By Geoffrey Brahm Levey
SOCIETY
Antisemitism: Here and Now
Deborah Lipstadt
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Every serious discussion of antisemitism includes this joke: an antisemite is someone who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary. Attributed to British political thinker Sir Isaiah Berlin, the joke is wise as well as witty. Given the Jews' calamitous history, an ideological or pathological form of Jew-hatred can't simply be about not liking Jews or even treating them harshly. It must be a prejudice with no rational basis. Although often applied to any occurrence of hostility or discrimination against Jews, antisemitism originally entailed a conviction that the Jews are inherently evil. The word "anti-Semitism" was coined only in the late-19th century but has since been applied to Jew-hatred throughout history.
Vandalized tombs with tagged swastikas are pictured in the Jewish cemetery of Quatzenheim, in eastern France, on Tuesday, February 19, 2019.Credit: Jean-Francois Badias
Berlin's definition of an antisemite appears on page 14 of Deborah Lipstadt's new book, Antisemitism: Here and Now. A Holocaust historian at Emory University in Atlanta, Lipstadt attained prominence after David Irving sued her in a British court in 1996 for describing him as a "Holocaust denier". She and her publisher famously won that case, as portrayed in the 2016 film, Denial. The present book is not a history but a reckoning with antisemitism in its current guises and contortions. (Lipstadt rejects the old spelling of "anti-Semitism" as it wrongly implies that the opposition is to "Semitism" rather than to the Jews, as was always intended).
Alas, more than 70 years after the Nazis' quest to exterminate the Jews of Europe, cases still abound in which Jews are variously slain, vilified, excluded, or threatened because they are Jews. In October last year, for example, a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue claimed the lives of 11 congregants and wounded seven others. There have been murderous attacks on Jews also in France and Brussels in recent years. In Britain, graffiti with messages such "Adolf Hitler was right" and "death to all Jews" has appeared in its cities.
Antisemitism. By Deborah Lipstadt.
Closer to home, Jews have been targeted and intimidated on Sydney public transport and while walking in Bondi. Earlier this month, more than 20 swastika symbols were daubed overnight around the Bondi area. Security guards are standard at Jewish schools and synagogues in Western societies. As Lipstadt observes, if anything, the bigots are growing more confident.
The current situation is complicated by two factors. First, Western Jews (in general) now enjoy a privileged status. Highly educated, socioeconomically successful, and politically influential, they are perceived by some less fortunate and marginalised as part of the dominant white majority. Second, there are the vexed issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict and of controversial Israeli government policies. Much of Antisemitism: Here and Now is devoted to discussing cases thrown up by these twin associations.
The book is written as an exchange of letters between Lipstadt and a whip-smart Jewish student, Abigail, and a non-Jewish law colleague, Joe, at her university. The format allows these fictional interlocutors to variously voice their confusion, outrage, and internal conflicts about episodes of apparent antisemitism on campus and in the wider world. Lipstadt responds sagely as a kind of guide to the perplexed.
The discussion begins by distinguishing different types of antisemite. There is the extremist who is upfront about his or her thirst for the Jews' demise. There is the "dinner party antisemite" who wouldn't dream of physically harming Jews but wants to exclude them from their golf or country club. There is the "clueless antisemite" who remarks to her Jewish friend that she, of all people, should be able to spot a bargain. And then there are the "antisemitic enablers", who, while not antisemites themselves, encourage the antisemitism of others.
Here, Lipstadt points her finger at both President Donald Trump, on the right, and British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, on the left. Trump has cultivated not only nationalist but also nativist sentiment. He defended the white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the 2017 Charlottesville rally, for example, even after one of them drove a truck through the counter-protesters. During his presidential campaign he retweeted an image of Hilary Clinton alongside a Jewish star embossed with the accusation of monied corruption. One of his ads showed three prominent American Jews with commentary about "global special interests" that "control the levers of power in Washington".
Corbyn has a history of arch criticism of Israel but also of supporting blatant antisemites. Last year, video emerged of him speaking at a Palestinian Return Centre event in 2013 in which he suggested that "Zionists" do not understand English irony despite living in the country all their lives, a comment that has not helped him shake the accusation that he himself is an antisemite. Lipstadt marshals compelling cases against both politicians as "enablers", while noting that Corbyn's disposition appears to be sincere whereas Trump's appears to be cynically directed at energising his electoral base.
The book further explores such issues as the difference between antisemitism and racism, antisemitism within the Islamic world, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and the "toxification of Israel", and the new hostility towards Jews within progressive movements and on campus. Lipstadt wisely cautions against an attitude of Jewish victimhood. She also criticises Jewish organisations that respond to the BDS by seeking to "boycott the boycotters" or which, like canarymission.org, seek to intimidate Pro-Palestinian professors and activists by compiling public dossiers on them.
Antisemitism is antisemitism regardless of the status of its targets. The Pittsburgh synagogue victims are no less murdered for having been visibly white and comfortably middle class. And the lazy equation of "wealthy and white" with domination overlooks the prominent involvement of Jews in progressive movements including the civil rights movement and feminism.
Less satisfactory is Lipstadt's treatment of the Israel factor. She is wrong to claim that questioning Israel's right to exist is axiomatically antisemitic. To demand only Israel's disestablishment among the family of nations, many of which are guilty of systematic abuses, is clearly discriminatory. However, one can hold that it was a mistake for a Jewish state to be established in Palestine without remotely being antisemitic. Even the founding father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, initially campaigned to place the Jewish homeland in East Africa.
Criticism of Israel as a Jewish state is dismissed too quickly. Lipstadt counters that other democracies have official state religions. True, but the issue is whether and how the state religion is used in the distribution of individuals' rights, opportunities and overall treatment. It should be of concern that national fronts in Europe and alt-right figures in the United States laud Israel as an ethno-democracy while peddling antisemitism at home.
The 2018 Global Anti-Semitism Report found that "70 per cent of anti-Jewish attacks were anti-Israel in nature". Israeli brutality towards the Palestinians provokes brutal and intemperate politics elsewhere in reaction. It is also the case that Israel-bashing attracts and provides cover for genuine antisemites. The attempt to call this out has been hampered by the legacy of Israeli politicians and Jewish leaders responding to any criticism of Israel with the charge of antisemitism.
Often, non-Jews who are concerned about the Palestinians' situation invoke traditional antisemitic tropes without realising it or intending to do so. A current example is the controversy that has ensnared US Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, who suggested in tweets that American support for Israel is "all about the Benjamins" (referring to Benjamin Franklin on the $100 note) and the Israel lobby bribing politicians. The tweets sparked an uproar, a rebuke from House Leader Nancy Pelosi, and ultimately Omar's contrite apology. But as Peter Beinhart noted in The Forward, those who are quick to condemn this clumsy verbal bigotry are deathly silent about the tangible bigotry that Palestinians in the West Bank face daily courtesy of Israeli law and policy.
Although most diasporic Jews do not hold Israeli citizenship, a central plank of Zionism is the unity of the Jewish people. Many Jews in and outside of Israel have protested "not in our name" regarding Israeli government policies. Many more believe that this has nothing to do with them, not unlike ordinary Muslims who believe they shouldn't have to answer for the actions of Islamic militants. And many support or defer to Israeli government actions.
The book closes with Lipstadt counselling Joe not to be afraid, as a non-Jew, to call Israel out when he believes it has crossed a line. Sage advice for Jews as well.
Geoffrey Brahm Levey is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New South Wales.