuals of the last two centuries, was both Jewish and transparently antisemitic. And Marx is but one in a long lineage of anti-Jewish Jews.
“Non-Jewish Jews” or “self-hating Jews” serve an important role for non-Jewish antisemites. It is assumed, for example, that the hatred espoused for the Jewish state is somehow validated by the presence of Jews in the ranks of haters.
In the present day, there are many Jewish individuals and groups who support the antisemitic BDS movement.
Not all Gentiles are antisemites, and not all antisemites are Gentiles.
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