ANTI-SEMITISM The Longest Hatred [Reprint ed.] 9780679409465, 0679409467

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Antisemitism

by the same author Hitler’s Apocalypse The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph Socialism and the Jews Trotsky: Fate of a Revolutionary Who’s W h o in Nazi Germany Between Redemption and Perdition Revolutionary Jews from Trotsky

Antisemitism The Longest Hatred

Robert

S . Wistrioh

Pantheon Books

New York

Pour Dany L’amour

vaincra

afi

Mt Copyright © 1991 by Robert S. Wistrich, Rex Bloomstein and Thames Television plc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Methuen London i n 1991.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Bat Ye’or for permission to reprint material from her published lecture, Oriental Jewry and the Dhimmi Image in Contemporary Arab Nationalism (Geneva, 1979, p. 3), given at Jews College, London o n September 5 , 1 9 7 8 (Chairman: Sir Harold Wilson). Reference is also made to her works The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, New Jersey, London and Toronto, 1 9 8 5 a s well as her most recent publication Les Chretientes d ’Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmitude: VIIe-XXe siecle, Paris, 1991. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wistrich, Robert S., 1945— Antisemitism : the longest hatred / Robert S. Wistrich. .. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-679-40946-7

1. Antisemitism. DSl45.W55 909'.04924—dc20

I. Title. 1992

91—53083

Manufactured i n the United States of America First American Edition

Contents

List o f Illustrations

Vii

Author’s Note Acknowledgements Introduction

x xi xv

Part 1

l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

FROM T H E C R O S S TO T H E SVVASTIKA

Pagan Roots of Antisemitism Church and Synagogue The Medieval Legacy Modern Secular Anti-Judaism Antisemitism in Central Europe Hitler's ’Final Solution’ After Auschwitz: the German Response The Waldheim Syndrome

Part 2

3 13 29 43 54 66 78 88

E N E M I E S O F T H E PEOPLE

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Britain: the Limits of Tolerance America: Whites, Blacks and Jews France: from Dreyfus to Le Pen East European Nationalisms Poland: Antisemitism without Jews The Soviet Disunion

101 11 4 126 145 157 171

Part 15. 16. 17. 18.

3 BETWEEN M O S E S A N D M O H A M M E D 195 Jews in Islamic Lands Conspiracies and Holy Wars 222 The Question of Palestine 240 252 Arabism, Semitism and Antisemitism

Notes

269

Glossary Select Bibliography

309 318

Index

328

List of lllust ‘ations

Relief from the Arch of Titus in Rome. lb

2a

P a u l arguing with t h e J e w s .

Bible illustration showing two Jews being put to the sword.

2 b Statues o n the facade of Strasbourg Cathedral. 3 a The alleged ritual murder of Simon of Trent. 3 b The six children of Regensburg. 4a

A compulsory conversion sermon in Rome.

4b Martin Luther holding a Hebrew book. 5a

A German Jewess wearing the obligatory Jew-badge.

S b The Frankfurt Judensau.

The plundering of the Judengasse in 1614. 7 a ’Jewish greed.’ Manchester, 1773. 7b ’ S o l o m o n a m u s i n g himself w i t h two attractive Christian

girls.’ 8a Wagner t r i u m p h a n t . 8b Caricature of a German Jewish capitalist, 1 9 0 7 . 9 a The consequences of t h e French Revolution. 9b French election poster for the antisemitic Adolphe

Willette. 9 c Alfred Dreyfus, R e n n e s , 1 8 9 9 .

1 0 a The five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild. 1 0 b ’The Jewish d a n g e r ’ , from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

German antisemitic electoral poster from 1920. 1 1 b Public humiliation in Hamburg on charges 11a

of

Rassenschande. 1 2 a ’The Jewish c h i l d r e n a n d teacher a r e e x p e l l e d from

schooL’ vii

Illustrations

1 2 b ’ O n e - w a y street — t h e Jews are o u r misfortune.’ 1 2 c ’Jews are not wanted here.’

1 3 a Nazi pickets outside a Jewish shop, 1933.

1 3 b A pillaged Jewish shop i n Berlin, 1938. 1 4 a President Reagan visits Bitburg cemetery i n M a y 1985. 1 4 b German neo-Nazis carrying posters of Rudolf Hess, 1 8

August 1990. 1 5 a The K u K l u x Klan i n t h e United States. 1 5 b A British movement supporter i n London, 1980. 1 6 a Hoveniersstraat i n Antwerp after the 1 9 8 1 bomb attack. 1 6 b The leader of t h e French Front National, Le Pen, 1987. 17

A poster of Trotsky, 1919.

1 8 a Pogrom victims i n Kiev, 1917.

1 8 b ’Counter-revolutionary 19a 19b 19c 20a 2 0b 21a

21b 22a

22b 22c 23a 23b 24

vermin’: Moscow show trials, late 19305. The Doctors’ Plot, 1953. Trud cartoon, 1 8 January 1972. A y o u n g Pamyat supporter, Moscow, 1990. Wooden cross outside t h e walls of Auschwitz, 1989. Poland’s only rabbi, Menachem Joskowitz. The meeting i n Berlin between Haj A m i n a n d Adolf Hitler o n 2 8 November 1941. Antisemitic books outside o n e of Cairo’s m a i n bookshops, 1986. Egyptian cartoon, 1947. ’Instructions for t h e u s e of the Star of David.’ Cartoon of ltzhak S h a m i r dictating American policy, 1987. The jacket of The Matzah of Zion, published i n 1983. K u r t Waldheim a s seen by Filastin-el-thaura, 1986. A Hassidic Jew i n t h e M o u n t of Olives cemetery.

Illustrations

The publishers are grateful to t h e following for permission to reproduce t h e illustrations. All possible care has been taken to trace a n d acknowledge t h e sources of illustrations. If a n y errors have accidentally occurred, however, we shall be happy upon notification to correct them i n any future editions of this book. The Ancient Art a n d Architecture Collection: 1a; Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1985): l b ; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris: 2a; Archive Dr Tim Gidal: 2 b , 8a (Puck, Leipzig, 1876), 8b, 1 1a; Beth Hatefutsoth, University of Tel-Aviv: 3a; Professor Moshe Lazar: 3b, 7b; Offentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel (Hieronymus Hess, 1829): 4a; Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, Marburg (Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1 5 6 0 ) : 4b; M u s e u m d e r Stadt, Worms: 5 a ; Historisches Museum, Frankfurt au Main: 5b, 10a; Anne Frank Foundation, Amsterdam: 6 , 16b; Eduard Fuchs, Die Juden in der Karikatur (Munich, 1921): 7 a , 9a, 9b; The Hulton-Deutsch Collection: 9c, 11b, 12c, 13a, 15b; Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the World Jewish Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion London, 1967): 10b; Wiener Library, London: 12a, 12b; Popperfoto: 13b, 14b; ANP-foto, Amsterdam: 14a, 16a; Stern Syndication: 15a; David King Collection: 17, 18b; Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem: 18a; School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London: 19a; Simon Wiesenthal Center Archives, Los Angeles, Ca: 19b, 21b, 22c, 2 3 a ; Katz Pictures: 19c; Associated Press: 20a, 20b; Embassy of Israel, The Hague: 21a; Judith Vogt, Historien om et image Antisemitisme og Antizionisme i Karikaturer (Oslo, 1 9 7 8 ) : 2 2 a , 2 2 b ; Der Spiegel: 2 3 b ; F r a n k Spooner Pictures (Esais Baitel): 2 4 .

ix

Author’s Note

This work originated o u t of a major three-part television d o c u m e n t a r y series, The Longest Hatred, first shown o n T h a m e s Television. Rex Bloomstein, t h e director a n d producer of t h e series, is a p r o m i n e n t TV documentary fi l m m a k e r w h o s e work includes Traitors to Hitler, Auschwitz and the Allies, The Gathering, a n d Jewish Humour— American Style. I h a d t h e privilege of collaborating closely with Rex Bloomstein i n t h e making of t h e fi l m , a n d gratefully acknowledge his encouragement, advice, a n d valuable h e l p i n facilitating t h e writing of this book accompanying t h e series. RW

Acknowledgements Written to accompany

t h e Thames Television series o n

antisemitism, The Longest Hatred, with which I have been closely associated as historical adviser, this book's origins go back much further to my long-standing concern with the nature of antisemitism, which already found expression in several of my earlier articles a n d books. Although there have been a number of important scholarly books published o n this subject during the past twenty years, they have been mainly confined to a particular aspect of t h e problem, to a single country or to a d e fi n i t e period of history, whether ancient,

medieval o r modern. What has been lacking is a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon by a n individual author which would trace t h e entire history of antisemitism from its

beginnings until t h e present day, in a form accessible to the non-specialist reader. My decision to embark upon this difficult enterprise was not taken on a sudden impulse. It was given crucial encouragem e n t by S i m o n W i e s e n t h a l , w h o first proposed, five years ago, t h a t I examine t h e history of t h e l i n k between antisemitism a n d a n t i - Z i o n i s m . With h i s forceful personality a n d persuasiveness h e convinced m e ( n o t that I needed m u c h

convincing) of t h e urgency of this task. His support was reinforced by a grant from the Vidal Sassoon International C e n t r e for t h e S t u d y of Antisemitism a t t h e Hebrew University

of Jerusalem. I a m grateful to the Centre a n d its Director, Dr S h m u e l A l m o g ( w h o s e o w n important work i n t h i s field a n d

courteous advice I greatly value), for their patience. xi

Acknowledgements

My initial research, without which this book could never have been written, was undertaken a t a number of archives a n d libraries whose assistance I a m happy to acknowledge. They include t h e National Library, t h e Central Zionist Archives a n d t h e Archives of t h e History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem; the Wiener Library in Tel Aviv and London; the Bibliotheque Nationale, t h e Archives of t h e Alliance Israélite Universelle a n d t h e Centre de Documentation Juive in Paris; t h e Centre d e Documentation Moyen-Orient, Geneva; t h e Austrian National Library in Vienna; t h e Public Record Office, t h e British Library, University College Library a n d the Institute of Jewish Affairs i n London; S t A n t o n y ’ s Middle East C e n t r e i n

Oxford a n d the Kressel Archive in Yarnton; Harvard University Library, Boston; t h e Archives of t h e American Jewish Committee, New York; t h e Library of Congress, Washington, DC; a n d t h e Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles. What appears in this book is a highly condensed a n d concentrated version of this research, aimed a t the interested general reader without encumbering him or her with a n unnecessarily massive scholarly apparatus or a n overly dry, academic approach. Nevertheless, I have tried to avoid any oversimplification by sticking to a historical method that emphasises t h e continuities in antisemitism even though the central thrust of t h e book is a n analysis of its contemporary. m a n i f e s t a t i o n s . I have been a i d e d i n walking this tightrope of

interlocking past a n d present by my own pedagogical experience in teaching related courses at the Hebrew University a n d abroad. The book would not have taken its present form without the encouragement of my friend a n d colleague Rex Bloomstein, who invited me a year ago to collaborate with him o n making a three-hour television documentary o n the topic, which proved to be a n immensely challenging, if exhausting, project. This involved countless interviews, travel to many countries, t h e viewing a n d discussion of films, videos, transcripts, xii

Acknowledgements

reports, surveys and recent scholarly research relevant to the topic. Rex Bloomstein n o t o n l y gave m e full access to this

valuable raw material but, with his inexorable enthusiasm for t h e subject, helped t o provide a n e w focus for m y own concerns. Working o n this project brought h o m e to m e i n a peculiarly graphic way t h e immediacy of t h e resurgence of antisemitism. I hope that this will b e reflected i n my text,

which seeks to combine scholarly rquirements with a certain freshness of approach.

I have acknowledged in the notes the many intellectual debts I owe t o specific individuals w i t h whom I have shared

ideas or crossed swords in argument over different aspects of this subject. I should like, however, to take this opportunity to thank those most immediately helpful to t h e completion of

this project under the special pressures of a television schedule. My thanks, therefore, go to Loyce Blackmur, Teresa

Cherfas, Mirelle Harris, David Hudson-Millman and Sophie Levey of the Nucleus television production team; Roger Bolton o f T h a m e s Television for his perceptive observations;

Michael May, Director of the Institute of Jewish Affairs for his discreet and valued assistance; Sara Drake of Thames Television and Anne Mansbridge of Methuen for their encouragement and belief that the task could be accomplished despite a punishing schedule; my mother for looking after m e during an extended stay in London; and above all my wife, Daniella, for h e r wonderful patience a n d unfailing support.

Hopefully, this book will encourage the general reader, whether puzzled, bewildered, intrigued or simply outraged at t h e persistence of antisemitism, to delve still further into this

painful, often shocking, yet perennially fascinating subject. Robert S . Wistrich London

January 1 9 9 1

xiii

Introduction

’Antisemitism’ is a problematic term, first i n v e n t e d i n t h e 1 8 7 0 5 by t h e G e r m a n journalist Wilhelm Marr to describe t h e

’non-confessional’ hatred of Jews and Judaism which he and others like him advocated. The movement which began at that t i m e i n Germany a n d soon spread to neighbouring Austria, Hungary, France a n d Russia was a self-conscious reaction to t h e emancipation of t h e Jews a n d their entry i n t o n o n - J e w i s h society. I n that s e n s e it appeared to b e a novel p h e n o m e n o n , since, as t h e early a n t i s e m i t e s were a t pains to stress, they were

not opposed to Jews o n religious grounds but claimed to be motivated by social, economic, political o r ’racial’ considerations. Religious hostility i n late nineteenth-century Europe was

regarded by many intellectuals as something medieval, obscurantist a n d backward. There was clearly a need to establish a n e w paradigm for anti-Jewishness which sounded more neutral, objective, ’scientific’ and in keeping with the liberal, enlightened Zeitgeist. After all, Jews by virtue of their emancipation had become equal citizens before the law in European societies which, formally a t least, had abandoned discrimination based o n religious differences. Antisemitism which grounded itself in racial a n d ethnic feelings provided a way around this problem. By focusing attention on allegedly permanent, unchanging characteristics of t h e Jews as a social a n d national group (which depicted them as being fundamentally ’alien' to their fellow citizens) t h e antisemites hoped to delegitimise Jewish equality. They sought to restore t h e XV

Introduction

social boundaries which h a d begun to disappear in Europe a n d they ultimately expected to return the Jews to their earlier pre-emancipated status. ’Antisemitism’ — a term which c a m e into general u s e a s part

of this politically motivated anti-Jewish campaign of the 18805 — w a s never directed against ’ S e m i t e s ' a s s u c h . The term

’Semitic' derived from the Biblical Shem, o n e of Noah's three sons, a n d designated a group of cognate languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Babylonian, Assyrian a n d Ethiopic, rather than a n ethnic or racial group. Similarly, the contrasting term ’Aryan' o r ’ I n d o - E u r o p e a n ’ , which became

popular a t this time, referred originally to t h e Indian branch of t h e Indo-European languages. Strictly speaking, ’Aryans' were people speaking Sanskrit a n d related languages who had invaded India in pre-historic times a n d subjugated its indigenous inhabitants. Indians and Iranians were ’Aryans’ b u t Germans a n d North Europeans certainly were not, a n y more than European Jews, who n o longer spoke Hebrew, could b e meaningfully described a s ’Semites'. Nevertheless, in the late nineteenth century this pseudoscientific nonsense became eminently respectable even among t h e European intellectual e’lites, so that the distinction between ’Aryan’ and ’Semite' was easily grafted o n to t h e much older distinction between Christian a n d Jew. As a result, for t h e last hundred years, the illogical term ’antisemitism’, which never really meant hatred of ’Semites’ (for example, Arabs) a t all, but rather hatred of Jews, has come to be accepted in general usage as denoting all forms of hostility towards Jews a n d Judaism throughout history. There is clearly a danger in using antisemitism in this overly generalised way, extending it to all times and places regardless of specific circumstances, differences between historical epochs a n d c u l t u r e s , o r o t h e r factors that might give t h e term

more specificity and critical sharpness. Antisemitism is not a natural, metahistorical o r a metaphysical phenomenon whose essence has remained unchanged throughout all its xvi

Introduction

m a n i f e s t a t i o n s over t h e c e n t u r i e s . N o r is it a n intrinsic part of t h e psychic structure of Gentiles, a k i n d of microbe o r v i r u s

which invariably attacks non-Jews, provoking the ’eternal hatred’ for the ’eternal people’. Such a theory, which has some roots in the Jewish tradition (’Esau hates Jacob’, the legacy of A m a l e k , etc.) a n d was adopted by early Zionists i n Eastern

Europe such as Pinsker, Lilienblum a n d Sokolow, is quite unhistorical.

It ignores t h e fact that Jews have often been welcomed by t h e surrounding society; t h a t their e q u a l i t y of s t a t u s a n d

integration was accepted as a binding legal a n d social principle i n m a n y countries d u r i n g t h e modern period; a n d it crucially

forgets that Jewish participation in cultural, scientific, economic a n d political life since the Western Enlightenment h a s i n many respects been a remarkable success story. If a n t i s e m i t i s m h a d really been a ’hereditary disease of t h e

Gentiles’, or been based on a n instinctive racial aversion t o Jews (as a n t i s e m i t e s sometimes claim), such a development

would have been impossible. Admittedly, there has also been a backlash t o Jewish integration, i n fl u e n c e o r success a t some

points in time — whether in first-century Alexandria a n d Rome, in medieval Muslim or Christian Spain, in fin-de-siecle Paris a n d V i e n n a o r i n Weimar Germany — b u t t h i s pattern h a s

definite historical causes and has nothing to do with a n y theory of i n n a t e G e n t i l e a n t i s e m i t i s m .

Any empirically valid discussion of antisemitism or hatred of Jews must, in my opinion, first of all come to terms with t h e problem of its historical c o n t i n u i t y a n d development. T h i s

necessarily leads us back to t h e Hellenistic era, when a widespread Jewish Diaspora first emerged which was quite distinctive i n t h e a n c i e n t w o r l d . Not only were t h e Jews t h e

only monotheistic minority in this pagan world, bearers of a doctrine of election which claimed that Judaism was t h e sole t r u t h , t h e supreme ethical teaching; n o t o n l y d i d t h e y persist

in their historic existence as a separate social a n d religious group; n o t o n l y d i d they refuse even to i n t e r m i n g l e w i t h t h e xvii

Introduction

Gentiles because of their own dietary laws, Sabbath observance a n d prohibition on intermarriage; above all, this unique Diasporic nation which had set itself apart asserted spiritual supremacy over the polytheistic majority. There is nothing surprising in the fact that such special characteristics a n d claims could provoke the hostility or resentment which one finds in Greek and Latin literature. To some extent this pre-Christian antisemitism looks like the normal, xenophobic prejudice which has prevailed between ethno-religious groups during virtually every period of history. B u t such a plausible conclusion ignores t h e unique

character of the Jewish Diaspora, its unusual social cohesion, compactness a n d religiously sanctioned exclusiveness. This

does not mean that the cause of antisemitism lay in the Jews themselves, b u t it can help u s to understand how the peculiar brand of social hostility which we call by this name first arose as one possible response (there were of course others, ranging from admiration to indifference) to the reality of Jewish exclusiveness. Pagan anti-Jewishness is important because it provided fertile soil for its Christian heirs, a n d it also reminds us that there was a significant form of hostility to Jews in Antiquity which preceded the birth of Christianity. Not a few early Christians had, for example, absorbed this Jew-hatred as a consequence of their pagan upbringing. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that Christianity would appear on the stage of history as a negation of Judaism in a much deeper sense than its pagan predecessors: that its theological polemics against Judaism were to be vital to its own identity far more than was the case for a n y other religion or c u l t u r e . No other religion,

indeed, makes the accusation that Christianity has made against the Jews, that they are literally t h e murderers of God. No other religion has so consistently attributed to them a universal, cosmic quality of evil, depicting them as children of t h e Devil, followers of Antichrist or as t h e ’synagogue of Satan'. The fantasies concerning Jews which were developed xviii

Introduction

in medieval Christendom, about their plotting to destroy Christianity, poison wells, desecrate the host, massacre Christian children o r establish their world dominion, represent a qualitative leap compared with anything put forward by their pagan precursors. Such charges, beginning with deicide, are peculiarly Christian, though in t h e twentieth century they have been taken u p by Islam as well as by secular political religions such as Nazism or Bolshevism which have exploited the fiction of a Jewish world conspiracy. Thus it is evident that Christian anti-Judaism a n d antisemitism did add a wholly new theological and metaphysical dimension to antisemitism which was absent in its pagan forerunners a n d quite distinct from t h e stigmatising or persecution of other minority groups. The pervasive i n fl u e n c e of

Christianity (from the fourth century AD), o n government, culture a n d society led to the marginalisation of t h e Jews and their institutionalised oppression. The Christian theology which had usurped the Divine Promises to the Jews and proclaimed the Church as God's Chosen Elect, cast Israel in the role of God’s forsaken, rejected and abandoned people — condemned to wandering and exile. In the writings of the Church Fathers the negation of t h e Jews’ religious a n d cultural values became a central motif. A n overwhelmingly negative stereotype of t h e ’deicide people’

was transmitted through theological writings, the sermons of the clergy, t h e mystery and Passion plays, folklore, ballads and the plastic arts. This hostile collective stereotype of a Jewish people bearing the mark of Cain, a nation of Christ-killers a n d infidels in league with t h e Devil, became deeply embedded in t h e Western psyche following t h e massacres of Jews during t h e Crusades. During the next few centuries, n e w a n d even more irrational myths were added, that of t h e Jew as a ritual murderer, desecrator of the Host wafer, a n agent of Antichrist, usurer, sorcerer a n d vampire. A s Christianity spread a m o n g all

the peoples of Europe, this devastating image crystallised until it was a n integral part of E u r o p e a n a n d Western c u l t u r e , a fact xix

Introduction

which more than a n y other accounts for the pervasiveness of antisemitism to this day. Jew-hatred no longer required any connection with real human relationships, indeed it no longer needed t h e presence of Jews a t all. The stereotype h a d acquired a cultural dynamic of its o w n , a s i n medieval England after t h e expulsion of 1290,

in Spain after the mass Jewish exodus of 1492, or in the ’Judaising' persecutions of Muscovite Russia. Even today, in post-Holocaust societies like Poland, Austria o r Rumania where there are very few Jews left, o n e finds a similar phenomenon of ’antisemitism without Jews'. Nothing could make clearer t h e fallacy that antisemitism can b e simplistically viewed a s a ’ n a t u r a l ’ o r even a ‘pathological' response to a concrete Jewish presence, t o Jewish activities, behaviour o r

traditions. The common denominator in all these societies is of course the impact of the Christian legacy a n d its translation over centuries into legalised discrimination, Jewish servitude, ghettoisation a n d the narrow economic specialisation of Jewry. Even where Jews converted in large numbers, as in late medieval Spain, the descendants of the converts were regarded with hostility a n d suspicion, leading to the Inquisition a n d ’purity of blood’ statutes that pointed t h e way to modern racial antisemitism. Not even the rise of humanism during the Renaissance a n d Reformation could successfully throw off t h e impact of t h e medieval image of the Jew. A reformer like Erasmus never dreamed of applying his humanist teachings on toleration to the Jews, who simply remained beyond t h e pale as far as he was concerned. Martin Luther, for his part, reiterated all the medieval myths about Jews, reinforcing rather than undermining them with a n apocalyptic fury a n d vehemence all h i s o w n . T h u s Luther’s a s s a u l t o n t h e Papacy a n d t h e whole fabric of the C a t h o l i c

Church, instead of liberating the Jews made his Protestant followers more suspicious of them. Had they not refused to convert even after the great German Reformer had revealed to XX

Introduction

them the pure, unadulterated word of God? Were they not secretly encouraging t h e ’ J u d a i s i n g ' Christian sects i n C e n t r a l

Europe? Were not t h e stubborn Jews in league with t h e M u s l i m Turks a n d perhaps even w i t h Rome i n s e e k i n g to destroy t h e n e w C h u r c h from w i t h i n ? If t h e Reformation failed to bring a n y d i m i n u t i o n of

antisemitism, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment offered, at least o n the face of things, a more promising prospect. There were Enlightenment writers who condemned t h e persecution of Jews as a way of attacking Christian intolerance. Their anticlericalism a n d concern for universal principles of h u m a n

rights led them to a new conception of the status of t h e Jews, which found expression i n t h e French Revolution of 1 7 8 9 . The Jews were n o t t o be emancipated a s a c o m m u n i t y b u t a s individual h u m a n beings, t h e a s s u m p t i o n b e i n g t h a t , once

oppression was removed, their distinctive group identity w o u l d disappear. There was n o sympathy a m o n g t h e French

revolutionaries for Judaism as such, which was generally viewed in Voltairean terms as a barbarous superstition. The Enlightenment a n d t h e French Revolution demonstrated that anti-Judaism a n d antisemitism did not require a specifically Christian source of inspiration a n d could even be animated by anti-Christian sentiments. Enlightened Europeans a n d their radical successors in the nineteenth century, o n the Left as well as the Right, were nevertheless still influenced by Christian stereotypes when they attacked Judaism or denounced t h e ’Jewish' origins of Christianity. Even w h o l l y secularised a n t i s e m i t e s like Voltaire, B r u n o

Bauer, Richard Wagner a n d Eugen Diihring always assumed that Christianity was a superior religion to Judaism and did not hesitate to draw on Christian teachings to reinforce their own c u l t u r a l o r racist perspectives. They i n h e r i t e d t h e p e r -

vasiveness of t h e Christian antagonism to Jewry while no longer believing in its scheme of salvation, which had still retained a n overriding commitment to t h e conversion of t h e Jews. T h i s development opened u p a d a n g e r o u s s i t u a t i o n xxi

Introduction

whose demonic possibilities only became fully apparent with the rise of Nazism. For although Christianity had provided the seedbed o n which Nazi racialist doctrines concerning the Jews could fl o u r i s h , t h e Church still provided t h e Jews with

a n exit. If a Jew converted h e was saved. There was n o need for the extermination of t h e Jews because they had their place, even if it was a subordinate and degraded one, in the Christian world-order. The Nazis took over all the negative anti-Jewish stereotypes i n Christianity b u t they removed t h e escape c l a u s e .

There was no longer a n y way in which even fully assimilated o r baptised Jews could fl e e from t h e sentence of death which

had been passed by t h e inexorable laws of race. In that sense, t h e ’Final Solution’, the purification of a world that was deemed corrupt a n d evil because of t h e very existence of t h e

Jews, went beyond even the most radical Christian solution to the ’Jewish Question’. Hitler and Nazism grew out of a Christian European culture, but that does not mean that Auschwitz was pre-programmed

i n t h e logic of Christianity.

Indeed, one could argue that the decline of religious belief by removing all moral restraints actually intensified the antisemitism which had been incubated for centuries under its protective shield. If anything, this released a n even more virulent Germanic strain of the same virus which ultimately turned o n Christianity itself as o n e of the prime symptoms of the so-called ’Judaisation’ of Western civilisation. Antisemitism did not disappear with t h e Holocaust any more than it has been eradicated by secular universalist ideologies like Soviet Communism o r indeed Zionism, which proposed to ’normalise’ the Jewish status by creating a n independent nation-state in Israel. The image of t h e Jew as a n o u t s i d e r , a nonconformist, a n anomaly a n d a n irritant h a s

survived t h e rise a n d fall of all the secular ideologies of t h e nineteenth a n d twentieth centuries. Antisemitism, too, has adapted itself to t h e post-war s i t u a t i o n of Jewry, transformed

by the creation of Israel, by t h e Cold War and by the response xxii

Introduction

of the Arab a n d Islamic world to t h e challenge of a nonMuslim, non-Arabic-speaking Jewish state in its midst. These new factors have, if anything, heightened t h e usefulness of a n t i s e m i t i s m a s a weapon t h a t c a n b e exploited for t h e most protean purposes. F u n d a m e n t a l l y irrational myths like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have found a new lease on life i n the post-war era and are still widely believed i n the Arab world seventy years after t h e i r d e fi n i t i v e exposure a s a forgery. A s Hitler p u t it i n Mein Kampf i n 1 9 2 4 : ’The Frankfurter Zeitung

repeats again a n d again that t h e Protocols are forgeries. This alone is evidence of their authenticity.’ Much t h e same might b e said today by certain Arab nationalists, Islamic f u n d a mentalists, Russian a n t i s e m i t e s o r European a n d American neo-Nazis. A tissue of lies they m a y b e , b u t i n terms of t h e i r

effect t h e Protocols might just as well have been true. For wherever there is a will to believe, events can be made to fit even into t h e paranoid vision of t h e Jewish world conspiracy, with its geo-political centre in Zion a n d its secret affiliates supposedly operating throughout t h e globe. The modern antisemitic imagination has been coloured for over a century by gloomy, apocalyptic prophecies of t h e coming victory of the omnipotent Jew. A demonic, mythical creature whose undeviating will to destroy the Gentiles is assumed to lie behind all the negative processes of change a n d provides a seductively simplistic explanation for a world out of joint — whether it be fear of pollution by alien, ’inferior’ races; t h e angst

provoked b y class struggle, ethnic a n d religious

conflict, the levelling tendencies of mass society; t h e hatred of capitalism o r of Communism, of modern urban civilisation o r of liberal, pluralist democracy; t h e belief in sinister occult forces (freemasons, Jews, etc.) working to undermine order, hierarchy, authority a n d tradition; or else t h e fear of a spiritual vacuum induced by t h e decline of Christianity o r Islam in a world of rapid m o d e r n i s a t i o n a n d social change. The s a m e

delirious causality, developed during t h e Christian Middle Ages, appears to h a u n t t h e modern a n t i s e m i t i c discourse. T h e xxiii

Introduction

principle of evil is not in ourselves. It comes from t h e outside, from the insidious ’other’, it is the product of conspiracy a n d of devilish forces whose incarnation is the mythical Jew. A century ago, it might b e Edouard Drumont’s cryptic formula, ’All comes from t h e Jew, all returns to the Jew’, Wilhelm Marr’s prophecy

of Finis

Germaniae or Houston

Chamberlain’s vision of Teutons a n d Jews locked in a relentless battle of Destiny. Fifty years ago it was Hitler’s either-or polarisation of the struggle for world hegemony between ’Aryans’ a n d ’Semites’; followed in 1952 by the dying Stalin’s vision of ’rootless cosmopolitans’ a n d Jewish ’poisoners’ i n the service of Wall Street capitalism a n d Western intelligence services ( t h e Doctors’ Plot); t h e n came t h e post-Stalin imagery

of the ’world Zionist corporation’ with its octopus-like tentacles reaching o u t to subvert the ’socialist camp’ and forestall Third World national liberation movements; more recently we have seen the efforts of Arab dictators or Islamic theocrats (Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Khomeini, etc.) to unite the Muslim masses against the deadly threat of a Zionist-imperialist ’cancer’, said to be threatening to extirpate their existence.

In all these cases we find across the cultural and political divides a n astonishingly similar conspiracy theory of history, society a n d politics, integrated into a closed system of belief a n d salvationist politics whose eschatological drive is always, directed against the Jews. This is a murky apocalyptic fantasyworld, imbued with sadistic visions and coloured a t times by occult sectarianism, permeated with notions of retributive punishment o n a cosmic scale if the implacable enemy is not eradicated in time. Yet this negative millenarianism, with its vision of t h e satanic, ubiquitous, immoral a n d all-powerful Jews or scheming Zionists, is often harnessed to a cold, calculating political a g e n d a ,

t u r n i n g a n t i s e m i t i s m into a

crucial lever of mass mobilisation a n d totalitarian control. Did not Hitler tell Hermann Rauschning that it was from t h e Protocols that h e had learned the methods of ’political intrigue, xxiv

Introduction

t h e technique of conspiracy, revolutionary subversion, a s w e l l

as prevarication, deception a n d organization"? Any attempt to analyse the resurgence of antisemitism in so many parts of the globe, less than fifty years after the Holocaust, must come to grips with this miasma of nightmarish paranoia, millennial fantasy, homicidal hatred a n d sheer political cynicism. It m u s t always take i n t o account t h e

special a n d peculiar Christian hatred of the Jew that ultimately derives from the a m b i g u o u s origins of Christianity a n d its

obsession with the non-recognition by the Jewish people of Christ as the true Messiah. It has to take cognisance of the seething hatreds unleashed in a radicalised Islam, not only against Israel a n d Zionism, but also against Judaism a n d t h e Jews, whose history is n o w b e i n g vilified b y some M u s l i m s i n a fashion previously u n k n o w n . I t h a s to deal w i t h t h e u n r a v e l -

ing of the Messianic vision of Communism in Central a n d Eastern Europe which has generated a revival of ’national' a n d ’Christian' values against the intangible cabal of ’cosmopolitan’ a n d ’godless’ conspirators, still allegedly striving for world domination. This free-floating antisemitism, for which t h e actual presence of Jews is almost immaterial, thrives o n archetypal fears, anxieties a n d reflexes that seem to defy any rational analysis. More alarming still is the advanced state of decay within the Communist heartland of the Soviet Union, where the ground appears to be burning under the feet of the still substantial Jewish minority. Trapped in a crossfire of nationalist hysteria, ethnic conflicts, mass deprivation a n d the possibility of civil war as internal centrifugal forces undermine t h e arthritic colossus of Communist power, Soviet Jewry is fleeing en masse to t h e Jewish homeland of Israel. Not even the Scud missiles of t h e Iraqi dictator can stay t h e e x o d u s from t h e bleak d e s p a i r of

the ’socialist’ fatherland, to which Soviet Jews had once given t h e i r life-blood a n d intellectual energies. I n t h e light of t h e s e m o m e n t o u s t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s a n d t h e c o n t i n u i n g t h r e a t of a n t i s e m i t i s m , t h e historian m i g h t well b e XXV

Introduction

tempted to question the value of rational analysis a n d t h e applicability of t h e normal tools of his trade. Is this phenomenon really susceptible to the rules of logic and historical evidence? Is antisemitism ultimately explicable any more than we can explain the mystery of Jewish survival a n d t h e t e n a c i o u s clinging to a vocation a n d a n identity that h a s

exacted so high a price in trials a n d tribulations over t h e centuries? Is there really anything new in the endless accusations that have echoed across t h e centuries from Haman to Hitler? Is there any meaning to b e extracted from the myths, the stereotypes, the fantasies and obsessions that have characterised the antisemitic discourse for more than two millennia? Is there a n y answer to t h e agonising question of why this people has been subjected to such a seemingly unending catalogue of persecution a n d discrimination? The historian cannot in my View give any definitive reply to these questions. What h e can do is to provide as lucid a n account as possible of the path along which different antiJewish traditions have been transmitted. He can examine their continuities a n d metamorphoses according to changing conditions; he must try to illuminate t h e mechanisms a n d consequences of antisemitism i n different social, c u l t u r a l a n d

political contexts. While recognising the astonishing longevity and persistence of t h e phenomenon, the similarity and even repetitiveness of much of the antisemitic discourse, h e must also be alive to its adaptability to new circumstances a n d its constant capacity for renewal. There is no universal key to the understanding of antisemitism, nor should it be seen as a completely intractable phenomenon of equal intensity at different times and in different places. The historian may be u l t i m a t e l y u n a b l e t o e x p l a i n t h e ’ w h y ’ of t h i s extraordinarily

complex phenomenon, but if he can demonstrate ’how' it came t o develop into what w e are witnessing today, then that, too, is a measure of progress.

xxvi

Part 1

From T h e C r o s s

to t h e S w a s t i k a

Pagan Roots of Antisemitism The relative importance of antisemitism in pagan Antiquity has long been a source of contention a n d disagreement among historians. Not only are t h e sources a n d documentation often fragmentary and t h e uncertainties manifold but t h e term itself — in so far as it evokes a n irrational, deeply rooted hatred of Jews more typical of the Middle Ages or of t h e modern world — may be misleading when applied to Antiquity. Certainly, racial antagonism of the kind presupposed by the modern concept of ’antisemitism’ pioneered in the nineteenth century does not appear to have existed in the ancient world. Nor does religious hostility of t h e type exemplified by the Christian Middle Ages ( a n d to a lesser extent by Islam) seem t o have been a decisive factor.1 Economic grievances a g a i n s t t h e wealth of t h e Jews or

against their middleman role were also far less significant in Antiquity than they would become in later periods, though one may assume that human greed was, even then, a n element i n hatred of Jews a t t h e popular level. Nevertheless,

many of t h e arguments that belong to t h e arsenal of medieval and modern antisemites had already surfaced in t h e Hellenistic and Roman literature about Jews, demonstrating the

longevity and persistence of the phenomenon itself.2 The emergence of antisemitism in history must, however, be distinguished from t h e ’normal' kinds of territorial conflict o r hostilities between rival powers that have always characterised human history, including that of the Jews in their own homeland. Only after the beginning of their Dispersion, especially i n t h e third century BC, do we fi n d responses t o t h e 3

From t h e C r o s s t o t h e S w a s t i k a

Jewish Diaspora in t h e Hellenistic world which reflect through t h e prism of antisemitic discourse the uniqueness of t h e p h e n o m e n o n which it represented. At t h e simplest level this uniqueness was exemplified by t h e very persistence of t h e Jews in their historic existence as a distinct social a n d religious group in exile. Instead of intermingling with Gentiles a n d assimilating into t h e dominant Hellenistic culture, they insisted o n preserving t h e i r own monotheistic religion, t h e i r

dietary laws, their separate life-style and above all their selfconscious pride i n t h e i r special vocation a s a people c o v e n a n -

ted by God. Something of t h e murderous resentment which this attitude could provoke may well be preserved in the Biblical Book of Esther. This quintessentially Diasporic tale probably reflects Hellenistic reactions to t h e Jews i n t h e second century BC

rather t h a n t h e realities of t h e Persian Empire four centuries earlier. What is particularly interesting is t h e discourse of Haman, t h e archetypal persecutor of Jews, whose name is forever execrated by t h e stamping of feet a n d shaking of children's rattles in t h e synagogues during t h e Festival of Purim: for Haman, enraged that the Jew Mordechai ’bowed not, nor did h i m reverence’, sought to destroy all t h e Jews in t h e Persian Kingdom, arguing that they persisted in observing their own laws, refusing to commingle or to worship either the imperial authority o r t h e national gods. The archetypal story recorded in t h e Book of Esther reminds us that for many Jews (and not only the orthodox) antisemitism is perceived as being virtually coextensive with the history of t h e Jewish nation. For orthodoxy this is symbolised by a n ancient midrash in which it is said that t h e Lord offered t h e n a t i o n s of t h e world t h e Torah

( t h e religious com-

mandments) which each of them rejected for a different reason. S o t h e Torah was given o n M o u n t S i n a i to t h e Jews i n s t e a d a n d hatred of Israel (Sin ’at Yisrael i n t h e Hebrew root) was s i m u l t a n e o u s l y g i v e n t o all t h e n a t i o n s . According t o t h i s m e t a - h i s t o r i c a l e x p l a n a t i o n , which presupposes t h a t t h e very 4

Pagan Roots of A n t i s e m i t i s m

existence of the Jewish people a n d its religious vocation arouses G e n t i l e hatred (’Esau hates Jacob’ o r the ’eternal hatred for t h e E t e r n a l People’ i n its s e c u l a r v a r i a t i o n ) , a n t i -

semitism is fated to exist until the end of time.3 One might indeed go back to the Exodus from Egypt a n d see in Pharaoh’s decree to kill the Israelite first-born male children a n antisemitic act. But such a n approach, however appealing it may be to the advocates of the thesis of ’eternal antisemitism’, tends to replace history with myth and is contradicted by much of the Jewish experience from A n t i q u i t y through to modern

times.4 What is, however, significant is that the story of the Exodus was malevolently rebutted as early as the third century BC by Manetho, a n Egyptian priest who was one of the first antisemitic polemicists of A n t i q u i t y . His hostile account,

repeated by the Alexandrian Apion (who synthesised the Egyptian a n d Greek brands of antisemitism), presented the Hebrews as a race of lepers who had been cast o u t of Egypt in the days of Moses.5 Already in Alexandria, in the three centuries before the Christian era, o n e finds a seedbed of pagan antisemitism in which accusations which would echo across the centuries are rehearsed by the Graeco-Egyptian intelligentsia of the age. Jewish civilisation is depicted as sterile, having produced nothing useful o r great; the Jews are a superstitious, ’godless’ people who worship a n ass’s head in their Temple in Jerusalem; once a year they kidnap a Gentile Greek, who is fattened in order to be eaten by their deity in his Holy of Holies (the first ritual murder charge against Jews known to history). Above all the Jews are exclusivist, their separatism is a n expression of misanthropy a n d hatred of the gods.

These a r e charges that Apion would carry with him from Alexandria to Rome where they would recur i n t h e writings of s o m e of t h e great n a m e s of Latin l i t e r a t u r e : S e n e c a , J u v e n a l

a n d t h e historian Cornelius Tacitus. Echoes of this antis e m i t i s m c a n b e f o u n d , too, i n t h e e n t o u r a g e of A n t i o c h u s 5

From t h e C r o s s t o the Swastika

Sidetes, the Seleucid ruler who had besieged Jerusalem in 133 BC. His advisers reminded him of the concentrated assault o n Judaism by his predecessor Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 Bc) w h o h a d sacrificed a swine o n t h e altar at Jerusalem a n d sprinkled its juices over t h e Torah statutes that h e regarded as

inimical to humanity. They even counselled Antiochus Sidetes to completely destroy the Jewish people, since i t alone refused to associate w i t h other peoples.6 In Alexandria itself, the most advanced point of the Hellenised world outside Greece, the Jews, who represented almost 40 per cent of the city's population, had been in sociopolitical competition with the Hellenised Egyptians. This was the background to the popular antisemitism that exploded into a veritable pogrom in t h e year AD 38 at a time when Caligula

was Emperor in Rome. The Jews were accused of being unpatriotic and even of manifesting dual loyalties o n the occasion of a visit to Alexandria by the Jewish King Agrippa I. But the real cause was the long-standing resentment at their position of privilege, their wealth and their power, whipped up by professional agitators and abetted by the inaction of the R o m a n governor Flaccus. Again i n AD 6 6 Alexandria erupted

following news of the Judean revolt against the Romans, and once more the target of hostility was the equal rights and the special religious

privileges

granted to t h e Jews.7 The question

which was raised here was not in itself ’antisemitic’ — namely, i f the Jews wished to be Alexandrian citizens why did they not worship the same gods as everybody else? But the scale and severity of t h e riots clearly pointed t o t h e depth of popular

hatred for Jews and Judaism. Vulgar and intellectual antisemitism in the Hellenistic world could constantly draw on the fact that no other nation apart from the Jews so consistently refused to acknowledge the gods of its neighbours, partake in their sacrifices and send gifts to t h e i r temples, let alone eat, drink

or intermarry with them. As

i f to compound the insult, these ’haters of mankind’ claimed superiority over the ’heathen’ i n the religious sphere and were 6

Pagan Roots o f A n t i s e m i t i s m

engaged in a vast a n d rather successful proselytising campaign. As with much of the Roman antisemitism which developed in t h e first century AD t h e Graeco-Egyptian a n t i - J e w i s h litera-

ture, epitomised by intellectuals like Apion, Lysimachus a n d Chaeromon (an Egyptian priest, Stoic philosopher and one of Nero’s i n s t r u c t o r s ) was partly a reaction to t h i s i n t e n s i v e

Jewish campaign of conversion.8 H e n c e , t h e o t h e r face of a n t i s e m i t i s m i n t h e Graeco-Roman world was u n d o u b t e d l y t h e s h e e r power of attraction exerted

o n the pagan mind by Judaism as a transcendent monotheistic faith a n d rational code of ethics. Apart from those who loathed Judaism or were indifferent to it, there were also growing numbers who did fully embrace it as converts or else engaged in Judaising practices. Only thus can o n e explain how Jews came to number some ten million (10-12 per cent of t h e total population) in the Roman Empire at the beginning of t h e Christian era. Roman government attitudes to this large and influential community, while often punctuated by persecution and soured by the Jewish revolts (in Palestine and beyond) against Roman rule, were more often characterised

by tolerance and even alliance with the Jews.9 Admittedly, both Titus and Vespasian refused the honorary titles of ’Judaicus’ following t h e i r victory i n J u d e a ( n o d o u b t because of t h e negative connotations l i n k e d to it) a n d t h e

Emperor Hadrian, a zealous Helleniser, sought to eradicate Judaism for good by erecting a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina, in Jerusalem. But neither Titus nor perhaps even Hadrian were motivated by a rabid hatred of Jews a s s u c h , b u t rather by t h e

brutal logic of imperial repression directed against a rebellious foe. A l t h o u g h t h e Jews were t h e only subjects of t h e Empire to erupt t h r e e times i n t o revolt ( n o t o n l y i n J u d e a b u t a l s o i n t h e great Diaspora revolt of AD 1 15—17), a n d a l t h o u g h Hadrian d i d

in fact ban circumcision and other Jewish observances after the Bar-Kochba rising (AD 132—5), t h e policy of toleration was not fundamentally reversed. Already under Julius Caesar (100—44 Bc) Jews had been 7

From the Cross to t h e S w a s t i k a

showered with privileges and Cicero in his famous plea Pro Flacco (59 BC) observed how numerous they were in Rome, ’their clannishness, their influence in t h e assemblies’. Naturally such privileges, a n d t h e success of t h e Jews in winning converts to their religion, provoked t h e envy of their pagan neighbours. Judaism was indeed given exceptional status in t h e Roman Empire— Jews were, for example, exempt from having to follow many external acts of the Roman cult a n d they were permitted to observe their Sabbath without hindrance. Nevertheless, a vehement antisemitism did develop in Rome, especially in t h e late first century AD, which repeated some of t h e scurrilous accusations made in the Greek antiJewish literature produced in Alexandria, while adding some n e w motifs of its o w n . Some Latin authors, like the philosopher Seneca (who died in 6 5 3c), were angered by t h e great influence which radically distinctive Jewish customs such as t h e Sabbath (merely a day of idleness to his jaundiced

eye) had attained in Rome. '0 Opposed in general to the spread of oriental cults to the Roman world, Seneca depicted Judaism as a particularly harmful superstition a n d a humiliating example of how ’the vanquished [the Jews] had imposed their laws upon the victors [the Romans]'. The great rhetorician Quintillian shared Seneca’s negative view of t h e Jewish superstitio, as did m a n y of t h e leading satirists in Rome, above all Juvenal. He openly detested t h e Greek a n d oriental atmosphere which had begun to permeate Rome, a n d the attraction which Judaism had come to exert o n Roman youth. Juvenal, like o t h e r satirical contemporaries, emphasised t h e allegedly misanthropic character of t h e Jews, deriding circumcision and t h e dietary laws as barbaric and anti-Roman.ll However, it was t h e historian Tacitus, in his Histories (composed in the first decade of t h e second century AD), who represents t h e apogee of pagan R o m a n literary a n t i s e m i t i s m of t h e highbrow k i n d . Like J u v e n a l h e focuses o n t h e

misanthropy of t h e Jews, their separation a n d isolation from 8

Pagan Roots o f A n t i s e m i t i s m

the Gentiles: ’But toward every other people they feel only hatred a n d enmity. They sit apart at meals, a n d they sleep apart, a n d a l t h o u g h a s a race they a r e prone t o lust, they

abstain from intercourse with foreign women; yet among themselves nothing is unlawful.’'2 For Tacitus, J u d a i s m supposedly encourages d i s d a i n of t h e

gods, t h e abjuring of t h e fatherland; it means forgetting parents, brothers a n d children. Of all enslaved peoples, t h e Jews are t h e most contemptible a n d l o a t h s o m e , t h e i r customs

are both sordid a n d absurd.l3 Tacitus concludes that ’all that we hold sacred is profane to them; all that is licit to them is impure to us’. But it is clear that, as with Seneca a n d Juvenal, w h a t especially troubles Tacitus is t h e spreading of Judaism, its

penetration into various levels of Roman society, including even t h e upper ranks of m e n and women in t h e senatorial class. Pagan Judaising was in their eyes a threat to the traditional warrior virtues a n d life-pattern of Rome, a major symptom of its corruption a n d decadence. It was subversive of the self-confident ’Romanism’ of t h e establishment when even t h e Emperor Domitian’s c o u s i n Flavius C l e m e n s a n d h i s wife Flavia were convicted of ’athei‘sm’ ( w h i c h i n t h e context

meant Judaism or ’drifting into Jewish ways’) in AD 95. Among t h e masses, too, according to t h e Jewish historian Josephus, ’there is not o n e city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation, to which o u r custom abstaining from work on t h e seventh day has not spread, a n d where fasts a n d t h e lighting of lamps and m a n y of o u r p r o h i b i t i o n s i n t h e m a t t e r of food a r e n o t

observed."4 Even if we allow for some probable exaggeration i n t h i s description, t h e r e can be no doubt t h a t J u d a i s m a n d Jewish proselytism d i d exercise a n important i n fl u e n c e o n

Romans of t h e first century. It was above all this appeal which explains the upper-class antisemitism in some Roman literary circles.l5 But ambivalence rather than deep hostility remains i n most cases t h e more characteristic pagan Roman a t t i t u d e

towards Judaism. For example, t h e Emperor Julian, w h o came to power in AD 9

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

360, venerated t h e ’very great a n d powerful god’ of t h e Jews even a s h e echoes t h e classical pagan objections t o J u d a i s m :

that their Torah was in parts barbarous a n d ruthless, that they had been slavish throughout their history, that they were alien o r that they had made n o original contribution to philosophy o r science. Yet Julian was also attracted t o certain aspects of Judaism, h e announced a plan to rebuild t h e Jewish Temple in Jerusalem a n d on a number of occasions contrasted t h e godfearing Hebrews very favourably with t h e Christians.'6 S u c h examples were by n o m e a n s u n c o m m o n

among

pagans who generally respected t h e great antiquity of Judaism as against Christianity — which to more sceptical minds appeared as a parvenu religion a n d one which was, moreover, intellectually m u c h less convincing. Thus the notion that Gentiles brought with them a deep-seated antisemitism from t h e pagan world into Christianity would be difficult to sustain. At t h e same time it is undeniable that pre-Christian antisemitism was a social, cultural a n d political reality, centuries before t h e birth of Jesus. During t h e Hellenistic a n d Roman periods Jews did, for i n s t a n c e , e n c o u n t e r hostility from governments, t h o u g h they

were also supported a n d protected at various times by t h e Persians, by Alexander t h e Great, by t h e Ptolemies, t h e Seleucids a n d the Romans. They were at moments of intense crisis t h e victims of mob violence, especially in Alexandria, but at t h e s a m e time Judaism also had a certain appeal to t h e masses, especially in t h e late Roman world. Intellectuals, while never being uniformly hostile to Judaism or fully articulating a n antisemitic ideology, were however frequently antagonistic to t h e Jews for their alleged intolerance, their missionary zeal, their seditiousness, their credulity a n d above all their exclusivity. '7 This separatism led, as we have seen, to t h e most serious charge that t h e pagan world brought against t h e Jews a n d Judaism - namely that they hated t h e gods a n d t h e rest of mankind. For some Hellenes, thoroughly convinced of t h e i r o w n superiority over t h e n o n - G r e e k world, J u d a i c 10

Pagan Roots o f Antisemitism

separatism must have seemed like an intolerable affront by a culturally backward people t o the u n i t y of Hellenic

civilisation.

The fact, moreover, that Hebraic monotheism insisted on its own ’chosenness’ a n d cultivated a sense o f moral superiority over Gentiles aggravated t h e feelings o f resentment.

Many Romans shared this Hellenistic repugnance against Jewish exclusiveness and lack of respect for what was esteemed by the rest of humanity. But the patrician antisemites among them went further, for they began to fear Judaism as a source of subversion, the doctrine of a mere rabble, w h i c h in t u r n was swaying their own lower classes w i t h new anti-Roman ideas. The long-standing refusal o f

Jews to accept the imperial cult and to deify the state could only reinforce such sentiments. By the end of the first century AD all the libels in the older Greek antisemitic literature could be found i n Rome, depicting the Jews as degenerate outcasts, hated by the gods and men.'8 Christianity w o u l d eventually take over m a n y of these pagan

conceptions, which had become well-established by the time it appeared on the scene. For example, the pagan repugnance against circumcision, the rejection o f t h e Jewish dietary laws

and the Sabbath, the notion that Jews do not show reverence to the beliefs of others (though Christianity itself was almost as exclusivist a n d intolerant o f paganism as its Judaic forerunner) were all features that Christianity could

and did turn against Judaism. Christians could undoubtedly draw on a pre-existing strand of Judeophobia in the classical world, though without the original and far more vehement hostility to Judaism which Christianity itself brought forth it is rather unlikely that pagan antisemitism would have sustained itself. In comparison with the Christian charge of deicide (the killing of God’s only Son, a divine being whom H e h a d sent to redeem t h e w o r l d ) , pagan e n m i t y m i g h t

appear almost trivial — it simply never required the kind of religious and theological basis which was so central to its Christian heir. Indeed, for many pagans Christianity itself was 11

From

the Cross t o the S w a s t i k a

a t least a s offensive a s Judaism

(if n o t more s o ) i n its social

separateness and religious exclusivism. Furthermore, pagan attitudes were never motivated by t h e sibling rivalry between Judaism a n d Christianity as two a n t a g o n i s t i c m o n o t h e i s m s sharing a common Holy B o o k ( t h e

Hebrew Scriptures) a n d a similar set of symbolic references. There was a n important sense in which t h e legitimacy of C h r i s t i a n i t y came t o depend o n its successful usurpation of t h e Jewish heritage a n d its attempted demonstration t h a t J u d a i s m

had betrayed t h e divine message which had originally been

granted to it.19 Christians claimed to represent the true Israel, t o be chosen by God i n place of t h e blinded a n d obdurate Jews

who had gone astray. Pagan antisemitism, o n the other hand, remained essentially cultural rather t h a n theological o r racist, never developing t h e dynamic of institutionalised discrimination, stigmatisation a n d humiliation of t h e Jews which would b e t h e historic legacy of Christianity.

12

Church a n d Synagogue There is a n inner contradiction a t the heart of Christianity diagnosed a t t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h i s century by t h e Chief Rabbi

of Vienna, Moritz Giidemann, which may help to illuminate the paradox of Christian antisemitism. Giidemann wrote in 1907: ’The Christian kneels before the image of t h e Jew, wrings his hands before the image of a Jewess; his Apostles, Festivals, and Psalms are Jewish. Only a few are able to come to terms with this contradiction — most free themselves by antisemitism. Obliged to revere a Jew as God, they wreak vengeance upon t h e rest of the Jews by treating t h e m as devils." Jesus was born, lived and died as a Jew in first-century Roman Palestine. He never conceived nor dreamed of a Christian Church. His father, mother, brothers and first disciples were all Jews, so that early Christianity can be said to have been essentially a rebellious Jewish sect that emerged o u t of t h e matrix of Judaism a n d had to define itself against t h e mother religion. J e s u s , according t o C h r i s t i a n t e a c h i n g a n d

theology, was also t h e Son of God, sent by t h e Father into this sinful world i n order to a t o n e for t h e original s i n of m a n k i n d .

He was sent, naturally enough, to the Jewish people, for they were the historic people of Abraham, Moses and t h e Prophets with whom God had chosen to make his original Covenant. But Jesus, the glorious Messiah, who, according t o t h e Christian theological interpretation of t h e Hebrew Scriptures, h a d come t o redeem t h e world, d i e d ingloriously o n t h e cross —

crucified by t h e Roman occupying power — most probably as a 13

From the Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

troublesome J e w i s h agitator. However, t h e story of t h e death

of Jesus as told in t h e New Testament systematically shifts responsibility for his crucifixion from t h e Romans to his own people, t h e Jews. The first gospels, which were written after t h e Jewish revolt of AD 70 against Roman rule in Palestine, operate this fateful shift, partly for political reasons in order not to antagonise t h e Romans a n d partly to affirm t h e identity of a Christian movement that had arisen o u t of Judaism a n d was seeking to mark itself off from its origins. In the gospels we are offered, for example, the highly improbable spectacle of t h e Roman governor of Palestine, Pilate, offering to release Jesus (in whom h e can find no guilt) in exchange for a common criminal, Barabbas, but being unable t o d o so because of t h e large, mocking crowds of Jews who are baying for Jesus’s blood. In the New Testament (especially in t h e Gospel of John) not only are the Jews responsible for the death of Jesus t h e Messiah, but his crucifixion is presented as the logical consequence of their relentless, murderous hostility towards him. Throughout his ministry, the Jewish leaders have been antagonistic towards Jesus, refusing to believe in his divinity so that their betrayal of h i m to t h e Romans is n o longer s u r p r i s i n g . The consequences of t h i s C h r i s t i a n myth were,

however, incalculable, for by killing t h e Son of God, t h e Jews were deemed t o have become a n accursed people, their Temple was destroyed (as J e s u s had prophesied i n t h e Gospels) a n d t h e y were condemned to permanent e x i l e a n d w a n d e r i n g . Henceforth, it is t h e C h r i s t i a n C h u r c h which t a k e s o n t h e

mantle of t h e new Israel a n d becomes t h e recipient of t h e D i v i n e Promises to Abraham. As H y a m Maccoby h a s p u t it: ’All

t h e blessings of the Old Testament were regarded as applying to t h e Christian Church, while all t h e curses were allotted exclusively t o t h e J e w s : a n e a t division.’2 The personality most responsible for t h e d e t a c h i n g of J e s u s

from his Jewish background, for t h e shifting of guilt for t h e C r u c i fi x i o n from t h e Romans t o t h e Jews a n d for t h e i r 14

Church a n d Synagogue

stigmatisation as a God-rejected people was Paul, the true founder of Christianity. According to S t P a u l i n Thessalonians,

' . . . t h e Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus a n d the prophets a n d drove u s o u t , t h e Jews who a r e h e e d l e s s of God’s will a n d

enemies of their fellow-men, [are] hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles to lead them to salvation. All this time they have been making u p the full measure of their guilt, a n d now retribution has overtaken t h e m for good a n d all.’3 Here we can s e e t h a t n o t only are t h e Jews solely responsible for Christ’s

death, but that this horrendous act is in t u n e with their earlier alleged murders of t h e prophets, with t h e i r hatred of m a n k i n d ( a n echo of pagan a n t i s e m i t i s m ) a n d with t h e i r disobedience towards G o d . Equally, however, it m u s t b e noted that S t P a u l , though he sees himself a s Christ’s apostle to the Gentiles, is himself a n Israelite a n d i n h i s Epistle t o t h e Romans h e maintains that t h e

Jews are 'still beloved for t h e sake of their forefathers’.4 Yet it is this same Paul who insists that salvation is only possible through faith in the risen Christ, which has come to supersede the Torah. Outward observance of the commandments, obedience merely to t h e Law a n d good works are n o longer the path to redemption. On the contrary, they are a dispensation of death, they belong to the cursed sphere of t h e old, carnal Adam which separates mankind from the true, spiritual light of Christ, the aeon of the newly risen eschatological m a n . Baptism symbolises this n e w spiritual principle in contrast to t h e external a n d by now irrelevant mark of circumcision. It is solely faith a n d inward obedience to Christ which abrogate the Law — itself t h e sign of a n inferior, this-worldly and therefore superseded J u d a i s m . I n d e e d , i n P a u l ' s dualistic vision ( w h i c h provides t h e root for c e n t u r i e s of mystical Christian a n t i s e m i t i s m ) t h e G e n t i l e Christians — t h o u g h o n l y grafted o n t o t h e s t e m of Israel — become t h e t r u e elect of G o d . Spiritual m a n

transcends carnal m a n just as t h e gathered-in-Gentiles within t h e C h u r c h transcend t h e o l d M o s a i c C o v e n a n t . T h e O l d T e s t a m e n t is n o w merely a w i t n e s s t o t h e c o m i n g of Christ — 15

From t h e Cross t o the S w a s t i k a

the real and ultimate Revelation. In Paul’s doctrine Judaism has been absolutely superseded a n d no longer has a n y intrinsic validity.S The conversion of the Jews is, however, necessary as part of the last act in t h e economy of salvation which will allow the final ingathering of t h e elect. In the Gospel of John, the hostile resonance of the term ’the Jews’, as a n embodiment of everything that resists a n d rejects the light, is even more explicit, as is t h e portrayal of the malice of the Jewish authorities who persistently seek to kill t h e Messenger of God. John insists that Jesus is crucified by the Jews u n d e r Jewish Law a n d thereby corroborates t h e core of

the deicide charge concerning the ultimate religious crime of murdering God’s own essence a n d self-expression. The reason why ’the Jews’ wilfully seek to kill Christ is that they themselves are not of God but of the Devil: indeed they incarnate a hostile principle in the world. Thus we have already in the New Testament a theological form of diabolising the Jews which will later be expanded by the Church Fathers.6 Their anti-Jewish theories build upon the accusations in t h e gospels a n d also reflect the rivalry with Judaism for proselytes as t h e new faith spread into pagan circles. Early Christian religious fervour a n d Judeophobia become fused in the effort to prove that the young Church was t h e real heir of the divine promise a n d that ’Israel according to the flesh' (to use the Pauline language) had been outcast. In t h e third a n d fourth centuries AD, the Greek fathers of the Church, like Gregory of Nyssa a n d St John Chrysostom, who operated in areas where there was a large a n d influential Jewish population, were especially vehement in their anti-Jewish invectives. Chrysostom, for instance, tells his flock in fourth-century Antioch that wherever t h e Christ-killers gather

t h e cross is ridiculed, God blasphemed, t h e father unacknowledged, t h e son insulted, t h e grace of t h e Spirit rejected. . . . If the Jewish rites are holy a n d venerable, o u r way of life must be false. But if o u r way 16

Church a n d Synagogue

is true, a s indeed it is, theirs is f r a u d u l e n t . I a m not

speaking of the Scriptures. Far from it! For they lead one to Christ. I a m speaking of their present impiety and madness.7 Chrysostom’s diatribes, which reproached Jews with dissolute living, extravagance a n d gluttony a s well a s t h e supreme crime

of deicide, were clearly designed to discourage Gentiles from

continuing to frequent their Jewish neighbours.8 They reflect t h e deep-seated fear of t h e Church Fathers about the powerful impact of sermon a n d worship in the synagogue, which ultimately culminated in a n absolute prohibition by the Church o n Jewish proselytism in a n y form. B u t t h e c a l u m n y of t h e ’carnal’, ’lewd’ a n d materialistic

Jews in this early Christian literature would have more farreaching consequences down the centuries. It led to the creation of a monstrous, i n h u m a n stereotype constructed o u t

of theological abstractions a n d divorced completely from the real, concrete Jews of everyday life. C h u r c h Fathers like S t

John Chrysostom, St Ambrose, St Jerome and St Augustine (second only to St Paul as a Christian authority for the Western world) had by the e n d of the fourth century AD crystallised a demonic image of the Jew who combined superhuman malevolence with total spiritual blindness. Expanding on the Gospel of John, they portrayed t h e Jews as embodying Satan’s synagogue, as the sons of darkness. This was a n image that would be developed over more than a millennium in countless

sermons, in medieval drama, literature and the visual arts.9 The m o n k i s h , ascetic S t Jerome, embittered by t h e spectacle

of successful missionising in Antioch by the large Jewish population, denounced the synagogue in these terms: ’If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil’s refuge, Satan’s fortress, a place to deprave t h e soul . . . you are still saying less

than it deserves.’ '0 St Jerome, who had grown up in Rome but after various travels spent the last thirty-five years of his life in Bethlehem surrounded by Jews, was in m a n y ways t h e 17

From

the Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

prototype of that deeply neurotic, monastic kind of intellectual Christian in whom antisemitism a n d hatred of women coalesce. A morbid fear of all sexuality (which was identified w i t h l u s t , fi l t h a n d l i c e n t i o u s n e s s ) , t h e u n r e s t r a i n e d invective

against women a n d the downgrading of marriage to mere procreation were of a kind with t h e projection of all t h e repressed ’sinful’ (i.e. sexual) impulses onto the ’carnal' Jew. In sharp contrast to the more relaxed, naturalistic attitude of Judaism in sexual matters, love was portrayed by the Church Fathers as virginal, manly, asexual. Following the lead of St Paul, marriage a n d sex were negatively associated with sinful humanity a n d with the Old Testament. The Christian, however, was to follow t h e Gospel, for Christ was a m a n living without sex. Hence virginity became t h e Christian ideal while Judaism was linked to the sexual lusts of a wicked, carnal world. In this context, it seems significant that ascetic monks were so frequently in t h e forefront of Jew-baiting in succeeding centuries — during the Crusades i n t h e Rhineland, in medieval Spain a n d in Reformation Germany (to name only a few instances) — suggesting a possible link between intensely repressed sexuality, misogyny and antisemitism. The dualistic conceptions of flesh and spirit, body a n d soul, earthly a n d heavenly, sensual a n d intellectual which St Paul had bequeathed to t h e Christian Church reached their apogee in t h e writings of St Augustine, t h e immensely influential North African Church Father who lived at t h e e n d of t h e fourth century AD. His teachings had a dogmatic importance of t h e first order for the policy of t h e Popes a n d secular Christian rulers of the Middle Ages with regard t o the Jews. They served to underline that the Church had become the new chosen people, replacing t h e o l d Israel which h a d betrayed t h e t r u e

message of God - which it should, of course, have been the first to acknowledge. St Augustine even likened t h e Jewish people to Cain, the first criminal recorded in biblical history, who had murdered his own brother and merited death but instead had been condemned to wander unhappily ever after. The Torah is 18

Church a n d Synagogue

t h e m a r k of C a i n of t h e deicide people,

who have m i s -

interpreted their own Scriptures a n d continue to live in b l i n d n e s s a n d error. The Jews m i g h t deserve t o be eradicated for t h e i r crime, b u t S t A u g u s t i n e prefers t h a t they be preserved a s ’witnesses' to C h r i s t i a n t r u t h u n t i l t h e e n d of time, w h e n

they will turn to Christ at the Last Judgement.ll The Augustinian theology reinforced t h e notion of t h e Jews as a wandering, homeless, rejected a n d accursed people who were incurably carnal, blind to spiritual m e a n i n g , perfidious,

faithless a n d apostate. Their crime, being one of cosmic proportions, merited permanent exile a n d subordination to Christianity. Israel, t h e older son, must be made to ’serve' t h e C h u r c h , t h e y o u n g e r s o n , which is t h e t r u e h e i r a n d rightful

owner of the Divine Promises enunciated in the Old Testament. In S t A u g u s t i n e ’ s Contra Judaeos n o t o n l y C a i n , b u t a l s o Hagar, Ishmael a n d E s a u , symbolise t h e Jews who have been rejected, whereas t h e i r contrasting pairs, Abel, S a r a h ,

Isaac a n d Jacob, prefigure t h e election of t h e Church.'2 Thus the biblical heroes of the Old Testament are detached from Jewish history a n d t u r n e d i n t o a proof of t h e permanent a n d

irrevocable reprobation of Israel, whose evil nature will never c h a n g e . The blinded a n d dejected synagogue is left with t h e

empty vessel of t h e Law, while the beautiful, triumphant Ecclesia — a s depicted o n medieval cathedrals — radiates o n l y

truth a n d light. This theology is for t h e first time institutionalised in t h e fourth century AD, when Christianity becomes t h e official religion of t h e R o m a n E m p i r e . A n c i e n t privileges previously

granted to Jews are withdrawn, rabbinical jurisdiction is abolished o r greatly restricted, a n d proselytism becomes p u n i s h a b l e by d e a t h — a s i n d e e d a r e s e x u a l relations w i t h C h r i s t i a n w o m e n . Jews were henceforth t o b e e x c l u d e d from

pursuing military careers o r holding high office. Thus the inferiorisation of Jewish legal status became a n inexorable consequence of t h e growing power a n d influence of t h e Church o n t h e imperial government. The Codex Theodosianus l9

From the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

(AD 4 3 8 ) clearly reflects t h e spirit a n d sometimes even t h e

letter of the Church councils, denigrating Judaism as a ’wicked sect' a n d Jews as ’abominable’ while Christianity is referred to

as a ’venerable religion'.'3 The Justinian Code in the first half of the sixth century encroached on Jewish rights still further, virtually stripping Judaism of a n y legal protection, banning the Mishnah, closing synagogues in North Africa and decreeing that those who disbelieved in the Resurrection or the Last Judgement be put to death. Jews were in effect at the mercy of the ruler, increasingly excluded from normal life a n d reduced to a restricted number of occupations. Popular outbreaks of violence (including some Jewish a s s a u l t s o n Christians) a l s o occurred i n t h e first centuries of t h e Christian e r a . In AD 3 8 8 i n Mesopotamia, a Christian mob l e d

by a bishop burned the local synagogues. Their action was defended by St Ambrose, who vehemently reproached the Emperor Theodosius for ordering it to be rebuilt a n d successfully prevented this from happening. In Rome, in other parts of Italy, in Antioch, in Edessa, even in Africa, synagogues were also destroyed or converted into churches and Jews occasionally massacred. J ustinian’s oppressive legislation provoked Jews to take their revenge on Christians a t Caeserea in 556, a n d at the beginning of the seventh century to kill many Christians in Antioch. They a i d e d t h e Persian invaders i n bringing about the,

fall of Byzantine Jerusalem in AD 614, helping them t o lay waste to Christian homes a n d churches. Jews also welcomed t h e armies of Islam in t h e same century for similar reasons, as t h e y advanced upon t h e Christian orthodox world. I n AD 7 1 1 ,

when the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain was overrun, the Jews were especially j u b i l a n t , for o n l y a century e a r l i e r they had

been given a n ultimatum of baptism or exile by its Christian rulers. Under King Erwig (680—87), for example, draconian anti-Jewish laws were passed, whose driving force had been t h e Archbishop of Toledo. The anti-Jewish measures of the Spanish Visigothic Church 20

Church and Synagogue

targeted i n particular t h e compulsorily baptised Jews, suspec-

ted of secretly belonging to t h e old faith.l4 They had to swear to renounce their obstinate ’unbelief’ a n d t h e deep-rooted ’aberrations of o u r forefathers', to avoid all contact w i t h t h e i r

former co-religionists and to repudiate all Jewish customs a n d ceremonies on pain of death. Thus, already in Visigothic Spain t h e Jews were victims of forced baptism a n d a t t h e s a m e t i m e objects of deep suspicion a s converts. Even i n f a n t s were not

spared, for as decreed by the Seventeenth Council of Toledo in 694, all Jewish children above t h e age of six were to b e reared a s Christians. I n t h e Frankish Kingdom forced conversion was a l s o

periodically perpetrated, notably by King Dagobert (629—39), though there was a n undeniable improvement in t h e Jewish status under Charlemagne a n d even more under his son Louis t h e Pious (814—40).'5 The Carolingian state gave the Jews equal juridical rights a n d positions of trust; they were granted special letters of protection and t h e murder of a Jew was heavily penalised. As merchants a n d traders in luxury products from t h e Orient, Jews were well regarded a n d in medicine they enjoyed t h e highest reputation. For t h e Church this lack of distinction between t h e faithful and t h e ’infidel’ w a s a n a t h e m a , a n d S t Agobard (779—840), Archbishop of

Lyons, launched a counter-offensive reviving all t h e invectives of t h e Church Fathers in his onslaught against t h e ‘Judaising’ of the Carolingian Empire. (A father confessor of t h e Emperor Louis did actually convert to Judaism, a fact which had alarmed many Churchmen). Agobard, who was a leading ecclesiastical reformer a n d a highly educated man, openly feared that t h e fragile Christianity of the Frankish Kingdom, still under t h e influence of pagan superstition, w o u l d b e n o intellectual match for

Judaism. He was, moreover, alarmed at t h e possibility of Jewish missionary efforts a n d a t t h e i m p e r i a l protection granted t o t h e Jews, falling back defensively o n t h e segregationist policy advocated by t h e C h u r c h F a t h e r s . Agobard’s 21

From the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

nightmare,

shared by so many

generations

of medieval

Churchmen, was that the common, ordinary people might actually listen to t h e Jews a n d be convinced that they ’possess a purer and truer faith than our o w n ' , that perhaps they were t h e chosen people of God after all. A sharp line had therefore to be drawn which would prevent any fraternising between the C h r i s t i a n s a n d Jews, between t h e sons of light a n d t h e sons of darkness. It was u n s e e m l y , Agobard wrote, ’ t h a t t h e Church of

Christ, who should be conducted immaculate and u n blemished to her heavenly bridegroom, be defiled by contact

with the unclean senile and corrupt synagogue’.l6 It was, he claimed, like seating a virgin at t h e table alongside a whore. Were n o t the Jews descendants of the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah? Had not their own prophets branded them for all time as ' a sinful, useless race’, or in the words of John the Baptist a s a ‘generation of vipers’?

Nevertheless, the period between 4 3 0 and 1096 (the date of the First Crusade) is considered by specialists o n Jewish— Christian relations in the West to be better than that which preceded it and most certainly than that which would follow. There was some hostility and violence, but with the exception of Visigothic Spain it was not persistent. Jews obtained a prominent role in trading, particularly from t h e eighth century onwards, but were not yet identified with usury. They appeared to b e reasonably well integrated, especially u n d e r

Charlemagne a n d his successors, in the ’barbarian' societies in which they lived. Even some popes, like Gregory t h e Great, adopted a more balanced policy based o n a qualified respect for Judaism though they shared many of the fourth-century stereotypes of the Church Fathers and still worked zealously to convert the Jews to Christianity. Theological anti-Judaism remained, however, an everpresent reality around which the view that the Jews were wicked and despicable could always revive, and which justi-

fied the curbing of Jewish rights.17 The continuing refusal of the Synagogue to accept t h e doctrines of the Church, its 22

Church

a n d Synagogue

insistence o n p u r s u i n g its o w n vocation a n d t h e obsessive need

to defend both Church and state against Jewish proselytism (even though it was outlawed) further exacerbated Christian a n t i s e m i t i s m . B u t t h i s w a s essentially legislative a n d juridical rather than economic or populist i n character before t h e

Crusades, with actual persecution remaining rather sporadic except for Spain. Jews, it must be remembered, were t h e only n o n - C h r i s t i a n group of a n y significance permitted t o practise t h e i r f a i t h i n early m e d i e v a l Europe, which placed them i n a u n i q u e category. They could l e a d a tolerated, t h o u g h limited

existence within Christendom, even if the fabric of this ’toleration' was exceedingly fragile. After all, each Easter

Sunday with its celebration of the Resurrection — a major drama i n t h e Christian calendar a n d liturgy — awakened once

more the image of Jews as malevolent Christ-killers. The decisive turning-point for t h e worse came, however, with t h e First Crusade ( 1 0 9 6 ) , which l e d to massacres hitherto

unprecedented in t h e history of Jewish—Christian relations. The bands of crusaders who set out to recapture the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (where Jesus had reputedly died) from Muslim invaders, were mainly recruited from the lower strata of society in northern Europe. O n their way to the Holy Land they attacked t h e Jewish quarters of French and German towns, claiming that they were wreaking vengeance first of all against the enemies of Christ in their own backyard, those who had crucified h i m o n the Cross. Most of the besieged Jews they encountered

preferred collective suicide i n s a n c t i fi c a t i o n of

their faith (kiddush ha-shem) to t h e forced conversion which the crusaders offered them. Between a quarter to a third of t h e Jewish population i n Germany a n d Northern France ( a b o u t

10,000 pe0ple) were killed in t h e first six months of 1096 a l o n e , m a i n l y a s a r e s u l t of mob actions, reinforced by religious fanaticism. Massacres took place i n R o u e n , i n Lorraine,

throughout t h e Rhine valley, in towns along the Danube a n d i n Bohemia, climaxing with the slaughter of Jews (along with M u s l i m s ) a t t h e e n d of t h e i r j o u r n e y i n J e r u s a l e m ( 1 0 9 9 ) . The 23

From

the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

leader of the First Crusade, Godfrey Bouillon, who had sworn to avenge the blood of Christ on Israel and ’leave no single member of t h e Jewish race alive’, burnt the synagogue of Jerusalem to the ground, with all the Jews inside. The massacres left a deep scar o n the Jewish psyche, a n d remembrance of t h e martyrdom they inspired became a fixed

part of the synagogue service.'8 But they appeared to exacerbate popular hostility towards the Jews and to provoke a further d e c l i n e i n t h e i r s t a t u s b y embedding the notion of

Christ-killers more firmly in the mass consciousness and by demonstrating that this was indeed a defenceless population. For t h o u g h emperors, kings, bishops, popes a n d local authorities might a t times defend t h e Jews, popular crusading

zeal, whipped u p by demagogic preachers and reinforced by a desire to a n n u l debts to Jewish moneylenders, ensured that Jewish miseries w o u l d c o n t i n u e . The Second Crusade ( 1 1 4 6 ) ,

like its successors, led to renewed anti-Jewish excesses with fatalities, though less severe t h a n the first, still running into many hundreds. Not only popular attitudes but also the theological scapegoating of the Jews seemed to harden in the wake of these criminal actions. The influential Abbot of Cluny, t h e Venerable Peter, a c t u a l l y suggested that Jews should

finance the Crusades from their own money: he wrote to Louis VII (1120—80) that they must be punished severely for, more than the Muslims, they defiled Christianity and mercilessly exploited Christians. Echoing the Augustinian theology, he concluded that they should not be put to the sword but ‘like Cain the fratricide, they should be made to suffer fearful torments a n d prepared for greater ignominy, for a n existence

worse than death’.‘9 The medieval historian Gavin Langmuir h a s noted t h a t o n e

of the most significant aspects of the Crusades was the renewed hostility it demonstrated among Christians to the phenomenon of Jewish disbelief a n d t h e ways in which it encouraged t h e social degradation of Jews to be used to confirm Christian belief. Jews, h e points o u t , were a real threat 24

Church a n d Synagogue

to those Christians whose sense of identity had been upset by massive social dislocation o r b y their own intellectual doubts.

Holy war gave such people a sense of integration in their lives that could be reinforced by focusing on those responsible for the death o f Christ, w h o stubbornly

rejected t h e beliefs o f

Christianity, even to the point of martyrdom. Punishing the Jews for their disbelief by degrading their legal status and making them pariahs in European society was becoming a way of silencing any latent doubts about the meaning of the central symbols, particularly transubstantiation, of Christian faith.20 The Augustinian doctrine that ’the Jew is the slave of the Christian’ was soon embedded in canon law and confirmed by the Third Lateran Council (1179). Even t h e great medieval philosopher St Thomas Aquinas (1125—74) affirmed t h e

legitimacy of holding the Jews in ’perpetual servitude' for their crimes, while urging that they not be deprived of those things necessary for sustaining life. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent 111 (1198—1216) was even more

emphatic about the need for ’the blasphemers of the Christian name’ to be ’forced into the servitude of which they made themselves deserving when they raised their sacrilegious hands against Him who had come to confer true liberty upon them, thus calling down His blood upon themselves and their children'. Innocent III also believed, like St Augustine before him, that the Jews must be preserved as ’wanderers’ upon the earth until they acknowledged their . c r i m e and called on the name of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.21 The canonical legislation of the Church would fully institutionalise by the thirteenth century the reprobate status of the Jew a n d t h e doctrine of Servz'tus Judaeorum (the ’perpetual

servitude of the Jews').22 The Jews had to be subordinate to Christians, they could exercise n o position of authority and Christian society had to be rigidly protected from ’contamination' through living, eating or engaging in sexual relations w i t h them. The Fourth Lateran Council ( 1 2 1 5 ) codified this

will to segregate the Jews by requiring them to wear distinguishing dress — a conical hat in the Germanic lands and a 25

From the Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

’Jew badge’ (usually a yellow disc sewn into the clothing, whose colour symbolised Judas's betrayal of Christ for gold pieces) i n t h e Latin countries. The effects of t h e badge were to

make t h e Jews more visible a n d vulnerable to attack, reducing their ability to travel freely. Other canonical restrictions, all intended to display publicly the superiority of Christianity a n d t h e inferior status of Judaism, including t h e ruling that Jews could not enter churches o r walk in t h e streets o n holy days, that they could n o t work o n S u n d a y s a n d t h a t t h e i r synagogues m u s t remain

lowly a n d miserable buildings. In addition to all these humiliating restrictions, t h e Talmud now came under attack for t h e first time as a symbol of Jewish ’blaspheming’ against the Christian faith. Ironically, it was a converted Jew, Nicholas Donin who first denounced t h e Talmud to t h e Pope in the thirteenth century, which led to its investigation and burning in Paris a t the request of the Church. The realisation that t h e Talmud was a major source of Judaism in the centuries after Christ, a n d that it contained some anti-Christian statements, had come very belatedly and as a considerable shock to many Christians. Henceforth, the image of the mysterious Talmudic Jew, plotting a n d blaspheming against Christianity, would be added to the existing antisemitic armoury a n d enjoy widespread popularity down into t h e twentieth century.23 Another central stereotype which came to shape Christian a t t i t u d e s towards Jews a n d Judaism i n this period was t h a t of

the usurer. The Jews, prohibited from landowning, constantly constricted in trade and excluded from the guilds, had increasingly gravitated towards moneylending, especially a s

t h e Church forbade Christians to take usury from coreligionists. The financial vacuum that was created encouraged

t h e s e c u l a r a u t h o r i t i e s , especially i n m e d i e v a l

England a n d France, to make use of Jews as moneylenders. As royal usurers they were to a certain extent protected a n d granted some privileges, but at the same time they were also vulnerable to t h e greed of t h e princes, t h e reproval of t h e 26

Church a n d Synagogue

Church a n d t h e hatred of t h e indebted poor. The Jews, already stigmatised as infidels a n d deicides, soon found themselves depicted as alien ’bloodsuckers', a potent source of socioe c o n o m i c a n t i s e m i t i s m i n t h e more agrarian societies of

Europe for centuries to come.24 As economic instruments of t h e royal power, e n t i r e l y d e p e n d e n t o n t h e k i n g s for t h e i r

rights of residence, they could be squeezed whenever this s u i t e d t h e rulers, t h e i r property confiscated a n d debts t o t h e m

revoked, o r else they could be conveniently sacrificed as p a w n s t o p o p u l a r a n g e r . This is what happened to t h e J e w s of m e d i e v a l E n g l a n d u n d e r Edward I, w h o carried o u t w i t h t h e

overwhelming support of public opinion the expulsion of all t h e Jews of h i s k i n g d o m i n 1 2 9 0 , after h e h a d first m i l k e d them

dry.25 The image of the moneylending Jew would, however, survive the four centuries w h e n Jews were absent from British

shores. In England, as o n the Continent, priests a n d friars continued to remind their flocks that usurers were invented by t h e Devil. The J e w w a s Satan’s partner i n all h i s fi n a n c i a l

dealings, fleecing poor Christians without mercy through this devilish practice. Although the moneylending Jew was in fact performing a n essential economic function in medieval society, the status of usury as a deadly sin simply accentuated his role as a vulnerable scapegoat a n d execrated outsider. Jews became associated in t h e popular mind with banking, money, exchange a n d t h e parasitical exploitation of a land-based Christian peasantry which formed the backbone of the E u r o p e a n n a t i o n s . This essentially medieval stereotype of t h e

Jew as t h e standard-bearer of the money-economy a n d in a later period the personification of modern capitalism would play a fateful role in the history of European antisemitism. In t h e M i d d l e Ages, however, it w a s o n l y o n e weapon a m o n g

many in the ideological warfare waged by t h e Church against the Synagogue. As t h e European masses became more exposed to a Christian theology that emphasised the role of t h e Jews a s murderers of Christ, new a n d more irrational 27

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

accusations emerged, like desecrating the host, poisoning the wells and ritual murder, which would have an even more devastating effect o n the position of Jewry. The restraints which the medieval Church had still exercised in an earlier period i n tolerating Jews as l o n g as they were passive a n d subservient came t o be challenged by irrational, primitive

scapegoating and fantastic beliefs. I t was indeed striking that at the very historical moment when the Catholic Church and Christian state reached the peak of its power, the Jewish people were to be plunged into new depths of oppression and misery by the scourge of antisemitic hysteria. As the Catholic historian Edward Flannery has w r i t t e n , t h e era o f Innocent

III and Henry 11,

Gregory VII and Henry VI, of Thomas Aquinas and Dante, of St Francis of Assisi and of Notre Dame Cathedral, was also ’the age of anti-Jewish hecatombs, expulsions, calumnious myths, auto-da-fé, of the badge, the ghetto and many other hardships visited upon the Jews'.26

28

T h e Medieval Legacy The a n t i s e m i t i s m of t h e l a t e r M i d d l e Ages took over most of

the elements of earlier Christian anti-Judaism virtually u n changed. B u t by 1 3 5 0 , especially i n northern Europe, it h a d

added a litany of new a n d terrifyingly irrational charges which led many Christians to believe that Jews engaged in ritual murder, host profanation, had caused the Black Death by poisoning w e l l s a n d were generally conspiring to overthrow

Christendom. The deliberate unbelievers were now stereotyped a s usurers, bribers, secret killers, sorcerers, magicians

a n d oppressors of the poor. It had become much easier to think of t h e Jews a s somehow less t h a n h u m a n ; t h e y had become ’a symbol to express repressed fantasies a b o u t cruci fixion a n d

cannibalism, repressed doubts about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a n d unbearable fears of the bubonic bacillus that imperceptibly invaded people's bodies’.l As amply evidenced in medieval art, Jews were portrayed as agents of Satan with evil faces, horns a n d a tail, invariably striking grotesque poses. S o m e t i m e s t h e Devil m i g h t be seen i n

painting o r sculpture as riding o n the back of a Jew; sometimes h e appeared with d a r k , bulging eyes a n d a goatee o r i n t h e

guise of a seductive woman to underline t h e lechery that was traditionally attributed t o Jews. Logic, too, a s t h e a r t of t h e

Devil, could be easily associated with Talmudic Jews seeking to entrap i n n o c e n t believers a n d e n t i c e t h e m a w a y from t h e i r C h r i s t i a n f a i t h . The Devil motif was i m p o r t a n t to m e d i e v a l

Christianity as a symbol of all the temptations of this evil world, especially those that embodied t h e forces of heresy and 29

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

rebellion against God.2 Its linkage with Jews, whether in t h e visual arts, literature, passion plays, sermons o r folk legends, offered a way of explaining why Jews had s o stubbornly a n d arrogantly rejected J e s u s . B y depicting the J e w a s embodying

t h e will of Satan, medieval Christendom would inaugurate a n i n e x o r a b l e process of d e h u m a n i s a t i o n . The apocalyptic fantasy of t h e Antichrist, a m a n who would

lead the armies of the Devil against those of Christ, provided a popular, millenarian underpinning to the association of Jews with satanic forces. A doctrine with roots in the New Testament, b u t never officially embraced

by the Church

because of its tendency to encourage dangerous millennial hopes, it postulated that both Antichrist a n d his main supporters would be Jews. This demonic Jewish parody of Jesus, conversant with all the black arts, would resurrect the Temple in Jerusalem a n d briefly rule over a world Jewish Empire before being vanquished by Christ a t the head of his armies, who would p u t a n end to the reign of the Devil for ever.3 The entire Jewish people would be annihilated in this apocalyptic battle at the e n d of days. The popular Antichrist myth, which had contributed to the massacres of Jews at the time of the Crusades, already seems to herald the millenarian doctrines of Nazism with Hitler in the role of a secular Germanic Christ come to execute a ’Final Solution' against the source of all evil, the J e w s .

The fantasy of ritual murder was another, no less pernicious medieval superstition which would encourage the most virulent Jew-hatred in subsequent centuries. Invented in Norwich, England in l 144 following the murder of a Christian boy just before Easter, who would later be venerated as medieval Europe’s first child martyr, this crime was attributed without a n y evidence to local Jews.4 They were accused of crucifying him in mockery of the passion of Jesus, a n d the fantasy gained acceptance because people wanted a local saint to work miracle cures a n d the Norwich clergy realised that his shrine would enhance t h e city’s standing o n the pilgrim route. 30

The Medieval Legacy

Similar accusations soon spread across England and to the Continent, so that b y 1255, w h e n ’Little St Hugh o f Lincoln'

became England's most famous child-saint, the ritual murder myth was firmly established. The accusation that Jews abduct Christian children in order to re-enact the Crucifixion of Jesus at Easter-time seems to have been connected with fantasies arising o u t of the n o t i o n that the Christ-child was actually present in the wafers of the

Eucharist. Guilt feelings associated with the act of cutting up a n d eating a small child, m u s t have preoccupied Christian believers i n t h e twelfth century at a n unconscious level a n d

would have been easier to handle once they were projected onto Jews.5 The allegation that Jews used the blood of the murdered Christian child by mixing i t with their matzot (unleavened bread) during the Passover added a further, even more sinister, dimension to the ritual slaughter myth. Among the more outlandish assumptions that underlay the blood libel was the notion that Jewish men menstruated and therefore required Christian blood to replenish themselves, or alternatively that they needed to make up for the blood they lost through circumcision. This blood fantasy, utterly alien to anything in Judaism (which as the dietary laws make plain, abhors the shedding of blood and insists on its removal from food) seems to reflect European m y t h s a n d folklore about

bloodsucking demons and vampires.6 Such primitive

notions,

when amalgamated w i t h t h e older identification o f Jews w i t h

’the Church of Satan’, could only induce fear, loathing and horror, providing a pretext for pogroms

a n d massacres down

into our own century. They reinforced hostile theological stereotypes w i t h t h e delusions

o f t h e unbridled

popular

imagination, to provide an image of the Jews as pathologically malevolent a n d cruel. appeared i n the thirteenth Another allegation which century a n d revolved a r o u n d t h e Easter-Passover festivals was

the desecration of host wafers by Jews. This slander arose out of the dogma of transubstantiation (whereby Christ’s flesh and 31

From t h e Cross t o the S w a s t i k a

blood become present in the consecrated host and wine), which had been confirmed a t the Fourth Lateran Council of 1 2 1 5 . The cult of t h e Eucharist had n o w acquired a concrete

character a n d by 1264 the new feast of Corpus Christi had become official for t h e whole Church. Yet doubts about whether Christ’s body a n d blood were really present in the bread a n d wine of t h e Eucharist clearly persisted.9 At the e n d of t h e thirteenth century, after they had already been expelled from England and France, Jews were suddenly accused of deliberately mutilating a n d torturing the transubstantiated body of Christ by profaning the host wafers. As in the ritual murder charge, Jews were assumed to be compulsively repeating their original cruelty towards Christ. However irrational (since the charge absurdly assumed that Jews believed in one of the most problematic of all Christian d o g m a s ) , t h i s fantasy w a s widely accepted a n d spread rapidly

through Central Europe. Many Jews were slaughtered in the name of this wholly mythic belief a n d many shrines established for t h e allegedly desecrated hosts. Not until t h e rise of Protestantism did this particular medieval superstition cease its

ravages.8 The Black Death which raged in Europe between 1347 a n d 1 3 6 0 added y e t another deadly accusation against the Jews —

that of poisoning wells in order to wipe o u t Christians a n d establish their domination of the world.9 There is n o doubt that the masses believed this charge, since Jews were massacred i n t h e i r thousands despite papal prohibition a n d

despite t h e fact that t h e official Church rejected t h e libel. While religious fervour undoubtedly played a role in the wellpoisoning accusations (which were sometimes accompanied by t h e blood libel) there were a l s o social a n d economic factors

at work. The fourteenth century was a period of intense social conflict a n d major upheavals in t h e cities of Germany, in which craft guilds fought the city authorities. The masses who set o u t to kill the Jews were often indebted craftsmen who regarded t h e moneylending Jews a s servants of t h e merchants 32

The Medieval Legacy

a n d t h e patrician urban leadership with whom they were in conflict. The struggle t h a t developed was more over t h e e x p l o i t a t i o n of t h e Jews a n d t h e i r possessions by t h e royal exchequer, t h e

city councils o r t h e lower-class mobs in revolt, than over a n y religious issue.l0 Greed for J e w i s h property

rather t h a n

religious zealotry motivated t h e killers, except in t h e case of t h e flagellant bands (considered by t h e Church as sectarians a n d heretics), w h o s e numbers h a d greatly increased d u r i n g t h e Black D e a t h a n d w h o u n d o u b t e d l y whipped u p p o p u l a r passions. W h a t w a s m o s t o m i n o u s , however, was t h e way i n w h i c h t h e w e l l - p o i s o n i n g hysteria provoked a new charge against Jewry w h i c h suggested t h a t t h e y were engaged i n a generalised conspiracy a g a i n s t t h e C h r i s t i a n world, i n order t o

take revenge on their subjugators. This powerful libel, which led to t h e destruction of m a n y Jewish c o m m u n i t i e s i n m e d i e v a l Germany, w o u l d a l s o become a central t h e m e i n t h e

repertoire of modern antisemitism.ll The m y t h s of p o p u l a r demonology were n o t endorsed, b u t

o n t h e contrary frequently combated by t h e ecclesiastical and also t h e lay authorities. The Papacy a n d t h e Church as a whole, while rejecting a n y notion of Jewish equality with Christians, did seek to protect certain basic rights of Jews. The Papacy forbade forced baptism a n d condemned violence against Jews, interference with Jewish festivals o r desecration of Jewish cemeteries; it also repudiated t h e allegations that Jews committed ritual murder o r poisoned wells.12 O n t h e other hand, a s w e have s e e n , a t t h e F o u r t h Lateran C o u n c i l a distinctive

dress (the Jew badge) was imposed upon Jews for t h e first time in Christian lands, o n e of t h e many restrictions which marked off t h e J e w from his social e n v i r o n m e n t a n d t u r n e d h i m i n t o a

social pariah. The popes consistently condemned the Talmud a n d deplored J e w i s h o b s t i n a c y i n refusing t o acknowledge J e s u s Christ a s t h e i r s a v i o u r . The Papal legislation w a s designed t o reinforce t h e inferiority a n d ‘ p e r p e t u a l s e r v i t u d e ’

of Judaism so that Jews could bear witness to Christian truth, 33

From t h e C r o s s t o t h e S w a s t i k a

but it was not intended to completely eliminate the Jews from Christian society a s long a s they lived peacefully a n d did not

infringe the laws. This blend of limited tolerance a n d restrictive legislation was ultimately aimed, of course, at t h e conversion of the Jews. Not until t h e mid-sixteenth century under Pope Paul IV were Jews living under Papal jurisdiction to be enclosed behind ghetto walls in the mistaken belief that such severe measures would accelerate their large-scale conversion.” The most implacable religious adversaries of t h e Jews in t h e late Middle Ages were not t h e Popes but t h e mendicant Franciscan a n d Dominican orders.l4 Particularly vituperative was t h e Italian Franciscan reformer St John of Capistrano, a fiery, ascetic preacher who zealously denounced heretics a n d Jews all over Europe. This fifteenth-century inquisitor terrorised t h e Jews wherever h e went, threatening with hellfire those w h o dared to associate with them in a n y way. In Breslau h e personally supervised the torture of Jews accused of host-desecration, extracting confessions from them for these a n d o t h e r imagined ritual c r i m e s . ” J o h n of Capistrano also successfully p u t a n e n d to t h e privileges enjoyed by the Polish Jewry u n d e r Casimir IV, in a country which served at that time a s a haven for Jews fleeing from persecution elsewhere. Another Italian anti-Jewish Franciscan preacher, St Bernardinus of Feltre, who once described himself as a dog who ’barks for Christ’ against t h e Jews, has often been linked t o t h e Trent episode which gave a renewed i m p e t u s t o ritual murder charges i n E u r o p e . After h i s preaching a series of E a s t e r sermons i n Trent ( n o r t h e r n Italy) i n 1 4 7 3 , t h e local

J e w s were accused of having murdered a three-year-old Christian boy called Simon, whose body had been found in t h e Adige river. Jews were arrested, tried a n d confessed u n d e r torture, a n d by t h e e n d of t h e affair all t h e Jews of Trent (except a handful w h o were baptised) had been burnt. Simon of Trent became t h e object of a cult, which in this instance was approved by t h e Pope. '6 34

The Medieval Legacy

In Spain, Dominican

friars like Vincente Ferrer led the

doctrinal assault against t h e Jews, who enjoyed a privileged

position until the completion of the Christian reconquista at the end o f the fifteenth century. Under a succession o f tolerant

Spanish kings, Jews had become well integrated, excelling in commercial and intellectual pursuits and growing in prosperity, prestige a n d creativity. They were showered w i t h

honours and favours by royal benevolence, acting as ministers, councillors and physicians to the kings of Castile and Aragon. The rise of some Jews to great eminence

at court, a n d their role

in financial affairs, aroused the envy of the nobility and the populace as well as the ire of the Church, who saw the prominence of Spanish Jewry as a n insult to t h e t r u e faith. A t t h e e n d o f t h e fourteenth century the preaching o f t h e

Archdeacon of Seville, Fernando Martinez, against Jewish wealth and false Jewish doctrines set in train a wave of bloody

persecutions.'7 In 1391 the mob broke into the Jewish‘quarter of Seville and massacred 4,000 Jews. The carnage spread to other parts of Spain and within three months about 50,000 Jews were dead a n d many more had been baptised. Those w h o remained Jews became t h e object o f renewed missionary

efforts, not least by converted Jews like the former Rabbi of Burgos, Solomon Levi, who became a m u c h revered a n d

powerful bishop under his Christian name of Pablo de Santa Maria. Like some other conversos, he did not hesitate to malign Judaism and to advocate anti-Jewish legislation as a way of fighting heresy and bringing Jews to the true faith. He even justified t h e persecutions of 1 3 9 1 as part o f the providential

plan for Christian redemption.18 Equally dedicated to the conversion of the Jews was the Dominican preacher St Vincente Ferrer, who brought about some 35,000 baptisms between 141 l a n d 1 4 1 2 alone. Though

he supported the oppressive legislation of 1414 and the setting-up of the first compulsory Spanish ghettos, he opposed violence against Jews and criticised the disdain of the ’old’ Spanish Christians for t h e n e w converts to the Church. B u t the 35

From the Cross t o the S w a s t i k a

phenomenon of crypto-Judaism (the secret practice of Judaism), while outwardly observing Christianity, was a source of constant friction, especially as the conversos began to penetrate t h e upper ranks of t h e S p a n i s h universities, t h e

judiciary, the professions a n d even the Church. By the midfifteenth

century

popular

anger

against

the

conversos

(frequently referred to by the derogatory name of marranos o r pigs) w a s rampant, born of envy a n d resentment against t h e i r

alleged duplicity. Anti-converse feeling was feeding a new kind of antisemitism which held that Jewish blood was a hereditary taint which could not be eradicated by baptism. This was the origin of Spanish racism, t h e first of its kind in Europe to be directed against the ’bad blood’ (mala sangre) of t h e Jews a n d to become veritably obsessed with the issue of blood purity (lz'mpz'eza de sangre). Statutes based on this criterion were eventually legislated to bar the entry of ’New Christians’ to certain guilds a n d to certain military and religious orders. It was the failure of the Inquisition to stamp out cryptoJudaism, despite elaborate regulations, that focused attention back o n those Jews who had never abandoned their ancestral faith a n d still maintained links with the conversos. The fanatical Torquemada,

I n q u i s i t o r General since 1 4 8 3 , became c o n -

vinced that only by expelling all Jews who had retained their Jewish faith from S p a i n could h e s t a m p o u t t h e phenomenon

of crypto-Judaism. The fatal decree was issued by Ferdinand a n d Isabella, the rulers of a newly united Spain, o n 2 January 1492, shortly after the fall of Granada, the last stronghold of Muslim Spain. A preliminary blood libel trial in La Guardia, in which marranos were accused of profaning t h e host a n d of carrying o u t a ritual murder, provided t h e pretext.'9 Ironically enough, t h e expulsion of all Jews from t h e Spanish Kingdom on 31 March 1492 did not solve t h e ’Jewish question’ o r bring Spanish antisemitism to a n end. ’New Christians’ of Jewish origin continued to be regarded with hostility a n d hatred as a separate caste, altogether distinct from ’old’, pure Christians who could boast a noble lineage. The 36

The Medieval Legacy

same stereotypes were applied t o t h e ’ N e w Christians’ as had been directed against their ancestors, since Jewish blood was assumed to be irrevocably ’polluted’. Occupations associated

with the ’New Christians', such as business, finance, medicine or intellectual activity, were looked down upon with contempt. ’New Christians', for centuries after the expulsion, were seen as a foreign body i n Spanish

society which

threatened its integrity.20 The obsession with blood purity and t h e racist fervour w h i c h i n some respects anticipated that o f

Nazi Germany helped bring about the decline of Spain through demographic impoverishment a n d contempt for t h e productive a n d commercial occupations. Jews also suffered from t h e

consequences of the Counter-Reformation i n other regions of Europe which remained Catholic, where ecclesiastical usages and canon law were now more strictly applied towards them. The kind of segregation resulting from the introduction of ghettos i n t h e second h a l f o f t h e sixteenth century, first in Italy

and then in the Habsburg Empire, was intended to punitively demonstrate the error of Judaism. Pope Paul IV’s Cum nimz's absurdum decree, establishing the first ghetto i n Rome in 1555 ( w h i c h lasted u n t i l Italian u n i fi c a t i o n i n 1870), insisted that as

long as Jews ’persist in their errors they are made to feel and see that they are slaves and the Christians free men through Jesus Christ our God and Lord.’2| Segregation and repression, i t was hoped, would break the back of t h e stubborn Jewish resistance to conversion and root

out any social fraternising which could obscure the legal status of the Jews as ’slaves’. By the end of the sixteenth century all Jews had been removed from the Papal State except for those living in the ghettos of Rome, Ancona and Avignon. This harsh policy must also b e seen against the background o f belief i n a n approaching ’end o f days’ w h i c h made t h e reform o f C h u r c h

and society seem more urgent. Rather than leading to a more tolerant attitude towards Jews, this strengthened t h e drive t o

create a more closed and protected Christian society (among b o t h Catholics a n d Protestants) w h i c h sought t o eliminate all 37

From

the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

forms of heresy. Radical reform of the Church in t h e turmoil of

the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries came to mean t h e eradication of the ’enemy within', which included Jews, heretics and all the followers of Antichrist. The vision of a mass conversion of the Jews was now subordinated among many Christians to the apocalyptic expectations of the coming of Antichrist, sent to gather i n his obstinate Jewish followers for the purpose of destroying the Church. The revival of such beliefs, which identified the Jews with Antichrist, even among sophisticated theologians, helped raise the temperature of

anti-Jewish agitation in the later Middle Ages.22 It was above all in Germany, where the Jews had never been completely expelled, that the chimeric medieval fantasies concerning the Jews retained their force and were barely affected by the rise of Protestantism. Unlike the relative tolerance towards Jews shown by Calvinists in Holland, England and France, German Lutheranism would only reinforce the medieval tradition of antisemitism, already deeply rooted in German culture. As far as Jews were concerned, Martin Luther (1483—1546), instead of being a forerunner of the Enlightenment, was essentially a medieval man who gave a n e w legitimacy a n d power to antisemitism. I n contrast to t h e

Calvinists, Luther insisted that God's Covenant with the Jews had been definitely revoked a n d replaced by a new Covenant. For Luther there was no good Jew except a converted Jew or, as h e put it in t h e epilogue to a sermon of February 1546: if the Jews are willing to convert and abandon their blasphemy a n d crime, ’then we will be glad to forgive t h e m : if not, we should

not tolerate and suffer them’.23 Driven by his vision of the approaching ’end of days' a n d the need for a closed, protected Christian society, Luther wanted to force t h e issue between

integration o r expulsion. Either the Jews accept salvation by baptism or they must be expelled. Initially, the young Luther had hoped that Jews could be won to his new Protestant faith, stripped of ’popery’ a n d the corrupt practices of the Roman Catholic Church. In his 38

The Medieval Legacy

pamphlet of 1523, Jesus Christ was born a Jew, Luther had denounced the papists for dealing with Jews, as if they were dogs rather than human beings.

If the Apostles, who were also Jews, had dealt with us Gentiles as we Gentiles deal with the Jews there would never have been a Christian among the Gentiles . . . w e

in our turn ought to treat the Jews in a brotherly manner

i n order that we might

convert some of t h e m

. . . we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are

blood relatives, cousins and brothers of our Lord.24 B u t the Jews did not meet Luther’s expectations. Worse still,

he became greatly concerned with the reportedly successful ’Judaising' counter-offensive of the 15305, leading to the conversion of the Sabbatarians. In 1543 he published a tract, Concerning theJews and their Lies, which depicted the Jews as poisoners, ritual murderers, usurers, as devils incarnate a n d parasites on Christian

society —

a veritable summum of medieval hatred which contains some of the most violent language in the history of antisemitism: First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that n o one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honour of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have n o t wittingly tolerated o r approved of such public lying,

cursing and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians. . . . Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetrate the same things there that they d o in their synagogues. For

this reason they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies, in order that they may realise that 39

From the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

they are not masters in o u r land, as they boast, but miserable captives, a s they complain

of u s incessantly

before God with bitter wailing. Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayerbooks a n d Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing a n d blasphemy are t a u g h t . Fourthly,

their rabbis must be forbidden u n d e r threat of death to teach a n y more. . . .Fifthly, passport and travelling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews. For they have no business in the rural districts since they are not nobles, n o r officials, nor merchants, n o r the like. Let t h e m stay a t h o m e . Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury. All their cash a n d valuables of silver and gold ought to be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. For this reason, as said before, everything that they possess they stole and robbed from u s through their usury, for they have n o other means of support. . . . Such evilly acquired money is cursed, unless, with God's blessing, it is put to some good a n d necessary use. . . . Seventhly, let t h e young a n d strong Jews and Jewesses be given t h e flail, the axe, t h e hoe, the spade, the distaff and spindle a n d let them earn their bread by t h e sweat of their noses as is enjoined upon Adam’s children. For it is not proper that they should want u s cursed Goyyz'm to work in the sweat of o u r brow a n d that they, pious crew, idle away their days a t the fireside in laziness, feasting a n d display. And in addition to this, they boast impiously that they have become masters of the Christians at o u r expense. We ought to drive t h e rascally lazy bones o u t of o u r system. If, however, we are afraid that they might harm us personally, or o u r wives, children, servants, cattle etc, when they serve u s o r work for u s — since it is

surely to be presumed that such noble lords of the world a n d poisonous b i t t e r worms are n o t accustomed to a n y

work a n d would Very unwillingly humble themselves to such a degree among the cursed Goyyim — then let us apply t h e s a m e cleverness [ e x p u l s i o n ] a s t h e other n a t i o n s , 4O

The Medieval

such as France, Spain, Bohemia,

Legacy

etc. a n d settle with them

for that which they have extorted usuriously from us, and after having divided it up fairly let us drive them o u t o f t h e

country for all time. For, as has been said, God’s rage is so great against them that they o n l y become worse a n d

worse through mild mercy, and not much betterthrough severe mercy. Therefore away with them. . . . T o sum up,

dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find abetter one so that you and we may be free of this insufferable

devlishburden — the Jews.25 This outpouring

of hate reflected Luther’s conviction that i t

was harder to convert t h e Jews than Satan himself. Luther’s antisemitism was n o t yet racial, i t was still constructed in the framework o f apocalyptic prophecy with Jews being seen

(along with the Pope in Rome and the infidel Turk) as ’the storm troops of the devil’s forces'.26 Luther, in his struggle for a reformed Church o n the brink

o f collapse,

had become

obsessed with the legions of Antichrist at the gates. The blaspheming, stubborn Jews were an integral part of this diabolical alliance against Christendom from within and without, standing under the aegis of the Antichrist. In his warnings against the danger of the Jewish ’infection’ and his polemical

vituperation against rabbinical

lies a n d distortions of

the Bible, what predominates is the hatred of Judaism as a legalistic religion which threatens the evangelical Church. Law and gospel remain deadly enemies. the contest is one between God and the Devil, Christ and the Antichrist. L u t h e r rejected t h e Calvinist teaching o f ’salvation through works’ (a ’Jewish faith’) in favour o f justification by faith

alone. He vehemently opposed the Roman Church’s legalism with its focus o n ceremonial a n d priestly mediation as being

spiritually bankrupt. ’Because the Papists, like the Jews, insist that anyone wishing to be saved must observe their ceremonies,

they will perish l i k e t h e Jews.’27 The ’Judaic’ heresy 41

From the Cross to the Swastika

within t h e Church, which sought to approach God through ceremonial law, h a d to b e uprooted a n d t h e Jews themselves

expelled so that they no longer contaminate Christians with their blaspheming heresies. No wonder that many Jews, who had originally welcomed Luther's Reform as heralding a new era, came t o see i n t h e German monk a modern

Haman,

seeking to annihilate them by harsh measures and forced

conversions.28 The German Reformation, under Luther's guidance, therefore led i n a very unfavourable direction for Jews, when compared with parallel developments i n English, Dutch o r

Swiss Protestantism.” The seed of hatred sown by Luther would reach its horrible climax i n t h e Third Reich, when German Protestants showed themselves to be particularly

receptive to Nazi antisemitism.30

42

Modern Secular Anti-Judaism

With t h e decline of religious faith i n post-medieval European

society the traditional theological hostility towards the ’deicide' people became less relevant, especially to intellect u a l s who identified with t h e sceptical temper of t h e Age of

Enlightenment. At first sight, t h e rise of rationalist thinking in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries appeared to be a positive development for Jews, for it attacked the foundations of the Christian religion a n d t h e unified Christian state which h a d excluded o r oppressed Jews for reasons of creed. It w a s

partly from the rationalist assumptions of the German Enlightenment that the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II derived his Toleration edicts of t h e 17805; that Moses Mendelsohn felt empowered to build a bridge between traditional Jewish and modern German cultures; that his friend Gotthold Lessing immortalised a more positive image of t h e Jew in his famous play, Nathan the Wise. W i t h o u t t h e philosophy of t h e E n l i g h t e n m e n t , t h e Prussian bureaucrat Christian W i l h e l m

D6hm would never have written his tract ’Uber die biirgerlz'che Verbesserung der Juden’ ( ’ C o n c e r n i n g t h e Civic A m e l i o r a t i o n of

the Jews') in 1781, a n indictment of the responsibility of t h e Christian world for the degradation of t h e Jews. I n France, d u r i n g t h e s a m e period, e n l i g h t e n e d Gentiles like

t h e Abbé Grégoire, Count Mirabeau a n d t h e revolutionary M a x i m i l i e n Robespierre, argued a l o n g similar lines i n u r g i n g

t h e emancipation of t h e Jews as part of t h e overthrow of t h e ancien re’gz'me w i t h its f e u d a l privileges, social inequalities a n d injustices. The Declaration of t h e Rights of M a n by t h e French 43

From

the Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

revolutionaries in 1789 a n d the granting of equal civic rights to the Jews two years later was indeed a triumph of t h e liberal rationalist credo which had been born out of the Enlightenment. There was, however, a darker, more complex a n d ambiva-

lent strand in rationalist thought about the Jews a n d Judaism which first surfaced in English deism of the late seventeenth a n d early eighteenth centuries. Here, for the first time, radical thinkers who put forward the notion of ’natural religion’ as an alternative to the ’revealed' truths of Christianity, critically examined Judaism from a rationalist standpoint. The paradoxical result ’was a denial of all religious value to Judaism, which was presented as a n obscurantist prejudice hostile to h u m a n reason. The extreme language of the English deists a n d

the French materialists of the eighteenth century in their attacks on Jews and Judaism revived t h e hostility towards Jews a n d renewed the force of t h e old negative stereotypes." For the English deists a n d French materialists, the Old Testament was no less obnoxious than the Gospel, the Synagogue no less offensive to reason than the Church, a n d rabbis as much imposters as priests.2 Indeed, those rationalists who were sworn enemies of the Church were often disposed to see the source of its intolerance, fanaticism and superstition in the Hebrew Bible a n d the teachings of Judaism. Their return to the sources of classical Antiquity for inspiration, if anything reinforced this inimical disposition to Judaism. For in the writings of t h e French Encyclopaedists one can fi n d clear traces of early Graeco-Roman literary a n t i -

semitism, whose ideas a n d phraseology passed into t h e mainstream of Enlightenment thinking. Thus pagan, preChristian antisemitism was grafted on to the stem of medieval Christian stereotypes of the Jew a n d would pass over into the post-Christian rationalist anti-Judaism of t h e eighteenth a n d n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r i e s . A s t h e h i s t o r i a n A r t h u r Hertzberg has written, ’ t h e vital l i n k , t h e m a n who skipped over t h e C h r i s t i a n c e n t u r i e s a n d provided a n e w , i n t e r n a t i o n a l , secular, 44

Modern

Secular Anti-Judaism

a n t i - J e w i s h rhetoric i n t h e n a m e of European c u l t u r e r a t h e r

than religion was Voltaire'.3 Instead of disappearing with t h e Enlightenment, antis e m i t i s m s i m p l y found a new guise, o n e w h i c h n o l o n g e r

blamed the Jews for the crucifixion of Christ but held them responsible for all t h e crimes a n d perversities committed in t h e n a m e of monotheistic religion ; the Jews were no longer guilty of rejecting Christian belief b u t were j u d g e d t o b e i n h e r e n t l y

perverse, a n d their ’fossilised’ religion to be a n obstacle to h u m a n progress. In t h e arch-sceptic Voltaire t h e resulting image of t h e Jew is one of utter scorn a n d contempt. The Old Testament is ridiculed a n d calumnied as a compendium of cannibalism, folly and error. The Jews were caricatured as ' t h e most imbecile people o n t h e face of t h e e a r t h ' , a s ’ o b t u s e , cruel a n d a b s u r d ' , t h e heirs of a history t h a t w a s b o t h ’disgusting a n d abominable’.4 I n h i s entry ’Juzfs', written for t h e Dictionnaire

Philosophique, Voltaire echoes t h e familiar litany of insults drawn from classical pagan antisemitism. ’In short, we find i n them only a n ignorant a n d barbarous pe0ple, who have long united t h e most sordid avarice with t h e most detestable superstition a n d the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched.’5 Not only did Voltaire repeat t h e pagan canard that Jews were the ’enemies of mankind’, but he even justified t h e long history of persecutions and massacres to which they had been subjected.6 These diatribes c a n n o t

b e convincingly

e x p l a i n e d by

Voltaire’s personal psychology o r by disappointments that arose o u t of business dealings with individual Jews. For they were largely shared by other prominent t h i n k e r s of t h e French

Enlightenment like Diderot, t h e atheist Baron d’Holbach (for w h o m t h e Jews were a l s o t h e vilest n a t i o n o n e a r t h ) a n d t o a lesser degree by J e a n - J a c q u e s R o u s s e a u . R a t h e r , t h e y s h o u l d

be seen as a philosophical expression of the crisis of religious belief, in which a w a r conducted against t h e very roots of the Christian faith led logically to a n assault o n its Jewish origins. Conducted in the n a m e of progress, renewal and freedom of 45

From the Cross to t h e S w a s t i k a

thought, i t paradoxically perpetuated the hostile historical

image of Judaism handed down by the Christian culture on which these philosophical sceptics a n d radicals had been

nourished.7 In post-revolutionary France the impact of this tradition can clearly be seen in the thinking of the great French historian Jules Michelet, especially after the spiritual crisis which he underwent in the early 18405. Henceforth, he began to level sharp criticism against the J u d e o - C h r i s t i a n e n s l a v e m e n t to a n

arbitrary, capricious God who bestowed his favours without justice o r reason. Naturally, Michelet rejected completely t h e

notion that Israel had been chosen by God as a n exclusivist principle which discriminated against those who had not been chosen. More significantly, he objected to the fact that the choice had fallen on so undeserving a n object as the small, scattered a n d weak Jewish people — whose horizons were limited and whose stubborn particularism was anathema to his own universalist credo. For Michelet, Judaism was utterly lacking in grandeur or noble ideals; it had always supported reaction and above all its historical connection with Christianity made it viscerally repugnant to him.8 The influential French scholar Ernest Renan, though by no m e a n s a n antisemite o r accepting all of Michelet's conclusions,

did agree that it was Israel which had brought forth Christianity and ’the conversion of the world to monotheism’. At the same time he decried the exclusivist tendencies and fanaticism of the Jewish intellect, character-traits which had become ’a stumbling block in the march of humanity after having been the cause of its great progress’.9 Renan saw in this exclusivism and self-imposed isolation of the Jews, exacerbated by the teachings of the Talmud and by a n ingrained complex of superiority, the ultimate cause of the detestation with which they were widely regarded. The intolerance of the Jews was a function of their monotheism but it was also, in his view, a trait of the ’Semitic peoples' in general, including Arabs. 46

Modern

Secular Anti-Judaism

I n t h e 18505 R e n a n , a l o n g w i t h t h e German scholar

Christian Lassen, would be o n e of the first thinkers in Europe to popularise the racial concept of ’Semites’ in contrast to t h e I n d o - E u r o p e a n s o r ’ A r y a n s ' , w h o m he placed a t t h e top of t h e l a d d e r of h u m a n civilisation.lo R e n a n argued t h a t S e m i t e s

lacked creative ability, a sense of discipline a n d the capacity for i n d e p e n d e n t political organisation. The ’Semitic’ race, so h e c l a i m e d , had ’ n o mythology, n o epic, n o science, n o

philosophy, no fiction, no plastic arts, no civic life; there is no complexity, n o r nuance; a n exclusive sense of uniformity'.ll Nor surprisingly after this catalogue of negative qualities, R e n a n could o n l y c o n c l u d e t h a t S e m i t e s ’represented a n

inferior combination of h u m a n nature’.12 Renan attributed all of these ’Semitic’ faults to t h e ancient Hebrews as well, who were of a narrow horizon, essentially primitive, and whose

limited creativity was ultimately confined to their simple, religious conceptions. His view of contemporary Jews was a

little more nuanced but still riddled with antisemitic clichés emphasising t h e i r egoism, clannishness, worship of Mammon

and their leading role in modern revolutionary movements. Yet in spite of his racist outlook, Renan never drew the practical conclusions from his theories that French and German a n t i s e m i t e s were wont t o d o , clearly opposing a n y

political manipulation of the racial principle towards the end of h i s life. H e openly a d m i t t e d that h i s concept of a ’Semitic'

race was basically erroneous, that it could not be meaningfully applied to modern assimilated Jews a n d t h a t national i d e n t i t y

was based on voluntary choice, not on racial determinism.” B u t R e n a n ’ s a n t i t h e s i s between ’Aryans’ a n d ’Semites’ found a ready echo i n n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y France, where it

was adopted by a number of leading socialist writers who used it to bolster their radical antipathy to Jews and Judaism. This was most obviously apparent in t h e Blanquist movement, a militantly a t h e i s t , anticlerical a n d ’patriotic’ w i n g of French

socialism whose rallying-cry was ’Ni Dieu, Ni Maz‘tre'.I4 From R e n a n a n d t h e C o u n t d e G o b i n e a u they a d a p t e d t h e n o t i o n of 47

From t h e C r o s s t o t h e S w a s t i k a

’Semitism' as intrinsically inferior to the ’Aryan’ genius of Greece a n d Rome, which alone had created t h e foundations of

modern civilisation.IS The Semitic Deity of the Old Testament was depicted in t h e spirit of Voltaire as a murderous, hypocritical a n d exploiting Moloch-God who devoured his children a n d encouraged t h e cult of h u m a n sacrifice. This blood-lust, which biblical Judaism h a d transmitted t o Christianity, found its culmination i n t h e wage-slavery of modern capitalism which had reduced t h e masses to a state of helotry. The mercantile ’Semitic’ spirit of exploitation had triumphed u n d e r capitalism over t h e ’Aryan’ love of nature, respect for t h e family, a n d t h e pagan ideals of beauty, harmony, liberty a n d fraternity.

According to t h e Blanquist revolutionary, Gustave Tridon, i n h i s Du Molochz'sme J u z f ( 1 8 8 4 ) t h e ’Semites’ represented t h e

negative pole of humanity; they were ’the evil genius of the world’, t h e ’shadow in t h e picture of civilisation’, t h e enemies of ’Aryan’ h u m a n i t y . ” Since intolerance was ’the Semitic legacy to o u r world’ it was ’the aim of t h e Indo-Aryan race’ and a revolutionary duty ’to fight t h e Semitic spirit’ in modern society. Similar ideas were disseminated in t h e leading journal of t h e French Left, La Revue Socz'aliste, during t h e 18805 by respected socialists like Albert Regnard and Benoit Malon. Hence it is not surprising that t h e high priest of modern French a n t i s e m i t i s m , E d o u a r d D r u m o n t , s h o u l d write i n 1 8 8 9 : ’ O f a l l

the revolutionaries, only t h e Blanquists have had t h e courage to refer t o t h e Aryan race a n d to proclaim that race’s superiority.’I7 He paid a similar compliment to other French socialist forerunners like Charles Fourier, Alphonse Toussenel a n d Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, whose visceral antisemitism drew o n diverse a n d often contradictory strands of anticapitalism, Enlightenment anticlericalism a n d Catholic anti-

modernism. '8 In Germany t h e secular, anti-Christian strand of Judeophobia emerged over half a century later t h a n in France, r e fl e c t i n g t h e more backward social a n d political d e v e l o p m e n t 48

Modern

Secular Anti-Judaism

of the fragmented German states. It was first manifest in the late 18305 among the free-thinking, radical Young Hegelians, whose critique of Judaism owed more to Voltaire and the French materialists than it did t o the philosophy of Hegel on which they claimed to draw.'9 The Young Hegelians saw themselves a s engaged i n a n assault on t h e religious foundations of t h e a u t h o r i t a r i a n Christian state i n Prussia — o n e

which Karl Marx, himself a product of this school of thought, praised as ’the greatest achievement of German philsophy’.20 A t the same time, t h e i r abstract philosophising on Jews a n d J u d a i s m w a s part of a n ongoing debate i n German society over Jewish emancipation which w o u l d not be resolved for several

decades.21 Although t h e Young Hegelians were atheistic radicals w h o

spoke in the name of freedom a n d progress, they abandoned the historical premises of Hegel and t h e German Enlightenment which had still granted Judaism a respectable position o n t h e l a d d e r of h u m a n development. Ignoring t h e actual e v o l u -

tion of Germans a n d Jews since the eighteenth century and t h e effects which C h r i s t i a n persecution h a d exercised on

Jewish society, they traced all t h e flaws in Judaism to a n allegedly immutable essence. This was most obviously apparent in the polemical tract of Bruno Bauer, ’Die Judenfrage’ (’The Jewish Q u e s t i o n ’ ) , written i n 1 8 4 3 from a radical a n t i -

Christian standpoint which nonetheless opposed Jewish emancipation. Like Voltaire before him, Bauer depicted Judaism a s a fossilised religion, based o n superstition a n d

obscurantism, whose diety was cruel, vengeful, stubborn a n d egotistical. He had been created in the image of his own ’chosen people’, reflecting the egoistic national spirit of t h e Jews, t h e i r exclusivism a n d hatred of all o t h e r peoples. I n s u l a t e d b e h i n d t h e w a l l s of t h e i r Torah (religious l a w ) , t h e Jewish people h a d p u r s u e d t h e i r ahistorical, ’chimerical’

existence, indifferent to t h e development of modern civilisation. As a result of their fanatical separatism a n d stubborn particularism, they had contributed nothing to t h e German 49

From the C r o s s t o t h e S w a s t i k a

struggle for liberation a n d had not even begun the radical critique of Judaism which would have been the indispensable first step to their emancipation. As long as the Jews remained enclosed i n their narrow-minded ’Jewish essence’ there could be no question of granting them civic equality. Nor could the Christian state in Prussia, which by its very essence was based on religious prejudice, exclusivism and privilege, be expected

to emancipate German Jewry.22 Bruno Bauer’s radical critique of Judaism was largely accepted by his Young Hegelian contemporaries, including the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach a n d the founder of ’scientific socialism’, Karl Marx. Like Bauer, Feuerbach linked monotheism with Jewish ’egoism’, unfavourably contrasting its practical utilitarianism with pagan curiosity a n d openness

towards nature. Judaism was reduced i n his analysis to a theoretically narrow, ethnocentric and positivist religion based on the satisfaction of private needs and devoid of any ethical content. Another German radical, Georg Friedrich Daumer, was more vitriolic, writing to Feuerbach i n 1842 about ’the cannibalism in the Talmud’, human blood being drunk on Purim and the ’bloody mysteries of the Rabbanites [sic] and Talmudists, the Sabbatians who border on Christianity, a n d the Hassidic sects who are so numerous i n

Slavic lands’.23 He promised Feuerbach ’unbelievable’ information about the ritual murder practised by fanatical Jewish sects, to which, he suggested, Jesus Christ himself had belonged. Daumer, whose main target was Christianity, described ’the idea of the human victim sacrificed to God’ as its central notion and argued that its whole history from t h e Crucifixion to the Inquisition was one long chain of ritual murders. Daumer’s study, Die Geheimnisse des christlichen Altertums ( 1 8 4 7 ) , w a s h a i l e d by Karl Marx a s ’ t h e last blow to Christianity’ a n d a s a sign that ’ t h e o l d society is approaching

its end and that the structure of falsehood and prejudice is collapsing’. Like his Young Hegelian contemporaries, Karl Marx’s 50

Modern

Secular A n t i - J u d a i s m

critique of Judaism was part of a wider assault on organised religion and t h e foundations of Christian society. For him, as for Feuerbach, J u d a i s m was a purely worldly religion which

embodied ’actual contempt for a n d practical degradation of n a t u r e ’ , not t o speak of its ’contempt for a r t , for history, for

m a n as a n end in hmself’.24 In t h e Marxian myth of t h e worldly Jew, money was ’ t h e j e a l o u s god of Israel before whom no o t h e r god m a y s t a n d ’ . I n Christian bourgeois society,

’the god of t h e Jews has been secularised a n d become the god of t h e world. Exchange is t h e true god of the J e w . His god is

nothing more than illusory exchange.’25 Thus Marx linked together ’the practical spirit of Judaism’ with both Christianity a n d t h e economic structure of bourgeois society, which was constantly producing ’empirical Jews’ from within its bowels. Though himself born a Jew (his family h a d converted to Lutheranism when h e was six) a n d i n favour of Jewish emancipation a s a tactical weapon to u n d e r m i n e the s e m i -

absolutist Prussian Christian state, Marx never disguised his repugnance towards Jews a n d Judaism.26 His polemical answer to B r u n o B a u e r , ’Zur Judenfrage’ (’On t h e Jewish Q u e s t i o n ’ ) published i n 1 8 4 4 , for all its a n t i -

Christian rhetoric, faithfully reproduces t h e deeply rooted anti-Jewish mythology of that bourgeois Christian society he was seeking to overthrow. Like Bruno Bauer, h e argued that, despite their lack of political rights, the German Jews had already emancipated themselves ’in a Jewish manner’ through their control of high finance. Like other radicals a n d socialists in t h e nineteenth a n d twentieth centuries, h e singled out the Rothschilds a n d other Jewish banking houses for particular o d i u m . T h e economic power of t h e H o u s e of Rothschild, citizens of five different countries, p r o m i n e n t everywhere a n d i n close collaboration with different govern-

ments, would become o n e of t h e most potent symbols for the fantasy of a shadowy Jewish world government a n d a n obsession w i t h a n t i s e m i t e s of t h e Right a n d Left for g e n e r a -

tions.27 51

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

Marx himself stopped short of full-fledged antisemitism but i n his own way reinforced the negative stereotype of t h e Jew a s the personification of modern capitalism, which would later be adapted by the Nazis a n d their imitators. In 1844 h e could write that ’the practical dominance of Judaism over t h e Christian world has reached its unambiguous normal expression in North America’, while in Europe ’the practical spirit of t h e Jews has become the practical spirit of t h e Christian

peoples’.28 Judaism for the young Marx was ’a universal and contemporary anti-social element which has reached its present peak through a historical development in whose harmful aspects the Jews eagerly collaborated, a peak at which it will inevitably disintegrate’. Since huckstering was for Marx t h e cold, egoistic heart of t h e Jewish religion a n d the symbol of h u m a n self-alienation, it was only logical that ’emancipation from haggling a n d money, from practical, real Judaism would b e t h e self-emancipation of o u r time’.29 M a r x ’ s messianic s o l u -

tion to the ’Jewish question’, which already pointed to his imminent conversion to Communism, involved the complete overthrow of a society based o n t h e c a s h - n e x u s . I n t h e n e w

society, where money n o longer played any role, the Jews a n d Judaism, based as they were on the ’chimerical nationality of the merchant’, would automatically disappear. ’As soon as society succeeds i n destroying t h e empirical

essence of Judaism

— buying a n d selling, a n d its presuppositions - t h e Jew will become impossible, because his consciousness will n o longer have a n object. . . . The social emancipation of Jewry is t h e emancipation of society from Judaism.’30 Whatever t h e interpretation o n e gives to t h e s e words, t h e

implementation of Marx’s‘vision of Communism in t h e USSR in t h e name of ’ h u m a n emancipation’ would cause untold suffering, not only t o Jews a n d other national or religious minorities but also to millions of ordinary Russians. Although M a r x never opposed Jewish emancipation a s s u c h ( u n l i k e B r u n o B a u e r , w h o l a t e r became a v i r u l e n t racist a n t i s e m i t e 3 |

a n d Prussian conservative) his writings on religion were used 52

Modern

Secular Anti-Judaism

i n t h e Soviet U n i o n t o legitimise fanatical atheistic c a m p a i g n s , a n d i n t h e p o s t - w a r period t o justify t h e m o s t v u l g a r a n t i -

semitic propaganda. At t h e same time, the fact that the f o u n d e r of C o m m u n i s m was himself born a J e w made h i m t h e

arch-symbol of Jewish revolutionary subversion for t h e conservative a n d radical Right all over t h e w o r l d . Modern a n t i s e m i t i s m seized o n t h e prominent role which ’ n o n - J e w i s h Jews' like Marx played i n Socialist, C o m m u n i s t a n d o t h e r radical movements t o construct a n e w m y t h of t h e Jew as t h e ’rootless c o s m o p o l i t a n ' e n e m y of all n a t i o n a l v a l u e s , religious traditions, social cohesion a n d bourgeois m o r a l i t y . I n p o s t -

1918 Germany, in particular, t h e high visibility of Jews in t h e revolutionary movement was a key element in t h e revival of a n t i s e m i t i s m o n t h e Right, a n d a similar backlash occurred

elsewhere in Europe which has not yet played itself out. Even t h e Holocaust itself can be seen o n o n e level as a macabre consummation within National Socialist demonology of t h e myth of ’Jewish’ Communism that begins with Marx. Paradoxically, therefore, it might be said that t h e criticism a n d radical protest directed against modern society, which began with a fierce critique of its Christian foundations, in the long r u n reinforced a n d even intensified hostility towards Jews. Antisemitism, far from being weakened by t h e decline of Christian belief, revived in an age of secularisation, of modernisation a n d rapid social c h a n g e . New ideologies rose

up, which adopted their own brand of secularised antiJ u d a i s m a n d a n t i s e m i t i s m t o s u i t t h e n e w a g e . ” Liberals a n d

free-thinkers attacked t h e intolerance a n d ahistorical rigidity of Judaism o r the isolationist particularism of t h e Jews; Socialists condemned Jews as t h e embodiment of t h e ’capitalist spirit’; nationalists and racists deplored t h e ’alien’ origins a n d allegedly ’Semitic’ character of their Jewish minorities; w h i l e conservatives p o i n t e d to Jews a s a source of

permanent unrest a n d revolutionary subversion in European society.

53

Antisemitism i n Central Europe The role which Jews played in the German-speaking culture of Central Europe from the middle of the nineteenth century until the rise of Hitler was unprecedented in its scale a n d quality. Indeed it is difficult to imagine the culture of modernity without the contributions of Marx, Freud, Einstein, Kafka, Mahler, Schoenberg, Wittgenstein and many others whose parents o r grandparents had only recently been emancipated from life in the ghettos of Central Europe. Without the German-Jewish ’symbiosis’ there would have been n o great cultural peaks like fin-de-siecle Vienna or Berlin during the Weimar Republic. Paradoxically, the Jews became victims of their very success in penetrating and remoulding the agenda a n d the cultural axes of modernity in Central Europe. Identified by conservative and radical reactionary forces with t h e credo of liberalism o r Marxism — with being standardbearers of Western ideals of freedom, equality and social democracy — they were fated to be the first victims of the great counter-revolutionary backlash which culminated in National Socialism. S o deeply were Jews implicated i n reshaping t h e culture,

economy and politics of societies like Germany and Austria whose democratic traditions were weak and whose own national identity was insecure, that the antisemitism which developed in Central Europe assumed a uniquely racial and extremist quality. Racial antisemitism, grafted o n to a n older and still powerful Christian legacy of hate, served here to uproot a t its very core t h e modern dream of assimilation, 54

Antisemitism i n Central Europe

replacing it first with segregation, then expulsion a n d fi n a l l y mass extermination of t h e Jews.

Already in 1819, post-Napoleonic Germany, shaken by economic crisis a n d political u p h e a v a l , h a d experienced t h e anti-Jewish outbreaks known a s t h e ‘Hep! Hep!’ riots (a derogatory rallying cry a g a i n s t J e w s ) . The goal of the agitation

was to return the Jews to their previous ghetto status, following t h e i r entry i n t o certain occupations — such a s t h e civil service a n d t h e legal profession — which had been made

possible by the Napoleonic conquest of Germany. Not only t h e mob but also the ’educated’ burgher classes, university professors like Friedrich Rfihs a n d Jakob Fries, a n d student leaders, railed against acceptance of Jewish civic equality within a Christian state. A n e w k i n d of ’Teutomania’ came into being,

rejecting the ideals of the French Revolution as ’alien' to Germany, adopting a mystical cult of the German nation as a n Urvolk (’natural folk’), deploring the commercialisation of urban life and attacking the Jews as despoilers of the German people (Volksauspliinderer).' Throughout the nineteenth century German antisemitism would feed on this explosive ideological mix of romanticism, anti-capitalism, vélkisch nationalism a n d hatred of Western liberal democracy. Even radical intellectuals i n Germany during the first half of the nineteenth century — like the Young Hegelians, Arnold Ruge, Bruno Bauer a n d Karl Marx — made, as we have seen, t h e i r own distinctive contribution to t h e subsequent emer-

gence of a secular, anti-Christian antisemitism. They condemned t h e ’fossilised’, antihistorical character of Judaism, its religious separatism a n d its ’exploitative’ character, which, according to the radical Hegelians, had permeated bourgeois Christian society with a Judaic ethos. This depiction of Judaism as something alien and inferior which has nevertheless succeeded i n ’Judaising’ European society a n d culture

finds its apogee in Richard Wagner's antisemitic tract, ’Das Judentum in der Musz'k’ (1850). Drawing o n both the radical Hegelian

and

romantic

nationalist 55

traditions,

Wagner

From the Cross t o the S w a s t i k a

identifies t h e ’spirit of Judaism' with that of modernity — understood not as progress but as a n expression of decadence

and artistic decline.2 As it was for the young Marx in the economic arena, so for Wagner, ’liberation from Jewry’ becomes t h e goal of redemption in the creative sphere. But t h e great composer, o n e of t h e most influential antisemites of t h e modern age, goes much further t h a n his contemporaries i n h i s backlash against Jewry a n d t h e ’abstract r a t i o n a l i s m ’ which u n d e r p i n s t h e i r emancipation. For J ewry’s

entry into modern society is perceived by Wagner as t h e infiltration of a wholly alien and antagonistic group whose success symbolises t h e spiritual a n d creative crisis of German a n d European culture. The Jews represent the ’evil conscience of o u r modern civilisation’ or, to quote another phrase much repeated by t h e Nazis, ’the plastic demon of the decline of mankind’. They embodied t h e corrupt, money-making principle of t h e new bourgeois world which Wagner held responsible for its artistic decay.3 The modern, educated, assimilated Jew is depicted by Wagner, already in 1850, as ’the most heartless of all human beings’, alien and apathetic in t h e midst of a society h e does not understand, whose history a n d evolution are indifferent to him. The Jew, wholly divorced from t h e Volksgeist (’spirit of the race’), has no passion, no soul, no ’inner capacity for life’, no true music or poetry. He is a cold, loveless, purely cerebral being. Contemporary GermanJewish artists like t h e composers Felix Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, t h e poet Heinrich Heine or the radical writer Ludwig B o e r n e , are dismissed a s a r i d , sarcastic a n d self-

negating in their life and work.4 The only redemption from this sterility lies in t h e ’going under’ of Jewry, its complete dissolution a n d disappearance. Wagner’s essentially racist vision of Jewry would have a profound i n fl u e n c e o n German a n d A u s t r i a n a n t i s e m i t e s ,

including t h e English-born Houston 8 . Chamberlain, Lanz von Liebenfels a n d above all o n Adolf Hitler himself. Richard Wagner

gave

to

German

antisemitism 56

a

metaphysical

Antisemitism i n Central Europe

pseudo-profundity, an aesthetic rationale rooted in the pagan world of classical Greece and a mythical quality which also finds expression in some of his operatic works as well as in his writings. The later Wagner, influenced by the racist philosophy

o f the French

diplomat

a n d historian Comte de

Gobineau, is already a theorist of blood purity and the need to cleanse European civilisation from the spiritual and physical pollution of the Jews. In 1881 he writes to Ludwig II of Bavaria: ’I hold the Jewish race to be the born enemy of pure humanity and everything noble in it. It is certain that it is running

us Germans

to the ground,

and I a m perhaps the last

German who knows how to hold himself upright in the face of Judaism, which already rules everything.’5 It was in the late 18705, in the decade immediately following formal Jewish emancipation in both Germany and Austria, that such ideas became commonplace and served as the basis for organised political antisemitism in Germany. It was the stock market collapse o f 1 8 7 3 in Vienna and then Berlin which provided t h e trigger by provoking a n economic crisis which

adversely affected the lower middle classes.I t was against this background that radical German journalists like Otto Glagau and Wilhelm Marr wrote popular antisemitic tracts, and Prussian conservative publicists lashed out against the rule of the National Liberals (’Manchesterism’ as it was often called),

of Jewish financiers and of the German Jewish-liberal press.6 Both Glagau and Marr suggested that ’the social question is nothing but the Jewish question’ and the latter sought in 1879 to create an Antisemitic League — the first of its kind in Europe. His highly pessimistic book The Victory of Judaism over Germanism (1879), which put forward the thesis that ’Germanism’ was lost, since the Jews were already constructing their Jerusalem on the ruins of the new Germany, went through several editions and aroused extensive press comment.7 Far more effective than Marr, however, was the Lutheran court-preacher Adolf Stoecker, w h o in 1 8 7 9 organised Berlin’s 57

From the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

first genuine antisemitic movement. Stoecker’s bitter critique of Judaism a n d of modern German J ewry’s ’domination’ of the

press and the stock exchange combined traditional Lutheran theology with a n anticapitalist appeal designed to win over t h e working-class to Throne and Altar. Although Stoecker's Christian-Social Party failed in this objective, h e remained o n e

of the main propagators of a modern political antisemitism founded on Christian ideology in the Second German Reich.8 His Catholic counterpart in Vienna, Karl von Vogelsang (an ex-Protestant German expatriate) who founded the conservative newspaper Das Vaterland in the 18705, played a similar role i n laying t h e ideological-political foundations

of Austrian

antisemitism. Here, too, the assault on the Jews derived from a sharp critique of the Liberal hegemony and capitalistic exploitation of labour, combined with fear of secularising trends in modern society and the resulting decline of Christian belief. Racial antisemites like Eugen Diihring ( a Berlin philosopher

a n d economist), Theodor Fritsch and the Hessian peasant leader Otto Boeckel took a n even more intransigent, u n compromising view of the threat posed by emancipated Jewry to German society.9 Moreover, they regarded Christianity a s itself part of the problem since it was a ’Semitic' religion which had imposed the ’alien yoke’ of the Old and New Testaments on the Germanic race, thereby inhibiting and distorting its natural instincts, its strength, virility and heroic virtues. This racist trend of antisemitism had considerable appeal to university students in Germany and Austria, who in the early 1 8 8 0 5 already began to exclude Jews from membership i n their fraternities (Burschenschaften). I n a n age of formal

equality when Jews had emerged as dangerous competitors in the liberal professions, especially journalism, medicine and law, racism had obvious attractions. It provided a way of reconstructing the social boundaries that had fallen with the ghetto w a l l s - replacing them with new biological criteria

based on blood and descent. In a secular, scientific and 58

A n t i s e m i t i s m i n Central Europe

positivist age, ’race’ distinctions still had a certain objective, n e u t r a l q u a l i t y t o t h e m a n d seemed more persuasive to m a n y

pseudo-intellectuals than outdated Christian theological concepts in which they no longer believed. Above all, the notion of race h a d a certain fi n a l i t y t o it, suggesting t h a t negative Jewish

qualities were fixed a n d unchanging — hence not amenable to assimilation, conversion o r a n y other a t t e m p t s a t social integration.

Anti-Jewish stereotypes had, of course, preceded racial thinking by centuries a n d existed quite independently of t h e emergence of this n e w ideology in t h e late nineteenth century. O n e could, like Paul d e Lagarde, one of Germany's most p r o m i n e n t Orientalists a n d Bible scholars, radically negate

Jewish existence without espousing racism.lo De Lagarde, in calling for a Germanic Christianity which would completely eradicate its ’Jewish’ c o m p o n e n t s ,

was o n e of t h e few

nineteenth-century intellectuals to openly favour expulsion o r imply approval for t h e physical destruction of German Jewry.

More influential a t the time was the conservative nationalist historian, Heinrich von Treitschke, who had welcomed the Berlin antisemitic movement in 1879 with the famous slogan ’The Jews

are

our

misfortune'

(’Dz'e Juden

sind

unser

Ungliick’).” Von Treitschke gave academic legitimacy a n d respectability to what had hitherto seemed to be a rather disreputable, vulgar street movement. His demand for t h e total, u n c o n d i t i o n a l surrender by German Jews of a n y distinctive Jewish i d e n t i t y d i d n o t openly employ racial a r g u m e n t s ,

but h e did suggest that they remained a n ’alien’ element in the German population who were largely to blame for t h e antisemitic response which their emancipation had aroused. Von Treitschke, like o t h e r Prussian conservatives, especially detested t h e ’progressive’ role which German Jews h a d p l a y e d i n promoting liberal ideas, radicalism a n d Social Democracy. Already i n t h e Second Reich it h a d become fashionable t o

blame Jews for t h e policies of National Liberalism (Lasker, 59

From the Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

Bamberger), for stock-exchange capitalism (Rothschild, Bleichroder) a n d for revolutionary Marxism ( M a r x , Lassalle, Rosa L u x e m b u r g ) . B u t w h a t concerned t h e m a n d a r i n class i n

particular was their sense of Jews intruding into, subverting a n d ultimately controlling German intellectual and cultural life. This fear was rationalised a s a desire to defend t h e semifeudal, organic and ’idealist’ values of Germandom against t h e vulgar ’materialism’ with which Jews were supposedly corrupting t h e new capitalistic Germany. O n e finds such a n x i e t i e s echoed across t h e political spectrum from radical

economists like Werner Sombart to conservative monarchists

like Houston 5. Chamberlain.12 It was rare to find a German intellectual like Friedrich Nietzsche, who not o n l y admired the Jews for t h e i r spiritual

mastery a n d grandeur, while detesting ’the stupidity, crudity a n d pettiness of German nationalism’, but vehemently dissociated himself from t h e ’damnable German antisemitism,

this poisonous boil of ne’vrose natz'orzale’.l3 The German philosopher who took a n a x e t o t h e Christian religion (he was also highly critical of the Jewish ’slave rebellion in morals’) deplored ’ t h e s e latest speculators i n idealism, t h e a n t i - S e m i t e s ,

who today roll their eyes in a Christian-Aryan bourgeois manner a n d exhaust one’s patience by trying to rouse u p all t h e horned-beast elements in the people’. '4 The problem was essentially a digestive one, for the German type, so Nietzsche believed, w a s ’still weak a n d i n d e fi n i t e , so it could easily b e

blurred o r extinguished by t h e stronger race’. He had no doubt that the Jews were indeed ’the strongest, toughest, and purest race now living i n Europe’, who could gain mastery over it if

they so wished.ls Yet, as Nietzsche stressed, they desired nothing but accommodation a n d absorption, t o put a n end to their centuries of wandering — to which purpose t h e German philosopher suggested that ’it might be useful a n d fair to expel t h e antisemitic screamers from t h e country’. '6 The German a n t i s e m i t e s i n Nietzsche’s day never c o n s t i t u -

ted a major threat to t h e established social a n d political order. 60

A n t i s e m i t i s m i n Central Europe

Their organisations were too divided among themselves, too limited i n their electoral appeal a n d lacking i n charismatic

political leaders to obtain more than a n ephemeral success at the polls. At the peak of their appeal during t h e Second Reich there were sixteen a n t i s e m i t i c d e p u t i e s sitting i n t h e Imperial

Parliament — half of them from Hesse.l7 O n t h e eve of t h e First World War party political antisemitism was clearly declining,

but it would be very misleading to measure the impact of antiJewish feelings by such a narrow criterion. The influential Conservative Party adopted a n o p e n l y a n t i - J e w i s h paragraph i n its Tivoli Programme of 1 8 9 2 a n d t h e ideologically affiliated Agrarian League ( B u n d d e r Landwirte) was a powerful u l t r a conservative a n d antisemitic pressure group. ' 8

If purely antisemitic rabble-rousers like Otto Boeckel, Hermann Ahlwardt a n d Liebermann von Sonnenberg were ultimately unsuccessful, this was not so true of right-wing, imperialist lobbies 'like t h e Pan-Germanic League (Alldeutscher Verband), the Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfenverband (a white-collar trade union), the Akademischer Turnerbund (a gymnastics club) o r t h e Verein Deutscher S t u d e n t e n — a n antisemitic s t u d e n t s ’ movement.

The impact of such lobbies a n d interest-groups, imbued with a n antiliberal, vb'lkz'sch-national and antisemitic outlook, was considerably greater than that of ephemeral anti-Jewish political parties which rose a n d fell i n accordance w i t h t h e

vagaries of t h e economy a n d the political system as a whole. '9 Moreover, a s w e have s e e n , organised a n t i s e m i t i s m , which

had first emerged in Germany after 1873, had a strong underpinning in cultural a n d religious stereotypes that remained entrenched in almost all sectors of the population. Once this potential was activated by t h e effects of defeat in t h e First World War, by i n fl a t i o n , massive economic depression, c h r o n i c political instability a n d t h e rise of a powerful m a s s

movement of t h e Right, German antisemitism was rapidly transformed into a formidable political force. Before 1 9 1 4 it was, however, i n G e r m a n Austria a n d above 61

From

t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

all in Vienna that antisemitism first displayed its vote-catching efficacy. The Jews of Vienna, who formed about 8 per cent of t h e population, were heavily over-represented in the liberal professions, especially journalism, law and medicine — half of t h e students in the medical faculty in 1910 were Jewish. The Jews dominated the liberal educated class in fin-de-siecle Vienna a n d , even more than in Germany at that time, they seemed to be t h e creators, the critics, the impresarios a n d managers of German high culture. For Stefan Zweig they contributed nine-tenths of everything important in Viennese culture — a n exaggeration, no doubt, but o n e containing enough truth to arouse the rage of the Austrian antisemites from Lueger to Hitler who denounced t h e ’Judaisation’ of the press, art, literature a n d the theatre. The challenging innovations of Viennese Jews in psychoanalysis (Freud, Adler, R e i c h ) , i n m u s i c ( M a h l e r , Schoenberg), i n literature, criticism a n d philosophy (Schnitzler, S a l t e n , Beer-Hoffmann, K r a u s )

simply

intensified

the

resentment

of

many

Catholic

Austrians.20 Anti-Jewish theologians like August Rohling, a u t h o r of t h e notorious Der Talmudjude, a n d Joseph Deckert railed against a ’Semitic’ conspiracy of powerful Jews who aimed a t t h e subversion of t h e Catholic faith a n d even practised, so they alleged, ritual murder as part of their hatred

of Gentiles and insatiable drive for domination in Austria.2l Antisemitic politicians like Schneider, Gregorig, Pattai, Lueger a n d Schoenerer disseminated these a n d other baseless slanders to a mass audience. To some extent this fin-de-siecle Austrian antisemitism was a displaced reaction against t h e liberal capitalism which threatened those declining social strata — especially the Viennese artisans — with economic decline into the proletariat. Jewish industrialists a n d bankers as well as migrant pedlars from Galicia were seen as two sides of the same threat posed by capitalist modernisation to the traditional way of life of the l o w e r m i d d l e classes. W h i l e t h e m u l t i - n a t i o n a l Habsburg s t a t e

valued t h e contribution made by Jewish enterprise to building 62

A n t i s e m i t i s m i n Central Europe

u p t h e railroads, fi n a n c i n g t h e c o a l m i n e s , pioneering s u g a r r e fi n i n g , establishing t h e beer i n d u s t r y , developing t h e i r o n a n d steel industry, t h e b a n k i n g system a n d t h e metropolitan press, ordinary A u s t r i a n s resented t h e dizzying ascent of t h e Jews i n w e a l t h a n d social s t a t u s w i t h i n o n e generation. It was

all too easy a n d convenient to ascribe this success story to money-grabbing ’materialism’, dishonesty in business d e a l i n g s o r t o a malevolent conspiracy to subjugate a n d

oppress the Catholic majority. The immensely popular resonance of anticapitalist a n t i -

semitism among t h e Viennese found its best expression in the spectacular career of Karl Lueger, the first democratic politician t o triumph anywhere i n E u r o p e o n a n explicitly a n t i -

Jewish platform.22 Elected Mayor of Vienna in 1897, at the head of t h e Christian-Social Party, h e retained power u n t i l h i s

death in 1910 a n d was t h e first political role-model for t h e young Adolf Hitler, who admired him as ’the greatest German Biirgermeister of all times.’ Lueger’s attack o n the Jews was a central part of his general assault o n Liberal political hegemony in city politics a n d later of his defence of bourgeois class interests against t h e rising Social Democrats — most of whose intellectual leadership was Jewish, beginning with its founder Victor Adler. Lueger denounced Jewish influence in Hungary

( c o i n i n g t h e abusive term ’Judeo-Magyars’), i n

Austrian banking, industry a n d commerce, in the Viennese Press, in medicine a n d the liberal professions. His ChristianSocial party called openly for segregation in the school system ( t h o u g h t h i s was never i m p l e m e n t e d ) , for b a n n i n g t h e i m m i -

gration of foreign Jews a n d for t h e restriction of Jewish influence in public life. Although officially Catholic in its discourse, the party had prominent agitators in its ranks, i n c l u d i n g Schneider, Gregorig a n d priests like F a t h e r Deckert a n d Joseph Scheicher, whose populist a n t i s e m i t i s m was a s

incendiary as that of a n y beer-swilling Pan-German racists. After his election to office in 1897 Lueger himself was more covert i n h i s a n t i - J e w i s h rhetoric, limited a s h e was by F r a n z 63

From t h e C r o s s t o t h e S w a s t i k a

Joseph's i m p e r i a l authority, w h i c h u p h e l d t h e equality of a l l

religious faiths and of all Austrian citizens before the law. Nevertheless, Lueger did not disown the more extremist Jewbaiters in his movement and did on occasion resort to racist remarks as well as carrying on surreptitious discrimination

against Jewish employees of the municipality.23 Although himself the holder of an academic degree, Dr Lueger did not hesitate to indulge i n the crass antiintellectualism so often directed by the more plebeian members of his party against Jews, free thinkers or socialists. Thus he frequently denigrated the universities and medical schools for being ’Jew-infested' strongholds of atheism, free thinking, revolutionary subversion and the undermining of Christian morality. At the time of the 1905 Russian revolution, he threatened the Jewish community that i f they supported the Social Democrats a pogrom could result. ’I warn the Jews most expressly; for the same thing could perhaps happen as in Russia. We i n Vienna are n o t anti-Semites [sicl], we are

certainly not inclined to murder and violence. But if the Jews should threaten our fatherland, then we will show n o

mercy.’24 The Christian-Social Party, he declared on another occasion, was determined that the ’Christian Volk' and not the alien Jews should be masters in their own house. His movement advocated ’Christian solidarity’ accompanied by an economic boycott of Jewish businesses to achieve this end, though such calls were rarely observed. It constantly campaigned against the Verjudung (’Judaisation') of Austrian culture, though here t o o i t m e t w i t h l i t t l e practical success. B u t i t was more effective

i n implanting

antisemitism i n the hearts and minds of the

younger generation, i n m a k i n g its discourse respectable a n d

normal i n public life, i n linking i t with a traditional, sentimental, religiously oriented Austrian Catholic patriotism.25 Lueger’s conservative antisemitism was not incompatible with the toleration of baptised Jews or collaboration with wealthy, powerful Jewish capitalists whom the municipality 64

Antisemitism i n Central Europe

needed to help f u n d its more a m b i t i o u s projects for modernisi n g Vienna. This pragmatic, opportunist approach h a d always

been typical of Lueger’s politics and i t did not change after he h a d embraced antisemitism as a n integral part o f his platform

and ideology. He understood the value of antisemitism as a tactical weapon for attaining power b u t also recognised, unlike

many of his rivals and his more extreme supporters, its limits once in office. His ’ w a r against t h e Jews' was carried o u t w i t h i n t h e framework o f a conciliatory, supranational Habsburg

dynasty which deplored antisemitism as the politics of the street; mass violence w i t h i n this Rechtsstaat (a state based o n l a w ) was rare, except i n moments of crisis in Hungary, Galicia o r Bohemia. There were n o major economic crises such as

characterised the post-1918 era in Austria. Nor were there any pogroms in Habsburg Vienna despite the hysterical diatribes of t h e more rabid Austrian antisemites. Viennese Jews were n o t stripped of their civil rights; there was n o expropriation o f

Jewish wealth and, for all the anxiety and insecurity which antisemitism aroused, Jews continued to make a brilliant contribution t o German-Austrian culture.

Nevertheless, Austrian antisemitism — that of Lueger and of his great rival, the Pan-German Georg von Schoenerer — provided the first model for Adolf Hitler’s own war against the Jews, demonstrating to him its possibilities as a method of mobilising the masses against a single, highly visible and vulnerable enemy. It was in pre-war Vienna that the young Hitler would discover the ’Jewish Question’ and begin to link it inexorably w i t h capitalism, Marxism a n d t h e struggle for existence o f t h e German nation. From Austrian Pan-

Germanism Hitler took the biological, racist foundation of his world-view, and from Lueger he would learn how to use antisemitism as a political tool.26

65

Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’

The ’Final Solution’ of t h e E u r o p e a n ’Jewish q u e s t i o n ’ w a s t h e direct o u t c o m e of t h e ideology a n d policies adopted by Adolf

Hitler as head of t h e German Nazi State. Already in his first written political statement, dated 16 September 1919, t h e future leader of t h e Third Reich advocated a so-called ’rational' systematic antisemitism that would aim a t t h e elimination by t h e German state of t h e Jews altogether.l Insistently, in his early speeches in Bavaria in t h e 19205, h e referred to the Jews as being made in t h e image of t h e Devil, a s a universal form of ’racial tuberculosis’ o r a s u b h u m a n species of vermin whose

’eradication root a n d branch’ was a matter of life a n d death for Germany a n d mankind as a whole.2 In 1922 h e declared that if h e gained power ’the annihilation of t h e Jews will be my first a n d foremost task’, a n d spoke of public hangings that would go o n ’until t h e last Jew in Munich is obliterated' a n d all of Germany would be cleansed.3 The ’Jewish question’, h e consistently emphasised, was a n encounter of cosmic significance between two antagonistic races fighting for world d o m i n a t i o n . N o n e u t r a l i t y a n d n o q u a r t e r c o u l d be given i n

this either-or struggle, for Jews did not merely represent o n e danger among others, but rather t h e totality of evils confronting ’Aryan’ civilisation, a n d their eradication was t h e cond i t i o n for its f u t u r e d e v e l o p m e n t .

Adolf Hitler, as a n Austrian-born Catholic educated in Linz, w h o h a d arrived i n M u n i c h before t h e First World W a r , w a s

t h e heir of a n age-old tradition of Christian antisemitism which had become transmuted into biological racism, 66

Hitler's ’Final Solution’

especially in t h e German-speaking world of Central Europe. The secular political faith of National Socialism which h e propagated borrowed its motifs freely from Christian liturgy, from t h e hierarchical structure of t h e Catholic Church a n d t h e demonological view of Judaism as a satanic force which had

its roots in the Middle Ages.4 In his early years as a political agitator i n Bavaria h e frequently played o n t h e deicidal m y t h a n d o n h i s o w n messianic role a s a m i l i t a n t G e r m a n i c s a v i o u r bearing a sword r a t h e r t h a n a crown of t h o r n s , w h o w o u l d drive t h e Jewish capitalists from t h e Temple of t h e Lord. ’The

task which Christ began but did not finish', h e told a Munich audience in 1926, ’I will complete.’5 In Mein Kampf h e had written, two years earlier, t h a t ’in defending myself a g a i n s t t h e

Jews I a m acting for t h e Lord’.6 Without the irrational beliefs inculcated by centuries of Christian dogma - reinforced by xenophobic, nationalist a n d Germanic racial mythology Hitler’s antisemitism and t h e echo which it found throughout Europe would have been inconceivable. At t h e same time it must be recognised that there were elements

in

Nazi antisemitism

that

turned

against t h e

Christian doctrines which had incubated it for centuries. Already in his Vienna days t h e young Hitler had rejected the traditional Catholic view that ’a splash of baptismal water' could redeem t h e biological ’taint’ of Jewry, a n d dismissed a n y attempt to separate Geist (’spirit’) from race. I n conversations

with Dietrich Eckart in t h e early 19205 h e reproached Martin Luther for having translated t h e Bible into German, thereby inadvertently h e l p i n g to permeate t h e G e r m a n people w i t h a

’Jewish spirit'. Since t h e Jews were t h e physical incarnation of the very principle of evil, only a radical solution which involved t h e i r e l i m i n a t i o n a s a race c o u l d cure t h e ’ i n n e r

Judaisation (Verjudung) of o u r people’.7 For Hitler a n d t h e Nazis, in contrast to t h e traditional teachings of Christianity, n o spiritual redemption of t h e J e w s was possible — t h e i r racial characteristics were eternal a n d u n c h a n g i n g . J e w i s h i n fl u e n c e m e a n t t h e t r i u m p h of a n t i n a t u r e over n a t u r e , of disease o v e r 67

From the C r o s s t o t h e S w a s t i k a

health, of intellect over instinct. This mystical, biological a n d naturalistic racism was later to be used to sanction final measures against all Jews, whatever their social background, beliefs o r political convictions. Unlike t h e Christian Churches, who had never officially condoned t h e slaughter of Jews but had generally been content to degrade, stigmatise o r marginalise them, t h e Nazis were driven with terrifying literalness to institutionalise their irrational belief in a n unchanging, satanic Jewish ’essence' which was supposedly rooted in physical characteristics. In order to demonstrate t h e reality of their myth of ’Aryan’ racial superiority (which would be irrevocably tainted by miscegenation o r physical contact with Jews) they committed themselves to t h e total eradication of Jewry as a people. In t h e process, Nazism itself became contaminated with a profound Christophobia, decrying Christianity as a ’Semitic’ religion which was emasculating t h e healthy, heroic and warrior virtues of t h e German people with its preaching of t h e virtues of humility, compassion, charity and love. In his wartime Table Talk, Hitler spoke of t h e Jew as having ’fraudulently introduced Christianity into the ancient world — in order to ruin it — reopening t h e same breach in modern times, this time taking as his pretext the social question’. Christianity was now compared with Bolshevism (its ’illegitimate child’), St Paul with Karl Marx, a n d t h e equality of all believers before God was reviled as a sinister doctrine of

subversion of the Roman Empire.8 The official philosopher of t h e Nazi movement, Alfred Rosenberg, had gone even further in his Myth of the Twentieth Century (1934), branding C h r i s t i a n i t y a s a n effeminate, race-destroying dogma i n v e n t e d by J e w s w h i c h w a s sapping t h e p r i s t i n e Germanic v a l u e s of

honour, freedom, independence a n d virility.9 Hitler’s closest a i d e , M a r t i n B o r m a n n , was a l s o u n d o u b t e d l y sincere w h e n h e

defined National Socialist doctrine in November 1944 as ’ a n t i - J e w i s h in excelsz's, for it is b o t h a n t i - C o m m u n i s t a n d a n t i Christian’. ' 0 68

Hitler’s ’Final Solution’

B u t the Nazi leaders, except for Rosenberg, were generally

careful to restrain their Christophobia i n public and, whatever their private feelings,it did not stop them from exploiting the rich armoury of Christian myths of the Jew as Satan, Antichrist, sorcerer, usurer and ritual murderer

for their own political

ends.

Even though they had secularised and radicalised what was an to use a longessentially religious stereotype, by continuing familiar language about the diabolical Jew, they could guarantee

themselves the collaboration of the Christian Churches and of millions

of ordinary laymen throughout

Europe. In this way they

successfully subverted Christianity from within, even as they replaced i t with a pseudo-scientific, irrational ideology based on blood and soil, race and destiny, the worship by the Herrenvolk (’master race’) of its own eternal renewal.“ It was a world-view whose forerunners

went back to early German romanticism,

to

Richard Wagner, Houston Chamberlain, Paul de Lagarde, German vé'lkz'sch prophets and Austrian occultist racists like Lanz von Liebenfels from the turn of the century -— for all of whom Judaism had embodied the antithesis of both pagan and Christian-Germanic values. Hitler’s radical antisemitism could not, however, have attained the resonance i t did without the operation of other, more m u n d a n e factors in German politics. The collapse of t h e

Hohenzollern Monarchy, the defeat in the First World War and the abortive revolutions in Munich and Berlin which occurred in 1918 and 1919, created a counter-revolutionary mood of rare violence i n the newly formed Weimar Republic. The fact that many of the leaders of the suppressed revolutions were Jews (Kurt Eisner, Eugen Levine’, Ernst Toller, Erich Miihsam, Gustav Landauer, Rosa Luxemburg, etc.) was undoubtedly a crucial factor in intensifying German antisemitism against the background of national trauma and humiliation. '2 Although Hitler’s own Judeophobia predated this trauma, it offered him and the German radical Right a uniquely favourable context for claiming that the so-called ’November criminals’ were part o f a Jewish world conspiracy. 69

From the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

That German Jews were for t h e most part intensely patriotic members of the respectable middle class a n d voted for t h e liberals rather than Social Democrats o r Communists was immaterial to the myth-makers; for the Nazis a n d the German conservative Right had no difficulty in portraying November 1918 as a ’stock exchange’ revolution serving Jewish financial interests a n d not those of ordinary German workers. Both capitalism a n d Marxism were depicted as part of t h e same international conspiracy to enslave Germany to the will of the vengeful Allied victors, responsible for inflicting massive war r e p a r a t i o n s o n t h e G e r m a n people.13 The Jews symbolically

represented these foreign powers - they allegedly controlled big capital, international finance, the bourgeois parties, the organised labour movement, parliamentary democracy a n d all those sinister forces working to undermine the authority of t h e s t a t e a n d n a t i o n a l i n d e p e n d e n c e . Above all, t h e successful

revolution which had occurred in Soviet Russia was depicted as a prelude to the future ’Bolshevisation’ of Germany a n d the beginning of the last stage in world Jewry’s coming bid for

global hegemony.l4 This organic linkage of anti-Communism with antisemitism ensured in t h e long run the support of the traditional e’lites in G e r m a n society for Hitler’s political programme. B y c o n n e c t -

ing his racist obsessions with a far-reaching plan for smashing organised labour, restructuring Germany along authoritarian lines, ensuring Lebensraum (’living space’) to t h e East a n d t h e destruction of Soviet Russia as the bastion of international C o m m u n i s m , Hitler guaranteed h i s broader appeal t o t h e

Conservatives a n d disorientated middle classes as well as to t h e unemployed masses. In contrast t o so many of his racist predecessors a n d contemporaries, h e recognised that pathological a n t i s e m i t i s m m i x e d with Social D a r w i n i s m o r t h e

’Aryan’ myth could not on its own make deep inroads into German public opinion. Militant anti-Communism a n d a n uncompromising assault o n parliamentary democracy as a source of internal weakness a n d disorder provided, by 70

Hitler’s ’Final Solution'

contrast, a powerful rallying-cry at a t i m e w h e n the German

and European middle classes were increasingly deserting liberal solutions to their problems. Hitler understood that t h e

widespread identification of Jews with world revolution and avant-garde cultural modernism offered him a way to capitalise on these German bourgeois anxieties by focusing t h e m o n a single scapegoat; at t h e same time i t also enabled

him to present National Socialism as the guardian of authentic European civilisation. ' 5 The irrational dynamic of Nazism and its uncompromising

exterminatory drive towards Jews could

be masked by its posture as a militant mass movement fighting against the Marxist danger a n d for a genuine

national revival,

along the lines of Italian fascism or other radical right-wing movements in Europe.

The racist antisemitism of the Nazis, with its phantasmagoric view of t h e Jews as a deadly bacillus

a n d ’poisoner’ o f the

nations, did not initially infect large masses of Germans, but through zealous propaganda (extended for over a decade before t h e seizure of power i n 1 9 3 3 ) i t undoubtedly affected

public attitudes. After 1933 such antisemitic doctrines became moreover, an official article of faith, the policy of the ruling Nazi Party and state institutions, one of the ideological pillars

of what was to be the German ’New Order’ for Europe.16 The Nazis n o w felt free t o implement

their antisemitic

programme, step by step, through a series of stages from legal discrimination, expropriation, forced emigration a n d t h e n

ghettoisation to the mass extermination undertaken during t h e Second World War. Before t h e ’Crystal N i g h t ’ pogrom o f November 1938, they concentrated o n removing a l l Jews from public office a n d German cultural life. Drastic measures such as the Nuremberg Race Laws o f 1 9 3 5 effectively introduced

institutionalised apartheid between Germans and Jews. Through massive indoctrination a n d newspapers l i k e Julius Streicher’s Der Stiirmer a poisonous brew o f antisemitic hatred, sadism a n d perversity was served u p t o the German people, w a r n i n g t h e m against international Jewish machina7l

From t h e Cross to the S w a s t i k a

tions a n d racial defilement through sexual contact with Jews, a n d zealously encouraging t h e economic boycott of Jewish

businesses.'7 A major objective of this propaganda was to bring about the mass emigration of German Jewry, but this was partly frustrated by the tight quotas imposed by foreign countries o n t h e admission of Jews. Simultaneously, Hitler sought with some success to export his radical antisemitism to n e i g h b o u r i n g countries a s a weapon of i n t e r n a l subversion

a n d political penetration in East-Central Europe and as a method of psychologically undermining the Western democracies. His secret memorandum of 1936 for t h e Four Years’ Plan, in which h e also expounds o n the coming inevitable confrontat i o n w i t h t h e ’Jewish E n e m y ' a s a part of w a r preparations

against the Soviet Union, sketches o u t t h e world-historical perspective in which h e had always placed the ’Jewish question'. Bolshevism appears in this context as t h e last stage in a long historical struggle whose essence a n d aim was t h e replacement of t h e old leadership strata in t h e Nordic nations by t h e domination of world Jewry. Marxism, through its victory in Russia, had established ’a forward base for future operations’ against which a n ideologically divided democratic world was incapable of fighting effectively. Because of its history a n d geographical position at the heart of the West, G e r m a n y a l o n e stood a s a barrier a g a i n s t t h e J e w i s h - B o l s h e v i k

onslaught. Failure in this battle would lead to t h e ’extermination of the German people’ a n d a ’catastrophic disaster of t h e E u r o p e a n n a t i o n s , unprecedented i n t h e history of m a n k i n d

since the fall of the Ancient Empires'.'3 It was precisely this k i n d of apocalyptic t h i n k i n g which would i n fl u e n c e Hitler's

fateful decision to invade t h e Soviet Union in J u n e 1941. The purpose of that attack was to achieve in o n e blow what t h e Nazi leader had always seen as his central political goals — t h e destruction of European Jewry, t h e elimination of t h e citadel of Bolshevism a n d t h e creation of German ‘living space' in t h e East. 72.

Hitler’s ’Final Solution’

The pogrom of November 1 9 3 8 - t h e most v i o l e n t p u b l i c

display of antisemitism in modern German history — marked a watershed on Hitler’s road to the ’Final Solution’. An orderly, legislative and bureaucratic method of resolving t h e ’Jewish question' was for the moment abandoned, t h e seizure of Jewish property a n d t h e total e x c l u s i o n of Jews from t h e German economy was accelerated a n d t h e violence of the SS u n l e a s h e d w i t h o u t restraint. Every synagogue i n Germany

was burnt down o r demolished, over 30,000 Jewish men were seized a n d s e n t t o concentration camps, m a n y Jewish b u s i n e s -

ses destroyed and several hundred Jews murdered or severely wounded. C r u e l t y , terror a n d mocking h u m i l i a t i o n of Jews i n

Germany became rampant. A meeting held a t Field Marshal Goering’s offices in the Reich Air Ministry on 12 November 1 9 3 8 reveals t h e degraded, sadistic fantasies t h a t t h e top Nazi

leaders indulged in when discussing their anti-Jewish policy. '9 Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels felt that Jews themselves should ’clear away t h e damaged or burnt synagogues and present the German people with cleared free spaces for

their own use’;20 they should be banned from sitting next to Germans in variety shows, cinemas or theatres or from sharing sleeping compartments o n trains w i t h G e r m a n s ; swimming

pools, beaches, seaside resorts a n d forests should be forbidden to them as well as German parks. Above all it was ’necessary

that Jews be absolutely excluded from German schools’.2| Goering, for h i s part, cynically decided o n t h e o n e - b i l l i o n -

Mark fi n e to be imposed on German Jewry ’as a punishment’ for t h e d a m a g e inflicted upon them a n d t h e i r property by t h e

Nazis! His closing threat was a n ominous one in keeping with other pronouncements by Nazi leaders in 1938—9. ’If t h e German Reich comes into conflict with foreign powers in the n e a r f u t u r e , it goes w i t h o u t saying t h a t we i n Germany will first of all l e t it come t o a fi n a l reckoning of o u r account w i t h

t h e Jews.’22

‘

Hitler’s n o t o r i o u s Reichstag speech of 3 0 J a n u a r y 1 9 3 9 w a s even more chilling i n its t o n e s of a p o c a l y p t i c prophecy. 73

From the Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

During t h e time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish race which received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would o n e day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among many other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers i n a n d o u t s i d e Europe s h o u l d succeed i n plunging t h e nations once more into

a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in

Europe!23 Hitler’s threats of extermination were wildly applauded by the Nazi deputies, but the Kristallnacht pogrom had shown that the German public as a whole was less than enthusiastic about t h e plundering of property a n d burning down of synagogues. The pogrom had not been ’spontaneous’ but centrally coordinated by the regime, which was well aware of public reservations through its secret ’opinion’ reports. As a consequence, future violence against the Jews would be carried o u t in secrecy a n d in a more ’orderly’ manner. The ’Final Solution’ would not adopt the spontaneous pogrom violence of Russian a n d East European antisemitism but rather be implemented in a methodical manner by t h e highly organised, bureaucratised state machine of t h e Third Reich, using the SS and the Wehrmacht

a s its i n s t r u m e n t s . They would b e helped by

thousands of top bureaucrats, by German industrialists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, bankers, clerks, railway officials a n d ordinary workers, without whom t h e trains to Auschwitz would never have run o n time. This machinery of destruction, as historians like Raul Hilberg a n d sociologists like Zygmunt Bauman have pointed 74

Hitler’s ’Final Solution’

o u t , reflected t h e technological a n d organisational a l i e n a t i o n of a bureaucratically organised society s u c h a s Nazi G e r m a n y , a s well a s t h e totalitarian methods of d o m i n a t i o n perfected by

the 88.24 But massive ideological conditioning was also required in addition to t h e routinising of operations a n d t h e deliberate fragmentation of responsibilities e n c o u r a g e d by a modern technically advanced state, i n order t o carry o u t t h e mass m u r d e r of a n e n t i r e people. I n d e e d , Nazi a n t i s e m i t i s m achieved its greatest success i n t h e c o m p l e t e depersonalisation of

t h e Jews, their gradual dehumanisation as a result of ceaseless pr0paganda and their transformation in the eyes of ordinary Germans first into social pariahs and then into total outsiders. In t h e years before t h e Second World War, millions of G e r m a n s had been systematically t a u g h t t h a t Jews were cowards, s e x u a l perverts, corrupt exploiters, d a n g e r o u s

revolutionaries a n d ultimately subhuman vermin. These stereotypes gained in force the more that Jews were stripped of their civil rights a n d socially excluded. The terrifying image of a non-people s e e m e d paradoxically to g a i n i n credibility t h e fewer Jews there were i n Germany itself. I n historian I a n

Kershaw’s words, ’depersonalisation increased t h e already existent widespread indifference of German popular opinion a n d formed a vital stage between t h e archaic violence of the pogrom a n d t h e rationalised "assembly line" annihilation of

the death camps’.25 The ideological a n d mythical concepts that underlay t h e Nazi w a r against t h e Jews came to their horrific climax following ’Operation Barbarossa', Hitler’s holy war against t h e Soviet U n i o n i n t h e n a m e of t h e twisted Cross of t h e S w a s t i k a . T h e task of mass m u r d e r w a s e n t r u s t e d first a n d foremost to t h e SS u n d e r t h e command of Heinrich H i m m l e r , w h o saw t h e

’Final Solution’ above all as a hygienic measure to ensure t h e racial p u r i t y of t h e greater G e r m a n i c Reich a n d t h e N e w O r d e r

in Europe. It was t h e fulfilment of a moral duty to the German people ’ t o destroy t h i s p e o p l e h e t h e J e w s ] who w a n t e d to destroy us’, a n a c t i o n w h i c h h e compared to h a v i n g ’ e x t e r m i 75

From t h e C r o s s t o t h e S w a s t i k a

nated a bacterium because we do not want in the end to be

infected by the bacterium and die of i f ? " Mass murder was rationalised as an act of apocalyptic ’idealism’,

of harshness

towards oneself in the service of a sacredmission - the creation o f a n e w master race of blue-eyed, b l o n d heroes. The

executioners should pride themselves on this great historical achievement, as Himmler told his audience of SS and high police officials in Posen on 6 October 1943 — i t was ’a page of glory in our history, which has never been written and never is to be written’.27 The character traits of the ’ideal' German — uprightness, honesty, cleanliness, purity, strength and above all decency(!) were harnessed by Himmler to the gruesome task commanded b y t h e Fiihrer of t h e German Reich. ’Most of you m u s t know what i t means w h e n a hundred corpses are

lying side by side, or five hundred or a thousand. To have stuck i t out and at the same time — apart from exceptions caused by human weakness — to have remained decent men, that is what

has made us hard.’28 This kind of perverted masculine idealism was characteristic of the creed of the SS, designed to be the spearhead of a total revaluation of all values along racial lines throughout Europe. Its global and historical mission would never be accomplished without the annihilation of the Jews and of a ’Judaised Europe’, with its incurable diseases of a sick and debilitating Christianity and a ’corrupt' Marxism. Both Judaism and Christianity after all had severed man from his organic bond with nature, from the primordial values of blood, soil and race, from t h e warrior virtues o f t h e tribal, Germanic

past. As the

educators of the SS never tired of emphasising, the Jews in particular had always been a disruptive ’ferment of decomposition' in all times and places, seeking to undermine the blood consciousness o f t h e host peoples, their racial pride a n d ethnic integrity. I n t h e words o f the Nazi philosopher, Alfred

Baeumler i n 1943, the Jew represented not only Judaism but all the forces against which Nazism was fi g h t i n g - t h e legacy of monotheism, Western civilisation, liberalism, rationalism a n d 76

Hitler’s ’Final Solution’

critical humanism.29 Thus Judaism was the arch-enemy of the German,

t h e symbol a n d substance o f everything hostile to

Germandom and Nazism, the total adversary personified. In contrast to Nazi policy towards other groups, however ruthless

or cruel, there could be n o Jewish candidates whatsoever for re-Germanisation or assimilation to the Nazi racial ideal.30 For Hitler's w a r against t h e Jews was always conceived as a w a r o f

world outlooks (Weltanschauungskrz‘eg) for global hegemony between two ’chosen peoples’, t h e Germans a n d t h e Jews.

I t was this intensely ideological, mystical and deeply irrational character of Hitler’s antisemitism, linked to his exceptional political skills and the total power which he exercised as the head of a highly developed military and industrial state, which made the Holocaust possible. In his eschatological world-view, itself a monstrous mutation born out of centuries of Christian diabolising of the Jews, the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’ was indeed the key to world history, to the future of Germany, of European civilisation and of the white, Aryan race. Antisemitism remained the bedrock of his political credo right until his inglorious end in a besieged and ruined Berlin in April 1945, with ’the thousand-year Reich’ going up i n flames around him. His last testament charged ’the leaders of the nation and those under them to scrupulous observance of the laws of race and to merciless opposition to t h e universal poisoner o f all peoples, I n t e r -

national Jewry’.31 In its fanatical intransigence this testament represented the apocalyptic nemesis of a bimillennial disease that had been raging intermittently in the heart of Christendom.

77

7 After Auschwitz: the German Response The German National Socialists lost t h e Second World War but through their murder of six million Jewish m e n , women and children they brought to a tragic end t h e immensely creative, millennial Ashkenazic culture of Central and East European Jewry. Hitler’s demonic racism killed or forced out the most distinctive minority in Germany, leaving i n ruins the German-

Jewish ’symbiosis' which had done so much to shape the colour, tone and content of modern culture. There are of course, educated, sensitive Germans, capable of seeing beyond the remarkable material prosperity of post-war Germany, who fully comprehend the scale and magnitude of the loss. There are also more ambiguous verdicts like that of the historian Golo Mann, who could write in 1960: ’The astonishing success of the Bonn Republic in t h e eyes of its own people and t h u s i n the eyes of t h e

outside world, the relative composure that characterises public life in Germany today, has something to d o with the fact that the German Jews have fl e d or were murdered.’ The success of postwar Germany’s streamlined, acquisitive consumer society h a s for

a long time been bought at t h e price of a n evasive forgetfulness of the massive crimes committed against the Jews — a denial of guilt that began during the war years and even today has scarcely been fully digested. For recent research shows that the common claim that ’the German people did not know’ what was being done i n its name does not stand u p to serious examination a n d

that as long as the Nazis could point to successes during the war, antisemitic propaganda acted as a n efficient, socially integrative force. 78

After Auschwitz: the German Response

O n l y a s defeat came closer a n d news of t h e mass murder

filtered through more widely did the German public begin to throw up the defence mechanisms of wilful ignorance and denial which continue to shape the attitudes of many Germans today} Opinion polls regularly undertaken since 1946—7 s h o w a disturbing pattern of prejudice that h a s persisted despite t h e

horrors of Auschwitz and the drastic reduction of German Jewry from its pre-Hitler strength of half a million to some

30,000 Jews in the new united Germany of 1990.2 In 1947, three-quarters of all Germans considered the Jews to ‘belong to a different race than ourselves’, and almost as many declared t h e y w o u l d n o t marry a J e w . In October 1948, 4 1 per cent of Germans still approved t h e Nazi seizure of power (as

late as 1978 over a third held that the Third Reich had not been all that bad) ; in 1952 a third evaluated Hitler positively and a similar proportion agreed that antisemitism was caused

primarily by Jewish characteristics. In the same year, 37 per cent of the population felt that it was better for Germany not to have any Jews (this had declined to 19 per cent by May 1965). Also i n 1 9 5 2 , 6 5 per cent of Germans said that t h e Nazis had succeeded i n spreading aversion to Jews a n d n o less than 8 8

per cent affirmed that they had n o personal responsibility for the mass exterminations. Two-fifths of Germans were against the Allied de-Nazification programme and only a fifth had ever

discussed the persecution of the Jews with their children.3 These figures retrospectively reveal h o w few Germans were anti-Nazi during t h e w a r years i n t h e s e n s e of opposing t h e government o r helping t h e Jews, a n d h o w m a n y h a d accepted

the Nazi view of the German destiny and the place of the Jews in it. They also testify to the half-hearted nature of American a n d British de-Nazification programmes after 1946. T h e Western Allies w a n t e d a strong Germany a s a counterweight to t h e Communist threat from t h e East a n d settled for a state i n w h i c h m a n y o f t h e élites w h o h a d b e e n influential i n t h e Third

Reich retained their wealth, status and power. Many ex-Nazis 79

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

were employed by t h e military government, academics w i t h a

Nazi record o r German judges who had enforced Nazi law and other former Nazis in the police force, industry, business a n d t h e schools retained their positions. Only a tiny handful of Germans were adjudged major offenders by the Allied courts, while t h e great majority went unpunished.4 Only in Communist East Germany was t h e old order largely destroyed by land reform, the expropriation of the biggest industrial firms a n d t h e extensive application of the death penalty to war criminals. Active Nazis were usually barred o r dismissed from schools and universities, though those who

were not war criminals were admitted into public life.5 However, by the end of 1952 East Germany was engulfed in the Soviet-inspired tide of antisemitism that affected most of Eastern Europe. Unlike the Federal Republic, it categorically refused to pay reparations to the State of Israel, though Jewish ’victims of fascism’ resident on its soil were supported through pensions a n d other material benefits. The new German ’workers’ and peasants’ state’ based o n t h e Communist ’antifascist’ tradition, claimed to have established a new national reality with no ties to t h e Nazi past. But i n t h e ’socialist paradise’, topics like antisemitism, the Jews a n d the Holocaust remained even more taboo t h a n in the capitalist Federal Republic.6 Konrad

Adenauer,

the

C a t h o l i c chancellor

of

West

Germany from 1949 to 1963, did acknowledge German crimes against the Jews a n d the obligation to m a k e ’moral a n d material amends’ even though h e tolerated ex-Nazis like Hans G l o b k e (a legal expert w h o h a d furthered t h e Nazi race l a w s ) i n p r o m i n e n t positions w i t h i n h i s a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . H e recognised

that to morally rehabilitate a n d integrate a rump German state in t h e West required a n official policy of ’philosemitism’ a n d

friendly relations with Israel.7 At the same time the Nazi past was repressed as far as possible, while t h e myth was encouraged that t h e Federal Republic represented a completely new beginning a n d that Germans had finally released 80

After Auschwitz: the German Response

themselves from t h e lure of power a n d greatness. To be sure, post-war Conservatives were no longer avowed antisemites like their predecessors u n d e r Weimar o r t h e Third Reich,

though their visceral anti-Communism had remained fully intact, permanently fuelled by t h e Stalinist dictatorship i n East

Germany. Indeed, a positive attitude to their Jewish Mitbiirger (fellow citizens) became i n their eyes one of t h e touchstones of

the new humanistic, Christian and democratic Germany. But n o serious attempt t o punish thousands of w a r criminals o r t o

re-educate the German public (who had in their majority opposed Adenauer’s restitution policy) was made. Even the swell of German sympathy for Israel’s spectacular victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 remained tinged with ambiguity, with its associations of Blitzkrieg and the war-time desert campaigns of Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The admiration of t h e right-wing Springer press for Israel was n o

doubt genuine but soon produced its own backlash in the form of the anti-American and anti-Zionist rhetoric of the German

student revolt.8 The German New Left from t h e late 19605 until today h a s been strongly conditioned by its reaction against what it h a s

perceived as the artificial, hypocritical ’philosemitism’ of the conservative Establishment. The feminist, ecology and peace movements of the last decade, like their 19605 predecessors, have certainly professed to deal more seriously t h a n their

elders with the guilt of the Nazi past. In their rhetoric they are earnestly antifascist and antiracist, and claim to be sympathetic t o all persecuted minorities. They stress t h e e l e m e n t s o f continuity between t h e Third Reich a n d post-war Germany

and were the first to argue for removal of the taboos about the ’Jewish question’. The post-war Federal Republic, they hold,

could only master its ’abnormal past’ by radically unmasking t h e complacent facade o f Modell-Deutschland, t h e dehumanisation a n d alienation lurking behind t h e ’economic miracle’ of

the present.9 Paradoxically, however, their antifascism and anticapitalism 81

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

has increasingly led t h e Left into the cul-de-sac of a Manichean world-view in which dead Jews (especially of t h e leftist, ’progressive' variety) are idealised as victims, a n d those who are very much alive are castigated as victimisers. In the Middle East conflict, this has led parts of the Left to demonise the mythical ’Zionist genocide’ of the Palestinian people a n d adopt a n irrationally hostile attitude to Israel as a means of coming to terms with its own feelings of guilt. When refused entry to Israel in 1984 the Green Party Euro M P Brigitte Heinrich declared: The genocide of t h e Jews created the psychological pre-requisites for setting u p Israel a s a n internationally

recognised state. The expulsion of the Palestinians is therefore indirectly the result of the Nazi persecution of Jews . . . For t h e same reason that w e —- t h e generation which d i d n o t experience National Socialism — d o not

reject the moral guilt of our people for killing millions of Jews, we cannot keep silent about Israeli expansionist policy, occupation of foreign territories by Israeli troops, t h e repressive measures i n t h e occupied

territories. '0 Thus, i n t h e n a m e of t h e German past, Israel is often presented o n t h e Left a s a copy of the Third Reich, a n d t h e

Palestinians as the ’ n e w Jews’ of the Middle East. The victims of German history become t h e Jewish victimisers of new victims — the Palestinians —- who in turn are being manipulated to purge a suffocating sense of German guilt. This role reversal, in which Israel’s depiction as a criminal, ’terrorist’ state is used to free the Germans from their ’Judenkomplex’, is equally p0pular with neo-Nazis and right-wing radicals. The neofascists in Germany, as in other Western countries, like t o contrast t h e ’fictive’ Holocaust perpetrated by t h e Germans a g a i n s t Jews with t h e ’real’ Holocaust supposedly inflicted by

Israel on the Palestinians. 82

After Auschwitz: t h e German Response

In recent decades, t h e Left has also been increasingly keen to end t h e alleged ’immunity from criticism’ that German Jews have enjoyed since Auschwitz. The controversy s u r r o u n d i n g t h e play Garbage, the City and Death by t h e l a t e R a i n e r W e r n e r

Fassbinder (written in 1975 but not staged until ten years later) was a good illustration of this trend, with its implicitly a n t i s e m i t i c portrayal of a rich Jewish speculator who had changed t h e face of Frankfurt t o t h e d e t r i m e n t of t h e people. Fassbinder’s declared motive was t o e x p o s e t h e taboo o n

discussing Jews, which h e felt had created ’a boomerang effect’

and provoked hostility towards them.ll But in his play the ’rich J e w ’ becomes a symbol of ’ t h e city’ w i t h its d e s t r u c t i o n ,

anonymity, alienation, decadence, a n d corruption as well as being t h e willing instrument of a cynical German capitalist e s t a b l i s h m e n t . S e x u a l a n d socio-economic stereotypes from

the classic antisemitic repertoire abound in his script, a n d a character i n t h e play revels i n i m a g i n i n g how t h e Jew ’gasps

for air in the gas chamber’. In a pathologically antisemitic monologue h e rants that t h e Jew ’drinks o u r blood a n d makes o u t t h a t we a r e wrong, because h e is a J e w a n d we bear t h e guilt’.‘2 The rich Jew murders a p r o s t i t u t e i n a scene t h a t

echoes t h e myth of ritual slaughter, a n d his ruthless profiteering is motivated as a n act of revenge against the city in which his own family was murdered. The play seems to reflect the anxiety of a post-1945 generation burdened by its parents’ guilt, projecting its fears o n t o surviving Jews a n d e n d i n g u p i n a n e w tangle of a n t i s e m i t i c stereotypes a b o u t ’ t h e J e w ’ , ’Jewish capital’ a n d ’Jewish power’. More disturbing still, was t h e s t a t e m e n t i n support of Fassbinder by t h e principal of t h e

Frankfurt Theatre, Gunther Riihle, that ’the no-hunting season is over’, t h a t Jews m u s t once again b e subject t o

criticism.'3 The play was staunchly defended by most of t h e German left-wing intelligentsia for its anticapitalism a n d in t h e name of a n absolute right to free speech. The antisemitic mythology which it exuded was trivialised o r else dismissed by a l l u s i o n s t o Fassbinder’s antifascist credentials w h i l e it was 83

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

often hinted that Auschwitz was once again being used t o

silence legitimate criticism of Jewish behaviour.'4 This public controversy, which took place at t h e end of 1985, followed closely o n t h e heels of t h e Bitburg affair, which exposed t h e erosion of sensitivity o n the political Right to J e w i s h concerns. C h a n c e l l o r Kohl had already evoked t h e

’gift’ of his later birth (he was a teenager during t h e early 19405) o n a visit to Israel, in order to justify t h e ’normalisation’

of Germany's relations with the Jewish world.'5 Now his insistence that President Reagan pay homage to the German war-dead (including t h e Waffen SS) at Bitburg cemetery provoked a n outcry i n America, b y n o m e a n s c o n fi n e d t o Jews,

despite attempts to present the protests as a n orchestrated ’Jewish’ campaign against Germany. Kohl served notice that the memory of the Holocaust would not be allowed to impinge upon t h e imperatives of Allied reconciliation. The Second World War was to be seen from the German side as far as possible like a n y o t h e r war. The Nazi regime was not fundamentally different from other totalitarian terror regimes, and crimes committed ’in t h e name of the German people’ could

not imply any collective guilt.l6 Growing resentment a t reminders of t h e Nazi past i n the

n e w self-confident a n d increasingly assertive West Germany now spilled over into open antisemitism. The young Bavarian deputy H e r m a n n F e l l n e r (from t h e C h r i s t i a n Social U n i o n )

attacked Jewish survivors who after years of litigation were still seeking compensation for their slave labour from t h e giant Flick concern, which had consistently denied a n y moral o r legal obligation. He complained that ’Jews are quick to speak u p when they hear the tinkling of money in German cashregisters'. The Mayor of a small town in north-Rhine Westphalia, Graf von Spree, suggested that t h e only way to

solve his budget deficit might be to kill ’a few rich Jews'.'7 The local chairman of t h e Christian Democratic Youth Union protested against t h e ’arrogance’ of Israel in making ’our democratic constitutional state responsible for t h e murder of the Jews in t h e Third Reich’. '8 84

After Auschwitz: the German Response

With German national sentiment resurfacing, and with the r e t u r n to ’normalcy' in t h e 19805, anti-Jewish prejudice, too,

was being articulated more freely and becoming socially respectable i n various ways. Public opinion

polls showed that

many Germans still believed that Jews were ’shrewd and vindictive and ruthless in exploiting money-grabbing', Germany’s Nazi past for financial benefit; that they exercised too much influence at an international level; that they did not forgive or forget.'9 According to the researcher Werner Bergman, some six to seven million Germans could be classified as being antisemitic, with around two million of that number classified as hard-core antisemites. The only consolation i n these figures is that they still represent a decline in anti-Jewish prejudice over t h e past forty years — w i t h its main pockets concentrated among t h e older generation, people o f

low educational attainments and in lower paid jobs. Moreover, this is an ’antisemitism without Jews’, no longer based on real social conflicts but rather on abstract stereotypes and unresolved complexes pertaining to the Holocaust and the

’unmastered' German past.20 Racism in general is, however, flourishing, directed mainly against Turkish ’guest-workers' or immigrants from Africa and Asia who have taken advantage of Germany's generous welfare state and prosperity to settle in the country.2| This immigration problem largely accounted for the spectacular growth of the ultra-conservative Republikaner Party, which in January 1989 won 7.5 per cent of the vote in West Berlin and in June 1989 polled 7.1 per cent in elections to the European Parliament. The ’Germany first’ watchword o f this party, w i t h its hatred o f all foreigners, its attacks o n t h e ’degeneracy' o f

German political and spiritual culture and with its call for the restoration of the 1937 borders of the old Reich, links it unmistakeably with the pre-war fascist tradition:22 Led by an ex-Waffen SS soldier, Franz Schonhfiber, its antisemitism has been more muted than that of its rivals on the far Right, but this is largely an electoral tactic to give it more respectability.” 85

From t h e Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

Both t h e Republikaner a n d t h e more extreme neo-Nazis have won growing support among t h e disaffected youth of East Germany since the crumbling of t h e Berlin wall a n d t h e collapse of Communism. In Berlin a n d Leipzig cemeteries have been profaned a n d on t h e walls of Dresden o n e can find

slogans like ’Hitler lives!’24 No doubt the neo-Nazism of skinheads a n d football rowdies in both East a n d West has elements of sheer nihilism, the desire t o provoke a n d (in t h e East) h a t r e d of C o m m u n i s m , t h a t are a s least a s i m p o r t a n t a s a

mindless antisemitism without a n y first-hand knowledge of or contact with Jews. Yet t h e recent rise in antisemitic incidents is undeniable a n d likely to grow as unemployment a n d

economic hardship increase in East Germany.25 T h i s is h a p p e n i n g , moreover, i n a part of Germany where

t h e former Communist government for decades systematically pursued a virulent anti-Zionist propaganda, ostentatiously helped t h e Arab states a n d secretly trained Palestinian terrorists. Shortly before its demise, the new Parliament of a reformed East Germany did, however, finally pass a resolution accepting ’responsibility o n behalf of t h e people for the expulsion a n d murder of Jewish m e n , women a n d children’; it even offered political asylum to Jews fleeing a rising tide of a n t i s e m i t i s m i n t h e Soviet U n i o n . Moreover, there h a s i n t h e

past few years been a n encouraging revival of Jewish life a m o n g t h e t i n y Jewish c o m m u n i t y i n East Berlin.26 A t t h e

s a m e time, skinheads running amok have also returned a n t i s e m i t i s m t o t h e level of street politics, where it once

flourished immediately after t h e First World War. Nothing could more graphically illustrate t h e bankruptcy of forty years of antifascist education in what was once t h e German Democratic Republic. I n t h e n e w u n i t e d G e r m a n y t h e ’Jewish Q u e s t i o n ’ will, however, b e essentially b o u n d u p w i t h issues r e l a t i n g to t h e

possible redefinition of German identity and t h e continuing drive to ’normalise’ t h e German past and t h e present relationship to t h e Jews against t h e background of the Holocaust. The 86

After Auschwitz: the German

Response

current emphasis o n the continuities i n German history, o n

legitimate national pride and the calls for an end to selflaceration encourage a relativisation o f the ’Shoah’ a n d lead

some Germans to see the Jewish victims of Nazi terror as an embarrassing obstacle t o creating a healthy n e w national consciousness. This k i n d o f resentment i n t u r n feeds the urge

o n both the Right and the Left to finish once and for all with reparations, with reminders of Jewish suffering and German crimes a n d to enjoy a Hez’mat restored t o its old glory. B e h i n d

the search for ’normalcy’ also lurks the temptation to rediscover the ’evil Jew’ in the present, who can retrospectively justify liberation

from a poisonous

past.

The intellectually sophisticated and humanly understandable wish to free German history from the traumatic ballast of Nazism in order to reinforce the new German patriotism undoubtedly strikes an emotional chord among many

Germans.” The danger is that this desire has already led to a marked tendency to deny the singularity of Auschwitz and to exculpate the Germans from their historic responsibilities - a trend that may arguably become one of the main sources of a new cultural antisemitism in a resurgent and reunified Germany.

87

The Waldheim Syndrome Austria has had o n e of the strongest antisemitic traditions of any country outside of Eastern Europe. Already before t h e First World War, as we have seen, it was o n e of t h e cradles of modern political antisemitism. Karl Lueger (still fondly remembered by many Viennese today) represented the more pragmatic, economic and religiously based variety of popular a n t i s e m i t i s m , w h i l e t h e provincial A u s t r o - G e r m a n middle

class a n d academic intelligentsia were more attracted by the racist a n t i s e m i t i s m of the P a n - G e r m a n movement. The Pan-

Germans sought to redefine the Austrian identity in purely German terms and strongly advocated Anschluss (Union) o r the reintegration

of Austria i n t o t h e German

Reich. Their

influence grew under the First Austrian Republic, following t h e trauma of defeat in t h e First World War a n d t h e refusal of t h e Allies to allow t h e German rump of t h e Habsburg Monarchy to unite with Germany. They created t h e seedbed of Austrian Nazism which gradually absorbed the Pan-German block, seized control of the students’ movement a n d by 1933 was attracting about a fourth of t h e Austrian electorate. B o t h P a n - G e r m a n i s m a n d Austrian Nazism thrived o n t h e i n s e c u r e n a t i o n a l i d e n t i t y of t h e e t h n i c a l l y m o r e heterog e n e o u s German p o p u l a t i o n i n Austria, its lack of self-esteem

(which masqueraded behind anti-Slav a n d antisemitic racism) a n d t h e prevailing belief of m a n y Austrians that their small republic had n o viable independent existence.l As in Eastern Europe, Austria’s students led t h e way in demanding restrictive numerus clausus laws in higher education a n d in initiating 88

The W a l d h e i m Syndrome

violent actions against Jews a n d socialists. Their ideology was racist, b u t they were driven above all by a n economically

motivated fear of Jewish competition a n d by right-wing

radicalism of the Nazi type.2 I n t h e 19205 t h e P a n - G e r m a n Grossdeutsche Volkspartei

affirmed in its official programme that it would ’oppose t h e Jewish i n fl u e n c e i n all spheres of p u b l i c a n d private life’,

curtail t h e immigration of foreign Jews a n d expel t h e Ostjuden who h a d come to V i e n n a during t h e First World W a r . 3 This

rhetoric was echoed by the Nazis, the mushrooming AntiSemitic Leagues and the gymnasts’ organisations grouped in the Deutscher Turnerbund. The Christian-Social Party also called for a resolute struggle against the ’Jewish peril’, a n d deplored t h e ’destructive’ i n fl u e n c e of Austria’s 220,000 Jews o n c u l t u r a l a n d economic life. They were aided by t h e

traditional anti-Judaism of the Catholic Church and there were some priests like Bishop Hudal, for example, who saw no contradiction between Christian teaching and Nazi racialism.4 The clerical Chancellor of Austria, Ignaz Seipel, following the well-established Luegerite tradition, focused his antisemitism against the J ewish-led Austrian Social Democratic Party which

controlled the city administration in Vienna.'3 A similarly ’moderate’ antisemitism was also adopted by t h e quasi-fascist

Heimwehr movement, led by Prince Starhemberg, which denounced ’Jewish Marxists’ a n d t h e ’foreign flat-footed parasites from the East who exploit us', though it officially disapproved of Nazi racial theories.6 For a short time during t h e 19305 the clerico-fascist regimes of Dollfuss (who was murdered by Austrian Nazis) and his successor S'chuschnigg sought to stem t h e Nazi tide, but Hitler’s invasion of his former homeland in March 1938 turned t h e deeply rooted indigenous Austrian antisemitism into a veritable stampede. Huge crowds gathered in Vienna to cheer Hitler, a n d swastikas appeared everywhere — in t h e words of Carl Zuckmayer, ’hell itself was let loose’. Pillaging of Jewish property, arrests of Jews a n d a t t a c k s u p o n t h e m by t h e 89

From the Cross to the S w a s t i k a

previously illegal Austrian SA a n d SS, as well as by Austrian civilians, became routine.7 As the Daily Telegraph correspondent observed, Their favourite sport on that Saturday a n d Sunday morning was to round u p all ranks of Jews, particularly those of t h e middle classes, in order to make them clean t h e streets and scrub t h e pavements that had been decorated with pro-Schuschnigg posters a n d slogans painted i n oil. These were the familiar scenes of Jews scrubbing pavements, with their bare hands, usually accompanied by a jeering mob of Viennese citizens. In many cases, acid was poured on the hands of t h e Jews . . . The older and feebler who stumbled or collapsed were brutally kicked a n d beaten . . . From time to time a roar of delight from the crowds would announce . . . ’Work for the Jews a t last, work for the Jews!’ or ‘We t h a n k our Fuhrer for finding work for the

J ews’.8 This spontaneous outburst of degrading cruelty was followed by legislation legally retiring Jewish civil servants, expelling Jewish pupils from all public educational i n s t i t u t i o n s

a n d ’Aryanising’ Jewish enterprises. On 2 6 April 1938 the Vb'lkische Beobachter prophetically stated: ’By 1942 the Jewish element in Vienna must be eliminated a n d made to disappear. No business, no enterprise must be in Jewish hands by that t i m e , n o Jews m u s t have a n opportunity of earning money

anywhere.’9 The extension of the Kristallnacht pogrom into Austria showed that the Nazis meant what they said; 21 synagogues were burnt down, dozens of prayer-rooms were destroyed, 4 , 0 8 3 Jewish shops were plundered a n d closed

down, 1,950 Jewish homes were ransacked, 7,800 Jews were arrested, 680 committed suicide a n d 9 1 were murdered. I n d e e d , i n some areas, Austrian a n t i s e m i t i s m was showing

itself t o be a few steps ahead of Germany in t h e persecution of 90

The W a l d h e i m Syndrome

Jews. A s t h e A u s t r i a n historian Gerhard Botz h a s p u t it, ’Not o n l y were t h e comparable measures applied earlier i n V i e n n a t h a n i n Germany, b u t t h e y c o u l d a l s o c o u n t o n m u c h broader

support among t h e non-Jewish population. Here, the organisational instruments a n d procedures could be developed which w o u l d l a t e r be applied by E i c h m a n n i n t h e

“Final Solution".’'0 Eichmann himself was of Austrian background, like Hitler, K a l t e n b r u n n e r , Globocnik, S e y s s - l n q u a r t a n d m a n y others

implicated in t h e mass murder of Jews, including some of t h e top commanders of the death-camps i n P o l a n d . The i n t e g r a tion of Austria i n t o t h e Third Reich provided t h e m with new

opportunities to advance in their careers, especially in t h e extermination apparatus of Greater Germany. W i t h i n Austria

itself, the explosive antisemitism fuelled by the German invasion — which had surprised t h e German Nazis by its

radical, spontaneous character — also had a pragmatic, opportunistic side.11 The mass of ordinary Austrians saw a chance to improve their economic situation (housing, jobs, etc.) a n d social status through t h e expropriation of t h e more successful Jews, whom they had long envied a n d detested. Similar reactions would be manifested in Rumania, Poland, t h e Baltic States and t h e Ukraine after t h e German invasions. The economic motive b e h i n d t h e hatred of t h e Jews w a s of course

all the stronger in countries where there was a n unstable economic s i t u a t i o n . I n V i e n n a , i n contrast t o t h e German

heartland, it did not need to be substantiated by ’theory' since it offered t h e fulfilment of immediate, concrete desires: the removal of t h e J e w i s h competitor i n t r a d e , t h e department-

store owner, t h e doctor, lawyer or academic a n d t h e acquisit i o n of scarce h o u s i n g a c c o m m o d a t i o n .

Indeed, Austrian

’Aryanisation’ procedures a n d methods of forced emigration became a model for other parts of t h e German Reich a n d for the persecution of Jews elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe. Already by 3 0 November 1 9 3 9 , 1 2 6 , 4 4 5 Jews h a d been forced t o emigrate from Austria a s a result of E i c h m a n n ' s 91

From

the Cross t o t h e S w a s t i k a

draconian measures. This was followed by a massive deportation policy after the outbreak of war, culminating in the mass murder of about 65,000 Austrian Jews with a mere 5,700 surviving in Vienna by 1945. Official Austrian government policy towards the survivors was far from friendly and was designed through various manoeuvres and delays to avoid paying any financial compensation to Jews. Official, no less than popular, attitudes — as the historian Robert Knight has shown — displayed a whole range of antisemitic stereotypes which were barely affected by the Holocaust.‘2 A false symmetry was established between those ex-Nazis

who had temporarily been stripped of their civil rights and Jewish concentration-camp survivors, and any ’special treatment' of Jews was ruled out as a form of ’racism in reverse’. As part of t h e effort t o create a n e w national identity in post- 1 9 4 5 Austria, everything was done t o dissociate t h e country from

the Germans — including, of course, the Austrian contribution to National Socialism. With the support of the Western Allies, Austria could fall back o n t h e m y t h that i t had been t h e first ’ v i c t i m ’ of t h e Third Reich a n d repress all public consciousness

of its responsibilities in the atrocities against the Jews.'3 The fact that a relatively higher pr0portion of Austrians had been active members of the Nazi Party (one-tenth of the populat i o n ) t h a n in Germany a n d that Austria h a d supplied

three-

quarters of all concentration-camp staff was conveniently forgotten. De-Nazification, as in the Federal Republic of Germany, was superficial a n d by 1 9 4 9 most o f t h e m a n y exNazis h a d been re-enfranchised. B y n o later t h a n 1 9 5 5 even

prominent

National Socialists were fully integrated into the

political process.'4 The two dominant

political parties, the Socialists and the

Catholic Conservatives (OVP) as w e l l as the German national

camp, which still advocated annexation to Germany, were soon competing for this Ehemalzye (former Nazi) vote. This readiness t o attract ex-Nazi voters led t o a conscious playing-

down of anti-Nazi traditions. Representatives of the two major 92

The W a l d h e i m Syndrome

parties who had only fulfilled their ‘duty’ in Wehrmacht uniforms during t h e Second World War were pushed to t h e foreground. A former leader of t h e pre-war Austrian Nazis, Anton Reinthaller, w h o had become party chairman of A u s t r i a ' s Freedom Party ( w h i c h continued t h e Nazi t r a d i t i o n i n its p e r s o n n e l ) even made possible t h r o u g h a political d e a l

t h e election of the Conservative chancellor Raab to t h e Federal Presidency in 1957.'5 Those who had fallen in t h e uniforms of Greater Germany were honoured on numerous w a r m o n u m e n t s i n Austria a n d t h e various veteran soldiers’ leagues

were allowed to continue their activities undisturbed. Cases against mass murderers of Jews like Franz Murer were thrown o u t by Austrian courts with even less hesitation than in neighbouring Germany. Only the case of Taras Borodajkewycz, a prominent ex-Nazi who held a chair at t h e Vienna College of Economics and regularly made antisemitic remarks i n h i s lectures, briefly disturbed t h e d o m e s t i c c a l m . I n

1965 his activities provoked anti-Nazi demonstrations and violent right-wing counter-demonstrations which forced his

retirement. '6 The election of a Jewish-born Socialist, Bruno Kreisky, as Austrian C h a n c e l l o r i n 1 9 7 0 , a n d h i s i m m e n s e popularity

during the thirteen years that h e dominated t h e political scene, did not fundamentally change Austria’s relationship with its Nazi past. Although h e had lost his family in t h e Holocaust, Kreisky remained demonstratively cool to the 8,000 Jews w h o still lived in Austria a n d perfectly willing to employ a n antisemitic discourse where it could advance his interests, strategically a n d politically. For the Socialists to win elections in post-war Austria it was essential to have the votes of the o l d e r , more a n t i s e m i t i c generation, a p o i n t w h i c h h a d n o t escaped Kreisky’s a t t e n t i o n . Nevertheless, h i s decision t o take

three former Nazis into his first Cabinet, a n d then his defence of t h e right-wing Freedom Party leader, Friedrich Peter ( w h o had been a n SS Obersturmbannfiihrer), with whom h e sought to make a coalition in 1975, were shocking examples of his wilful 93

From t h e Cross to the Swastika

desire to repress a n d cover u p A u s t r i a ' s Nazi past. Peter’s

patriotic ’duties’ had included not only participation in the invasion of the Soviet Union but also the extermination of civilians — especially defenceless Jews — under the pretext of

warfare against ’partisans’.” Kreisky did not hesitate to make antisemitic remarks in seeking to discredit S i m o n Wiesenthal, Austria’s lone Nazi-

hunter, who had the temerity to expose Peter’s wartime role. Much to the delight of German and Austrian neo-Nazis a n d right-wingers, he branded Wiesenthal a ’Jewish fascist' and a servant of Zionist ideology, which h e termed a kind of ’mysterious racism i n reverse'. The campaign against Peter, h e

alleged, had been the work of a n international ’Mafia'. Wiesenthal, it was libellously hinted, was himself a former Nazi ’collaborator’ whose activities were a stain on Austria, whereas Herr Peter’s disclaimers that h e had been engaged in illegal acts were accepted without question. ’If the Jews are a people’, Kreisky told one Israeli journalist in a moment of fury,

’then they are a lousy people.’'8 A s w i t h h i s subsequent attacks o n Israel’s Prime Minister,

Menachem Begin, ’a small-town Polish grocer’ who epitomised the ’warped mentality of the Ostjuden’, Kreisky appeared to be echoing the more vicious prejudices of the Viennese back-alleys. The Peter—Wiesenthal—Kreisky affair showed some striking structural similarities with the Waldheim affair ten years later. Both Peter and Waldheim had ’forgotten' important parts of their wartime biography while seeking high political office; both had been defended as patriotic Austrians who had only done their ’duty’ in the service of the fatherland; on both occasions international criticism was dismissed as unwarranted interference in Austria’s internal affairs a n d as a Jewish conspiracy — in the first case by Zionists and in the second by the World Jewish Congress — to blacken Austria’s

good name. '9 Nevertheless, there was a n important difference, for Kurt W a l d h e i m ’ s previous high visibility a s Secretary General of t h e 94

The Waldheim Syndrome

United Nations a n d his standing

as t h e official Conservative

candidate for the Austrian Presidency made his campaign a matter o f great international interest. The revelation that

Waldheim had served as a staff officer i n the Balkans with a unit that supervised mass deportations of Jews and partisans to death camps

scarcely seemed t o disturb most Austrians,

especially of the older generation, who could identify with a m a n who had only done his ’ d u t y ' . W h a t did anger the ’ m a n i n

the street' and the political establishment (especially Conservative politicians) was the ’international campaign' against their elected President which provoked an unprecedented backlash of public antisemitism, even for post-war Austria. The reservoir of hostility a n d prejudice towards Jews which h a d been consistently demonstrated by public opinion surveys

but held in check by official taboos now found an unexpectedly vehement outlet and cathartic release. The widely held beliefs of many Austrians concerning Jewish power and influence seemed suddenly to be vindicated by the campaign of the World Jewish Congress, whose very name echoed the old Nazi myths about the machinations of ’World Jewry'. (A Gallup poll of 1980 had shown that nearly 50 per cent of Austrians either agreed or ’tended to agree’ that ’the

Jews rule world politics'.)20 After 1986 it became once more respectable to claim that international Jews, based o n the East Coast of America, had through their control of the world’s media deliberately instigated the ’slanders’ and defamation of Waldheim. The Secretary General o f t h e People's Party, who h a d already

coined the phrase that ’garbage can campaign’,2| declared that unless the President could be personally shown to have strangled five or six Jews with his own hands he must be considered blameless. He called the World Jewish Congress a dishonourable ’mafia of slanderers' who would stop at nothing

to achieve their ends.22 This was echoed in different words by the Party chairman a n d later Foreign Minister Alois Mock.23 The Austrian press, too, condemned the campaign o f hatred, 95

From t h e Cross t o the Swastika

supposedly driven by motives of revenge, against Waldheim a n d Austria. O n e journalist wrote that ’we are dealing with people who, like so many other Jews, have been psychically

severely damaged’.24 As in many Austrian press comments on t h e Affair, t h e actions of individual Jews were taken to be representative of Jewry a s a whole o r of ’das Ausland' ( t h e

outside world) in general. Austrian patriotism and self-respect demanded repudiation of those who sought to ’destroy’ the country by attacking its President. Waldheim himself had set the tone for this defence by telling Le Monde in May 1986 that ’ t h e international press is dominated by t h e World Jewish

Congress. This is well-known.’25 The Waldheim affair removed previous taboos that had inhibited t h e open articulation of anti-Jewish prejudice in post-war Austria. Austrian ’antisemitism without Jews’ (they constitute only 0.1 per cent of the total population) seemed to be illustrating the truth of Henryk Broder’s remark about the Germans: that they will never forgive t h e Jews for Auschwitz! For it was above all t h e repression of unavowed guilt feelings about a past that had never been confronted which characterised t h e Austrian response t o the Waldheim affair. The fear

of the discovery of war crimes, the anxiety that stolen o r ’Aryanised' property might be demanded back, that reparations might have to be paid o r that in some other way Jews would seek revenge, had long conditioned the Austrian pattern of guilt-denial. This was easily rationalised by presenting Austrians as the ’victims’ of Nazism a n d t h e ’tricky’, conspiratorial a n d powerful Jews a s its w o u l d - b e beneficiaries.

Antisemitism, it was argued, was in any case the Jews’ own fault, for they used unworthy a n d dishonourable methods - as in t h e self-aggrandising campaign of world Jewry against Kurt Waldhiem. Catholic antisemitism, too, could be mobilised in t h e service of time-honoured stereotypical images. Thus the former Vice-Mayor of Linz could write to the President of t h e World Jewish Congress o n 12 May 1987, drawing a n analogy between t h e ’persecution’ of Waldheim and the Jews handing 96

The W a l d h e i m Syndrome

over Jesus to t h e Romans. This was n o t t h e only t i m e that

criticism of Waldhiem was linked to the deicidal myth of t h e Christ-killers o r t h a t Jewish a t t i t u d e s were depicted i n terms of t h e O l d Testament a d a g e , ’ A n eye for a n eye, a tooth for a

tooth', which ’is not o u r European attitude’.26 Such statements by Austrian public figures revealed the ease with which even t h e most traditional antisemitic prejudices could be activated in Austria a n d politically mobilised. An opinion poll conducted in January 1989 showed that 10 per cent of all Austrians had hard-core antisemitic attitudes a n d another

2 7 p e r cent e x h i b i t e d more diffuse a n t i - J e w i s h

prejudice.27 Thus more than a third of the population displayed antisemitic tendencies, with the more extreme variety being found among supporters of t h e Freedom Party, which did well in t h e 1990 Austrian elections. These figures underline t h e point that there has never been a sharp break in Austria's antisemitic tradition, even after t h e Second World War. Its roots are still deeply embedded in t h e national political culture which preceded Nazism, a n d at t h e same time it serves as a way of repressing t h e unavowed guilt that is linked with Austrian behaviour during the Third Reich. Although less violent a n d immediately dangerous to Jews t h a n t h e antisemitism of its neighbours to the East, t h e Austrian variety has been n o less persistent in a more diffuse way. Often expressed through allusions, insinuations a n d vague innuendos, it is n o less insidious in its underlying meaning and when activated by economic or political crises can become openly vicious. The stereotypes live on as part of t h e local culture, almost a s a way of life, in t h e land that gave birth t o Hitler.

97

Part 2

Enemies of the

People

Britain: the Limits of Tole 'ance

As two recent anniversaries have underlined — that of t h e mass suicide of York Jews i n l 1 9 0 besieged by a fanatical C h r i s t i a n mob a n d t h e e x p u l s i o n 700 years ago of all Britain’s Jews by

Edward I — medieval England exceeded most of Europe in its mistreatment of Jewry. It led t h e way in t h e introduction of t h e Jew badge (’a badge of shame') around 1220 a n d in t h e blood-libel accusation, as well as being t h e first country t o carry o u t a medieval-style ’final solution’ - namely the mass expulsion of Jews — in which it preceded France, Spain a n d Germany. As a result, t h e Jews virtually vanished from British shores for nearly 400 years, until their re-admission under Oliver Cromwell in t h e middle of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, throughout

t h e s e four centuries a n t i - J e w i s h

stereotypes became ingrained in English life through sermons, plays a n d religious literature. Catholics, Anglicans a n d even Puritans adopted t h e demonic medieval image of t h e Jews as a rejected a n d despised group, a n d t h e word itself carried connotations of scorn a n d contempt. Jews, along with witches, became scapegoats for t h e repressed desires of Christian society. As usurers, as agents of t h e Devil, as heretics, they were always held u p by t h e Church to be a physical threat to

both Christians and Christianity.l The stereotypes survived into t h e Elizabethan era, with Jewish villains becoming p o p u l a r stage fi g u r e s of t h e period. T h e prosecution of D r Rodrigo Lopez, a crypto-Jew a n d

personal physician to Elizabeth I, for treason gave a certain topicality to t h e anti-Jewish prejudices rampant in English 10]

Enemies of the People

society, which flared u p as soon as the fact that there were still some Jews in the country was brought o u t into the open.2 Two of the most famous dramatic portrayals of Jews on t h e Elizabethan stage, Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta (1591) a n d William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, illustrate t h e tenacity of these negative stereotypes. Marlowe's villain, Barabbas, combines medieval images of t h e Jew as infidel, as sorcerer a n d poisoner, as a direct descendant of Judas Iscariot in t h e New Testament, with the more modern notion of a scheming Machiavellian intriguer. However much Marlowe flayed t h e hypocrisy of Christians, his caricature of t h e Jew a s a n unbridled materialist a n d symbol of evil incarnate is w h a t retains t h e a t t e n t i o n . Shakespeare, too,

however masterly his characterisation of Shylock, is depicting a n o l d Jew obsessed with h i s wealth, his possessions a n d his

’pound of flesh’ - a vengeful figure whose narrow-minded legalism can only arouse horror a n d contempt. The cruel, usurious Shylock becomes a foil with which to highlight t h e superiority of Christian values of love, mercy a n d justice. Despite Shakespeare’s skill in humanising certain qualities of t h e Jew, his portrait served to crystallise a n d reinforce a n antisemitic literary stereotype for centuries t o c o m e . 3

This Shylock image survived the love of t h e Old Testament a n d of t h e Hebrew language fostered by Puritan a n d Anglican preachers in the seventeenth century, their identification of modern England with ancient Israel a n d the more positive view of Jews t o be found in t h e millenarian movements that developed o u t of the Puritan Revolution.4 English ’philosemitism’ related more to biblical Jews a n d not so much to their latter-day descendents, whose conversion was generally considered a necessary prelude to t h e second coming of Jesus. Nevertheless, some Puritans did favour the readmission of Jews to England, which was implemented by Oliver Cromwell in 1656 for a variety of economic, political a n d religious reasons. By t h e e n d of the seventeenth century, despite the persistence of religious prejudice a n d envy over their 102

B r i t a i n : t h e L i m i t s o f Tolerance

commercial success, Jews in E n g l a n d were economically secure, permitted t o live in peace and to practise their faith unmolested. They were n o t restricted t o ghettos, a n d the toleration advocated b y political o f religious principle

philosophers such as John Locke (1632—1704) was widely accepted.

The decline in the authority of the Church, the emphasis on individual freedom and the spirit of emerging capitalism in England ensured that the situation of Jews would be better than anywhere on the Continent, with the possible exception of Holland. The older anti-Jewish attitudes were pushed into the background and in contrast to most of its Continental rivals, no anti-Jewish outbreaks would henceforth be sanctioned by the rulers of England. Moreover, the numbers of Jews were still relatively small — only 25,000 Jews lived in England at the end of the eighteenth

century.

They

were mainly

concentrated as

merchants, stockbrokers and bankers in the City of London or in other commercial and financial trades. In the nineteenth century the leading families of AngloJewry — originally Sephardic and later German-born Ashkenazim — became immensely wealthy. Some of these families turned into veritable dynasties, among them the Rothschilds, Montefiores, Goldsmids, Cohens, Jessels, Franklins and Sassoons who came to be known as the ’Cousinhood’.5 In the age of Victorian liberalism, when Britain emerged as the workshop of the world and enjoyed unrivalled world power, t h e Jewish grandees aroused relatively little élite

prejudice or popular antisemitism. Although Jews played little part in English intellectual or political life (Benjamin Disraeli, converted in his teens, was the great exception to the rule), their disproportionate wealth initially seemed t o ease rather

than obstruct their acceptance into English life and society.6 Admittedly, their formal emancipation came m u c h later t h a n

in France (the first practising Jew was permitted to sit in the House of Commons only in 1858), but it aroused less overt antisemitism than o n the Continent. 103

Enemies of the People

The broad consensus favouring religious toleration, social mobility, representative government and free-market capitalism did not provide fertile soil for a Central European type of antimodernist backlash against Jewish emancipation. There was little likelihood of British Jews being negatively depicted as carriers of ‘modernity' o r bearers of the capitalist e t h i c i n a forward-looking h i g h l y industrialised society like

that of Victorian England, where entrepreneurial initiative a n d individualist doctrines of self-help were part of t h e national ethos. Moreover, until t h e end of t h e nineteenth century, t h e Catholic minority (mainly Irish in origin) were far more frequently t h e object of rancour a n d racial or religious prejudice t h a n t h e Jewish community. This optimal situation began to change in the 18805 with the arrival of a mass immigration from the Russian Pale of Settlement to London’s East End a n d also to provincial cities like Glasgow, Manchester a n d Leeds. As a result of this influx t h e Jewish p0pulation of the British Isles, which had been about 36,000 in 1858 a n d 60,000 in 1880, increased nearly five-fold by t h e end of t h e First World War. During t h e half century from around 1890 to 1940 antisemitism attained a new virulence in Britain which presented a serious challenge to t h e country's religious tolerance a n d t h e liberalism of its political elites. The specific configuration of this antisemitism — less ideological a n d political t h a n o n t h e Continent but nevertheless widespread — was already apparent in t h e period between 1881 a n d 1914. It combined negative stereotypes of poor immigrant Jews with a whole range of ’rich Jew’ antisemitism, intellectual racism, Social Darwinism a n d class snobbery, w i t h vulgar conspiracy theories a b o u t Jewish p l a n s

for world domination. The mass influx into t h e East End at t h e turn of t h e century of Yiddish-speaking East European Jews, who were foreign in religion, language, customs a n d outlook, was undoubtedly t h e single most potent factor in t h e new antisemitism.7 The newcomers

were

closely i d e n t i fi e d w i t h t h e practice of 104

B r i t a i n : t h e L i m i t s o f Tolerance

sweated labour, t h e y were said t o be d i r t y i n their habits, carriers o f disease, clannish, materialistic, prone to various

types of crime (many of the same stereotypes are today applied t o Asians i n London’s East End) a n d disloyal t o Britain. Trade

unionists claimed that they lowered the wages of English workers, acted as blacklegs to break strikes a n d d i d n o t share

the

class-consciousness of

their

British

counterparts.

Conservative politicians exaggerated the size a n d flow o f t h e

immigration, to paint a picture of England being inundated by foreigners.8In 1901 the British Brothers League was formed in the East End; it aimed to restrict this alien immigration and gained substantial popular support. This resulted i n some ugly demonstrations and small-scale violence against Jews. The anti-immigration cause was eventually taken over by more respectable parliamentary bodies a n d culminated i n t h e Aliens

Bill passed by a Conservative government drastically restricted Jewish immigration.

i n 1905; this

’Rich Jew’ antisemitism also h a d its supporters o n t h e British

Left, despite the official opposition of the Socialist movement to racial or religious prejudice. Initially directed at the wealthy English Jews o f Hampstead, Bayswater o r t h e West E n d , i t exploded during t h e Boer W a r ( 1 8 9 9 - 1 9 0 2 ) w h e n South

African Jewish diamond and gold millionaires (the Barnatos, the Beits, Lionel Phillips, the Albu brothers, etc.) were targeted by the extreme Left and Right.9 The radicals blamed the outbreak of the war o n the ’Jew-Jingo’ gang and the ’Jew press’, which had supposedly brainwashed the British public i n t o supporting their ’piratical imperialism’ i n t h e Transvaal

and elsewhere. The leading Marxist newspaper in Britain referred to the ’Jew w a r i n t h e Transvaal’, engineered

by a

’Jew clique’ around Joseph Chamberlain and Balfour. Jewish press magnates were accused of being ’poisoners o f t h e wells o f

public information', and Jewish financiers of being the soul of a sinister ’golden international’. '0 The radical antiwar movement, including the distinguished liberal economist John Hobson, the Labour MP John Burns and the Marxist Henry 105

Enemies o f the People

Hyndman, denounced the cosmopolitan financiers behind ’imperialist Judaism in South Africa', presenting their activities as part of a secret Jewish cabal aiming to seize the

gold-rich Boer lands to further the interests of world Jewry.l ' They would have agreed with the labour leader Keir Hardie that modern imperialism was run by ’half a dozen financial houses, many of them Jewish' or with the TUC resolution of September 1900 which condemned the Boer war as designed to ’secure the goldfields of South Africa for cosmopolitan Jews, most of whom had no patriotism and n o country’.” A little over a decade later, similar outbursts occurred in response to the Marconi and Indian Silver financial scandals, though here antisemitism was more obviously used as cover for

conflicting economic and political interests within the British ruling élite. There was, indeed, a growing feeling on the eve of the First World War that Jews were exercising too much influence over economic policy, the financial markets, the press and public opinion. Even the style and taste of society was affected, for in King Edward VII's inner circle, Jews like the Rothschild a n d Sassoon brothers o r Sir Ernest Cassel (a convert

of German-Jewish background) were conspicuous. In politics, too, Jews were becoming increasingly prominent. This aroused the resentment of conservatives, who bemoaned the commercialisation of England, and it fuelled the hatred of antisemites like Arnold White, Joseph Bannister, Hilaire Belloc and the Chesterton brothers, who saw British cultural values as being undermined by cosmopolitan Jewish influence. '3 Although this English cultural antisemitism was less elaborate and sophisticated than its French, German or Russian counterparts, it did

have a certain resonance before the impact of the Holocaust began to discredit it in more educated middle-class or literary circles. But before 1914, Belloc and G. K. Chesterton, leading Anglo-Catholic writers and corporatists, freely denounced the ’corrupting' role of Jews i n public life, called for their emigration

or demotion to the status of aliens, and encouraged a conspiratorial view of Jewish behaviour in general. 106

B r i t a i n : t h e L i m i t s o f Tolerance

I n 1 9 1 9 T. 8 . Eliot w o u l d i n c l u d e t h e s e u n p l e a s a n t lines i n h i s great poem ’ G e r o n t i o n ' : M y h o u s e is a decayed h o u s e , A n d t h e J e w s q u a t s o n t h e window sill, t h e o w n e r . . . I n t h e s a m e y e a r , i n h i s notorious ’ B u r b a n k w i t h a B a e d e k e r : Bleistein with a Cigar', Eliot w r o t e : T h e rats are u n d e r n e a t h t h e piles

The Jew is underneath t h e lot. '4 Eliot’s genteel, snobbish antisemitism was consistent enough with his Anglican antimodernist outlook, his distaste for freethinking secularism, commercialism a n d t h e rootlessness of modern civilisation.” It would be shared by m a n y cultural critics a n d artists i n t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y E n g l a n d , a m b i v a l e n t about progress, modernity, m a s s politics, urban v a l u e s a n d t h e

legacy of uninhibited Victorian capitalism. Those among t h e m who believed that Jews were aliens, intent o n remaining s e p a r a t e , c o u l d all too easily slide over i n t o t h e diffuse a n d

elusively polite antisemitism that tinged m u c h of British life between t h e wars. The potentially more dangerous variety of political antisemitism, spawned during t h e First World War itself, arose o u t of the role attributed t o Jews in t h e Russian Revolution. The conservative Morning Post, in particular, tended to see in Leon Trotsky a n d other 'Jewish’ Bolsheviks a symbol of world revolutionary u p h e a v a l instigated by Jews a n d J u d a i s m .

German a n d Russian Jews, it was suggested, were engaged in a conspiracy against England a n d its Empire."’ The resonance which The Protocols of the Elders of Zion initially achieved in Britain (it was eventually exposed by The Times as a forgery in 1921) added force to these anxieties. '7 The danger of spreadi n g revolution c o u l d be l i n k e d w i t h phobias a b o u t J e w i s h 107

Enemies of the People

immigration, and in some conservative circles was even used a s a n argument

a g a i n s t supporting

Zionist aspirations i n

Palestine - allegedly part of a single world-wide Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. '8 Indeed, Britain’s commitment to sponsor a Jewish national home in Palestine (made in t h e 1917 Balfour Declaration) helped provoke in Britain between 1 9 1 8 a n d 1 9 2 2 a right-wing a n t i - J e w i s h a n d a n t i Zionist campaign of u n u s u a l i n t e n s i t y .

This campaign, which opposed British involvement in Palestine and reviled Zionist policies towards the Arabs, spilled over into indiscriminate vilification of Jewish capitalists, Jewish radicals a n d Jewish interests in general. The emergence of a new Jewish diplomacy encouraged openly antisemitic attacks on t h e dual loyalties of British Jews who openly defended Zionism or other Jewish national interests abroad. Similarly, the conviction that Jews were instigating revolutionary Communism a n d encouraging attempts to subvert the British Empire intensified malevolent interpretations of their role i n world affairs a n d allegations about their sinister, occult influence, especially in upper-class establishment

circles.l9 Even after its exposure as a forgery, the ’Protocols of Zion' mythology was kept alive by a number of political outsiders like Captain Henry Hamilton Beamish (founder of the Britons’ Publishing Society) a n d the racial antisemite Arnold Leese, who in 1929 founded t h e Imperial Fascist League. Beamish had close contacts with the Nazis, while Leese was t h e most extreme racialist among t h e inter-war British fascists, accusing

the Jews of ritual murder, defaming them as a mongrelised people whose repulsive features were a ’warning to all Aryans’ a n d openly calling for their total segregation or expulsion from

Britain.20 (Leese would have preferred ’to exterminate them by some h u m a n e method such as the lethal chamber’ but felt that most Britons would reject this drastic solution.)2| After 1 9 3 2 Leese’s organisation was thrust to t h e margins b y t h e rise of S i r O s w a l d Mosley’s British U n i o n of Fascists (BUF) 108

B r i t a i n : t h e L i m i t s o f Tolerance

— far more significant in the quality o f its leadership a n d potential mass appeal. Initially, Jew-baiting was n o t a part of the m o v e m e n t , b u t after 1 9 3 4 Mosley launched a n antisemitic campaign w h i c h accused t h e Jews o f dragging Britain i n t o a war w i t h Nazi Germany, attacking t h e m as foreigners a n d as a

corrupting force responsible for every social and political evil,

especially international Communism.22 His East End campaigns

were deliberately intended t o w h i p u p anti-Jewish

feelings and, while they failed electorally (in the inter-war years fascist groups won o n l y t w o local council seats), t h e BUF

was nonetheless the most effective vehicle of antisemitic politics that England had hitherto produced. Although the British government clamped down on Mosley's movement and interned BUF members as security risks during the war against Nazi Germany, they still exercised a subterranean influence o n British attitudes towards Jews d u r i n g t h e w a r

years.23 Paradoxically, popular prejudice against Jews appears to have increased between 1939 and 1945 despite its theoretical incompatibility with liberal democracy and the war against fascism. Although there was no actual violence, Jews were often the butt of insinuations or accusations that they controlled the black market, shirked the war effort, ostentatiously flashed their wealth i n seaside resorts or country towns, or were responsible for overcrowding in air-raid shelters. Significantly, the role o f t h e British government was n o t w i t h o u t ambivalence, often guided b y t h e belief that a n y drawing o f

attention to antisemitism might lead to anti-Jewish riots}4 Antisemitic demands for the internment of alien Jews (fleeing from Nazi persecution) were acceded to, official pronouncements against antisemitism studiously avoided and virtually n o t h i n g was done t o rescue European J e w r y from the Holocaust. Britain's Palestine policy, w h i c h closed the gates o f

the Jewish National Home to all but a trickle of Jewish refugees, was a lamentable example o f British officialdom's

callous insensitivity to the Jewish plight.25 The period between 109

Enemies of the People

1 9 4 5 a n d 1 9 4 8 would witness rampant a n t i s e m i t i s m i n t h e British Army i n Palestine, a n i n h u m a n l y executed policy by Britain’s foreign secretary Ernest B e v i n towards Holocaust

survivors ’illegally' immigrating to what would become Israel, a n d anti-Jewish riots in several British cities following t h e execution of two British army sergeants i n Palestine by J e w i s h

underground fighters. It is apparent that negative images of Jews in British society had not only survived the defeat of Nazi Germany but had been temporarily reinforced by the Anglo-Zionist conflict over Palestine. Although conscious antisemitism was never a part of British policy, a mixture of realpolitik, a n Arabophile tradition in the Foreign and Colonial Offices, bureaucratic closed-mindedness, xenophobia a n d a casual, non-theoretical prejudice against Jews did affect attitudes and even decision-

making.26 As Harold Nicolson noted in his diary in June 1945: ’Although I loathe antisemitism, I do dislike Jews.’27 This kind of social dislike, rather than organised, systematic antis e m i t i s m , was a charcteristically British a t t i t u d e , sometimes

tempered by admiration for Jewish achievements, resilience in adversity a n d ability to withstand persecution. I n post-war Britain, t h e majority of Jews initially supported

t h e Labour a n d to a lesser extent, t h e Communist parties — doubtless aware of the suspicion with which they had been traditionally regarded by t h e Conservative Party. In 1945 the overwhelming majority of Jewish Members of Parliament represented t h e Labour Party, a n d their number continued to increase u n t i l they represented over 1 0 per cent of all Labour

MPs in the 19705. O n t h e other hand, only a handful of Jewish Conservative MPs were elected until the late 19705. This began to change radically during t h e last decade as m a n y British Jews were alienated by w h a t they regarded as t h e influence of t h e hard Left within t h e Labour Party, pushing it in a n anti-Zionist a n d (in t h e eyes of t h e average Jewish voter) a n anti-Jewish direction. At t h e same time, Anglo-Jewry had, since t h e 19505, begun to enjoy unparalleled affluence a n d to take a prominent 110

B r i t a i n : t h e L i m i t s o f Tolerance

role i n property development, finance, retailing a n d t h e entertainment industry. The impact of Jewish millionaires like

Wolfson, Clore, Weinstock, the Grade brothers, Cohen (of Tesco fame) Marks and Sieff, Maxwell, Weidenfeld and many others h a s been legendary, w i t h o u t provoking a n y marked

antisemitism. In the scientific, cultural and academic élites, the Jewish contribution t o post-war British life h a s also been unprecedented.28 This process of social, economic a n d cultural

embourgeoisement undoubtedly facilitated a steady drift of Anglo-Jewry towards the politics of Thatcherite conservatism. Indeed, never before i n its history h a d t h e prevailing e t h o s a n d

values of most middle-class British Jews seemed so congruent w i t h t h o s e of t h e n e w - s t y l e Conservatism. Politically, this was reflected i n t h e prominence of Jewish Ministers like Sir Keith

Joseph, Sir Leon Brittan, Nigel Lawson and others in Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinets during the 19805, and in the support which she found in the teachings of Chief Rabbi Jakobovits. Mrs Thatcher’s support for Jewish causes (especially that of Soviet Jewry), her friendliness towards Israel and her espousal of traditional Jewish values such as a close family life, selfreliance, hard work and individual initiative was undoubtedly appreciated by many British Jews. Nevertheless, it would be mistaken to assume that antisemitism h a s therefore disappeared from Britain's increasingly multi-racial post-war society. Racism, intolerance a n d anti-

Jewish prejudice continue to exist within a mainstream liberal framework and take multiple forms that may become politically more important in the l990s. Neo-Nazi and ultra-Right movements stubbornly persist on the shadowy fringes of British politics, calling for t h e repatriation of all ~non-white

immigrants while espousing the classic Jewish conspiracy theories of the pre-war period. In the late 19705 the National Front enjoyed s o m e modest, temporary successes i n London a n d in t h e Midlands, a n d still retains some appeal a m o n g

unemployed youth.29 It has espoused the denial of the Holocaust a s part of its efforts to rehabilitate t h e fascist legacy, lll

Enemies o f the People

while combining a sham pro-Palestinian rhetoric with racist bigotry. It publishes t h e antisemitic hate-sheet Holocaust News without having charges pressed against it for claiming that t h e m a s s m u r d e r of E u r o p e a n Jewry never h a p p e n e d . It was a

British fascist, Richard Verrall (pseudonym Richard Harwood) who first popularised this wicked myth with his 1974 pamphlet ’Did Six Million Really Die?'. The myth-makers h a v e n o w b e e n j o i n e d b y t h e p r o l i fi c British h i s t o r i a n David

Irving - a n idol of the so-called Holocaust ’revisionists' in America a n d Germany — who also denies that t h e gas chambers ever existed}0 In other words, Auschwitz was a Jewish deception or, in t h e words of t h e American engineering professor Arthur Butz, ’the hoax of t h e twentieth century'. The denial of t h e Holocaust — whether in Britain, France ( w h e r e it first o r i g i n a t e d ) , America o r o t h e r Western countries

— has become a n integral part of the revamped antisemitic mythology of a world Jewish conspiracy. But there are other disturbing signs that antisemitism may be growing in contemporary Britain: the recent spate of grave desecrations in Jewish cemeteries, t h e growth in antisemitic graffiti, t h e assaults on orthodox Jews in North London a n d the verbal abuse directed a t pupils of t h e Jewish Free School," the racist a n d antisemitic slogans heard regularly on t h e football terraces a n d the evidence of growing co-operation between organised fascist movements in Britain, Europe a n d t h e United States. Although these a r e for t h e moment still sporadic a n d politically marginalised forms of violence, it must be recognised that t h e revival of nationalism throughout Europe also has its counterparts in Britain. A new, more inward-looking British nationalism that emphasises heritage, kith a n d kin a n d t h e continuities of a millennial English culture will inevitably be

less than hospitable to those from a different background.32 For t h e m o m e n t it is Asians a n d blacks who are more usually portrayed by nationalists as representing everything that is alien to British society a n d culture, but it is in t h e logic of exclusivist nationalism a n d of those who advocate a 112

B r i t a i n : t h e L i m i t s of Tolerance

monolithic conception of British culture to regard all minorities with suspicion. Jews were traditionally t h e favourite targets of this kind of hostility, which became somewhat m u t e d w i t h o u t ever disappearing. I n t h e eyes of

militant British nationalists Jews are indeed responsible for t h e racial t e n s i o n s i n English society a n d represent t h e occult,

international power that governs world affairs. But even in more respectable British middle-of-the road opinion there exists a latent s t r a i n of a n t i s e m i t i s m w h i c h feels u n e a s y a t

Jewish influence in politics, business, t h e media and cultural life, which fi n d s Jewish particularism distasteful a n d bridles a t t h e alleged ’ d u a l loyalties’ of Anglo-Jewry towards Israel.

British antisemitism in modern times has always been a somewhat elusive, ad hoc p h e n o m e n o n , rather resistant t o conventional classifications. It h a s rarely exploded into mass violence i n t h i s century (except for isolated instances i n

Limerick a n d South Wales shortly before t h e First World War a n d in the East End during t h e 19305), but it has been a remarkably persistent undercurrent in British society a n d culture. Whether this latent anti-Jewish prejudice will stretch the limits of tolerance in Britain's liberal democracy should economic conditions deteriorate, political stability be threatened, religious fundamentalism grow o r racial t e n s i o n s

explode, must remain a n open question.

113

10 America: Whites, Blacks and Jews

The American Jewish community, generally estimated at around six million in size, is the largest, wealthiest, most influential a n d politically powerful that h a s ever existed in Diaspora history.l Its contribution in this century t o American life has been second to none a n d it has had t h e good fortune to operate in what has arguably been the most open and liberal democracy of t h e Western world since 1945. In American society, especially during the past thirty years, antisemitism — according to the existing social research — has been a peripheral phenomenon, not a part of t h e mainstream culture o r political system. In contrast to the kind of rampant pre-war discrimination against Jews in education, employment, social and public life which was once commonplace, American Jewry appears today not only as a n equal a n d successful part of t h e larger society, b u t even a s a n empowered e’lite i n A m e r i c a .

The antisemitism that does exist often seems (particularly to non-Jewish observers) to be at most latent or relatively passive. C e r t a i n l y there a r e n o explicitly a n t i s e m i t i c political

movements which have significantly developed, persisted o r m a d e electoral headway in t h e post-war era. This raises a n u m b e r of important questions: to what extent does this fact give a n accurate picture of contemporary American a t t i t u d e s

to Jews, how much continuity is there to antisemitism in t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s , h o w far i s it different from its European

counterparts a n d what general societal o r political causes may extend or limit its present or future course?2 O n e salient feature about America which it shares with 114

America: Whites, Blacks and Jews

Europe is that it has always been a Christian country, a fact which potentially provides a fertile soil for antisemitism, n o less t h a n i n most E u r o p e a n societies. Moreover, m a n y of its variegated e t h n i c groups, particularly C a t h o l i c Poles o r

Slovaks, Lutheran Germans o r Orthodox Christian Rumanians a n d Ukrainians, have brought a n antisemitic tradition with them to America. The notion of Jews as Christkillers h a s therefore been a familiar o n e i n modern America, though significantly less p o t e n t t h a n i n Eastern E u r o p e .

During the 19305, however, antisemitism of a n extremist kind d i d flourish u n d e r a ’Christian’ proto-fascist b a n n e r . The most

striking example of its political potential could be found in t h e incendiary propaganda of the Catholic radio-priest, Father Charles E. Coughlin, who had a n audience of millions.3 The Christian Front, inspired by h i s diatribes, organised movem e n t s t o boycott Jewish businesses i n m a n y American cities

between 1938 a n d 1940, physically assaulted Jews a n d constantly attacked them as ’warmongers’ seeking to drag the United States into war with Hitler's Germany. Coughlin appealed especially t o American Catholics, who i n t h e 19305

were looking to t h e political Right for their salvation, identifying Jews with Communism at a time when antisemitic sentiment was already reaching unprecedented heights in America.4 It was not until 1942 that the American Catholic hierarchy appeared clearly to dissociate itself from the campaigns of C o u g h l i n ' s followers, which singled o u t Jews for special c o n d e m n a t i o n .

There were other Christian clergymen, like Gerald B. Winrod who also espoused a conservative, ’patriotic’ antisemitism in the 19305. In 1938 Winrod had 110,000 subscribers t o his publication Defender a n d received a sizeable vote w h e n h e ran for a S e n a t e seat i n K a n s a s a n d lost. A n o t h e r

self-styled Christian Party, this o n e openly fascist in its ideology, was William Pelley’s Silver Shirts, who in 1933 had 1 5 , 0 0 0 followers a n d e m i t t e d a n u n r e l e n t i n g stream of propag a n d a a g a i n s t Jews c o n t r o l l i n g i n d u s t r y , fi n a n c e a n d property 115

Enemies o f the People

i n America. Pelley was e v e n t u a l l y charged with racketeering a n d received a fi f t e e n - y e a r prison s e n t e n c e . A more d u r a b l e

antisemite was t h e Protestant, far-Right demagogue Gerald L. K . S m i t h , w h o s e Cross and the Flag newspaper w a s replete w i t h

attacks o n ’organised Jewry’ during t h e Second World War.5 Yet, even during t h e period of the great economic depression which briefly produced a n antisemitism comparable t o some of t h e worst m a n i f e s t a t i o n s i n E u r o p e , it never became politically e n t r e n c h e d .

Although Christian theological considerations did colour some of t h e rhetoric which. inspired Hitler’s American imitators in t h e 19305, it was not their main motivation. This suggests t h a t American Christianity h a s n o t been especially

hospitable to antisemitism, recognising as it does t h e multiplicity of sects, the principle of religious pluralism, t h e separation of Church a n d state a n d the importance of equality in matters of religion as central elements in the credo of t h e Republic. In t h e United States, t h e medieval Christian demonology of t h e Jew has on the whole been rather muted, and even t h e far more influential notions about t h e ’Christian character’ of America are limited by t h e fact that there is no national Church from which Jews stand apart.6 Indeed, in America, unlike Europe, Judaism has achieved a significant legitimacy and standing which is equal, at least in theory, to that of Protestantism and Catholicism. American Jews have also been fortunate that they did not need to be formally emancipated in a New World that was ’born free’, without a n y feudal aristocracy to retard t h e development of a Calvinist spirit of capitalism. America did not offer fertile soil to t h e kind of antimodernist backlash against urbanism, commercialism o r democratisation so characteristic of a n t i s e m i t i s m i n France, G e r m a n y , A u s t r i a , Eastern E u r o p e

a n d Russia. Moreover, Jews in America, unlike their European co-religionists, had never been obliged to gain their livelihoods through ’usury’ o r a pariah form of capitalism. Modestly prosperous, they could never compete in wealth with t h e great 116

America: W h i t e s , B l a c k s a n d J e w s

Anglo-Saxon industrial and financial tycoons of t h e Gilded Age — the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Morgans, Vanderbilts a n d G o u l d s — t h o u g h by t h e e n d of t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y t h e y had a few representatives of t h e i r own w i t h i n t h e fi n a n c i a l

élite.7 The unparalleled mass immigration of Jews from Tsarist Russia to t h e United S t a t e s — some three million impoverished,

Yiddish-speaking Jews arrived between 1881 a n d 1924 — did, however, spark off a n aggravation of the hitherto rather mild forms of existing antisemitism. With their strange, exotic customs, l a n g u a g e a n d dress, t h e East European Jews were seen a s ' a l i e n ' a n d u n - A m e r i c a n , a s unwelcome competitors o n t h e j o b m a r k e t a n d i n some cases a s sinister conspirators

who controlled ’invisible money powers’. They found themselves shut o u t of exclusive clubs, salons, fashionable resorts, schools, fraternities o r the boards of élite cultural a n d

charitable institutions.8 The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment (the only version of ’aristocracy’ that America h a s ever k n o w n ) particularly resented t h e n e w Jewish immigrants a s pushy, uppity parvenus o r else a s coming of tainted, inferior stock. A Boston B r a h m i n like Henry Adams

could write in t h e 18905 of t h e ’accursed Judaism' of his money-grabbing contemporaries (Jewish o r Christian) w i t h t h e same racist obsessiveness a s a n y European aristocrat. ’The Jew h a s penetrated to m y s o u l . I see h i m — o r h e r —

everywhere, a n d everywhere that h e — or she — goes there

remains a taint in the blood forever.’9 From this established upper-class milieu, American racial theories first developed, which culminated in the drastic immigration law of 1924, affirming t h e superiority of Nordic over Slavic and ’Semitic’ races. Although America stopped short of articulating a fully fledged ideological antisemitism o r a political movement o n C e n t r a l o r East European lines, its receptiveness t o racial a r g u m e n t s (against t h e ’ y e l l o w peril’ o r

about blacks) undoubtedly facilitated the adoption of new myths about t h e Jews. The popularity of works like Madison 117

Enemies of the People

Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (he was a n American counterpart

to

Houston

S. Chamberlain)

showed

that

European racist ideology was making a n impact in t h e United States with distinctly adverse effects for American Jewry. It was i n this climate of opinion that t h e atrocious lynching of a young Southern Jew, Leo Frank, who was wrongly accused of murdering a Gentile girl, occurred in 1916.lo Tom Watson, a vitriolic antisemitic a n d anti-Catholic agitator (he was nonetheless elected to t h e US Senate in 1920) was o n e of those Southerners who contributed to t h e lynching by his relentless accusations that Jews habitually committed ritual murder, a n d his racist attacks o n Jewish a n d Negro ’licentiousness’ a n d on Jewish fraud. The Frank Affair, which was sparked off by a blood libel, demonstrated the potential for violent antisemitism in America. The activities of t h e Ku Klux Klan, t h e best-known of America’s nativist organisations a n d also based in t h e South, underlined this threat, appealing as it did to a new American xenophobia and hatred of minorities that followed the First World War. Originally anti-black a n d anti-Catholic, t h e Klan began between 1915 and 1925 to incite a violent hatred against the alien, unassimilable Jews who

were supposedly trying to dominate America.” The foremost advocate of antisemitism in America during t h e 19205 was, however, undoubtedly the motor-car tycoon Henry Ford, whose weekly The Dearborn Independent disseminated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (an antisemitic Russian émigré had convinced Ford of its truth) a n d systematically defamed American Jews for seven years. ‘2 Ford

had a four-volume reissue of t h e antisemitic articles in his weekly separately reprinted, u n d e r t h e title The International Jew — a work which was highly praised by Adolf Hitler a n d widely distributed in German translation by his Nazi Party.l3 E v e n t u a l l y Ford retracted i n 1 9 2 7 , following a J e w i s h boycott

of his products, but considerable damage had already been done. Ford’s paper had depicted t h e Jews as a universally corrupting influence, responsible for all t h e evils of ’progress’ — 118

America: Whites, Blacks and Jews

from liberalism,

unionism and Bolshevism to Negro jazz

music. O n e can see w h y Hitler once told a n American reporter: ‘I regard Heinrich [sic] Ford as m y inspiration.’'4 The 19205 a n d 19305 witnessed a growing institutionalisa-

tion of antisemitism in the United States, already heralded by the 1 9 2 4 Johnson B i l l w h i c h h a d drastically reduced the Jewish i m m i g r a n t i n fl u x i n the n a m e o f preserving America’s

’native stock'. Nine years later, when Hitler came to power i n Germany, he could remark with some justice: ’Through its immigration law, America has inhibited the unwelcome influence of such races as i t has been unable to tolerate within its midst. Nor is America ready n o w to open itsldoors to Jews

fleeing from Germany.’15 The attitudes of the chief State Department official responsible for refugees in the Roosevelt administration, Breckinridge Long, Jr, a paranoid antisemite

who regarded all Jews as Communists, demonstrates the extent o f American responsibility w h e n i t came to t h e Jewish immigration issue. Nor was this merely isolationist protectionism. Long, after reading Mein Kampf, for example, called i t

’eloquent in opposition to Jewry and to Jews as exponents of Communism and Chaos’.'6 Such attitudes were extremely popular in the United States during the late 19305. Four separate polls in 1938 revealed that between 7 0 a n d 85 per cent of t h e American public opposed increasing t h e already drastically restrictive quotas t o h e l p

refugees.l7 American Jewish organisations undoubtedly felt intimidated by such public sentiments and government willingness

to adapt its policy t o them.

In employment, housing and higher education, too, Jews found themselves discriminated against to an astonishing degree by t h e k i n d o f quotas more familiar i n Eastern Europe. Their representation i n elite schools was severely restricted, and t h e percentage o f Jewish students at Columbia a n d Cornell h a d dropped t o less t h a n 5 per cent by 1 9 4 0 . A

negligible number of Jewish medical graduates could find employment

in

non-Jewish 119

hospitals

run

by

private

Enemies of th e People

philanthropy. In fields like dentistry a n d psychiatry a quota system w a s o p e n l y prOposed. W i t h t h e d e e p e n i n g of t h e

economic crisis, advertisements accepting ’Christians only' could even be found in t h e New York Times, which was owned by Jews. Opinion polls in 1938 showed that popular antipathy was indeed widespread, with 4 1 per cent agreeing that Jews had ’too much power in the United States’, a figure that actually rose to 5 8 per cent by 1 9 4 5 , despite t h e w a r w h i c h

America was waging against Nazi Germany. '3 Large numbers of Americans evidently thought Jews to b e greedy, dishonest a n d aggressive or tended to blame them for the antisemitic persecution in Europe. During t h e war years, poll-takers noted t h a t , after t h e Germans a n d Japanese, Jews were held to b e t h e

greatest menace to American society.19 Against this sombre background of socio-economic prejudice a n d discrimination, the steady decline in American antisemitism during t h e past forty-five years represents a substantial progress. In part this can be attributed to the remarkably favourable economic a n d political circumstances of America i n t h e post-war e r a . U n d e r t h e conditions of

general prosperity a n d even affluence prevailing in t h e 19505 a n d 19605, when t h e United States clearly emerged as t h e world’s richest a n d most powerful nation, the status of Jews also began to improve dramatically. The descendents of immigrants began to enter the white American middle class in large numbers a n d to g a i n open access t o t h e universities. B y

the 19705 a n d 19805 they were concentrated in t h e upper ranks of American society as far a s income, education a n d professional success was concerned. Although more often excluded from t h e highest corporate office or ownership of t h e biggest firms, Jews n o longer felt politically powerless or as defensive a s they had done in the 19305 a n d early 19405. The establishment of t h e State of Israel in 1948 a n d t h e success of Jewish lobbying efforts o n its behalf further reinforced self-

confidence, particularly as Americans in general were supportive of t h e new state a n d sympathetic to its needs. 120

America: Whites, Blacks and Jews

A n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t factor i n t h e a t t e n u a t i o n of A m e r i c a n a n t i s e m i t i s m was t h e vigorous struggle by A m e r i c a n J e w i s h

organisations in t h e post-war years against social a n d educational discrimination. Using all t h e means available in a n open society — legislation, court decisions, education a n d growing political clout — t h e major American Jewish defence organisations did largely succeed in removing anti-Jewish discrimination in education, employment and housing, as well as in

diminishing the pervasiveness of antisemitic stereotypes.20 Nevertheless, m a n y American Jews in t h e 19805 believed that there had been a significant rise in antisemitism, owing partly to r e s e n t m e n t a b o u t Jewish political power (particularly t h e way it is u s e d o n behalf of Israel) a n d partly to growing

hostility between blacks a n d t h e American Jewish community. These issues first came together in the mid-19605 with the emergence of a ’Third World’ ideology among militant American blacks, linking their struggle a t h o m e with that of non-white peoples abroad, oppressed by European a n d especially American imperialism. Already in 1964 t h e black nationalist leader Malcolm X had ventilated his anger a t t h e ’Jews who with the help of Christians in America a n d Europe drove o u r Muslim brothers o u t of their homeland [Palestine], where they had been settled for centuries, a n d took over t h e

land for themselves’.21 Malcolm X was to be the first in a long line of militant blacks to suggest that American aid to Israel to p u r s u e its ’aggression’ a g a i n s t t h e Third World w a s t a k e n from t h e pockets of black taxpayers; a n d to portray J e w i s h b u s i n e s s -

men in Harlem as ’colonialists' who exploited t h e Negroes n o less than t h e Western colonialists had oppressed t h e peoples of Africa a n d Asia. After 1967, the anti-Zionist rhetoric of t h e newly created militant Black Panther Party which adopted this outlook became m u c h more explicit, openly identifying

Zionism with ’racism' and fascism.22 The long-term effects of this radical Third World ideology were clearly to be seen in t h e 1984 Presidential election campaign of t h e Reverend Jesse Jackson, t h e most charismatic 121

Enemies of the People

leader i n t h e American black community, whose proPalestinian a n d anti-Israel stance upset m a n y American J e w s . Jackson's o w n private references to American Jews a s

’Hymies’, a n d above all his reluctance to distance himself from the antisemitic black Muslim preacher, Louis Farrakhan (who h a d called Hitler a ’great m a n ' and Judaism a ’gutter religion’),

added credence to Jewish fears.23 According to a 1984 survey, Jews in America held blacks to be more antisemitic t h a n any of the other groups named in the poll, including Catholics, fundamentalist Protestants, big business or the State Department — though there is no clear-cut evidence at a grassroots level for such a n unqualified assumption?4 Certainly, the hate-filled tirades of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam and a preacher with a considerable following among black audiences in the great American cities, has contributed to this image — as has the refusal of many prominent black spokesmen to criticise him directly. Farrakhan’s antisemitism derived from the black Muslim faith preached by Elijah Muhammad in the 19505, which was a part of his general anti-white stance a n d call for separation from American white society. (Jews, it should be remembered, were in the early 19605 still among the strongest white supporters of the integrationist civil rights movement among blacks.) The older, more traditional black ghetto nationalism which Farrakhan imbibed in his early days included a wellentrenched hostility t o Jews a s landlords a n d merchants i n

certain urban black communities.25 But since the early 1970s this has been overlaid with leftist nationalist concepts, Third Worldism, support for the PLO a n d the acceptance of interestfree loans from Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya. The most worrying feature of his popular appearances has been t h e chord that they have struck among educated, upwardly mobile blacks. Nevertheless, research tends to show that the ’silent majority’ among blacks (including millions of whitea n d blue-collar wage-earners) are far more moderate in their politics and i n their attitudes to Jews and to Israel. 122

America: Whites, Blacks and Jews

The picture that emerges from the more recent research is that some 37 per cent o f blacks as against 2 0 per cent of w h i t e s score as antisemitic, w i t h particular emphasis i n t h e black c o m m u n i t y o n the perceived business power o f the Jews. However, this prejudice is n o t significantly greater t h a n that w h i c h blacks h o l d towards other w h i t e groups. Less t h a n half

of black antisemites are more antisemitic than they are generally anti-white, but antisemitism among blacks does appear t o increase where there is economic contact w i t h Jews

and ’perceived exploitation' — specifically

by Jewish

merchants, landlords o r employers. Undoubtedly, there are also other social a n d political resentments arising o u t o f

various conflicts of interest — those of blacks moving into positions directly beneath those of Jewish professionals, tensions between parts of t h e n e w black middle

class a n d

Jewish homeowners, or black anger at Jews opposed to ’affirmative action’ for Negroes, which would run counter to their own ethos and economic position. Thus there is an ’objective’ basis to black antisemitism rooted in real social conflicts, though this should not be reduced to being a mere derivative o f a n t i - w h i t e hostility. Blacks, i n contrast t o most whites, are today far more likely, for example, to accuse Jewish businessmen o f shady practices, o f being shrewd a n d tricky, of engaging i n u n f a i r competition o r o f excessive

economic power.26 More striking still is the fact that antisemitism among blacks today appears t o rise w i t h t h e educational level, whereas t h e opposite is t r u e a m o n g y o u n g w h i t e Americans. This increase i n antisemitism a m o n g college-educated y o u n g blacks seems t o reflect their politicisation a n d heightened ideological

sensitivity, one which has been sharpened by the black power movements of the past twenty years.27 Nevertheless, i t is significant that Negroes as a w h o l e emerge

as significantly less antisemitic than whites when i t comes to supporting discriminatory behaviour. As a persecuted m i n o r i t y themselves, Negroes display more opposition t o 123

Enemies of the People

occupational o r social club discrimination against Jews, to laws against Jewish immigration or to antisemitic violence of any k i n d . Neo-Nazi attacks o n Jewish stores or synagogues a r e

usually condemned sharply in t h e black press as expressions of white racist persecution. Thus, although Negroes are more prone to accept negative economic stereotypes about Jews, they are less likely than whites to approve of discriminatory attitudes or practices.28 This pattern coincides with the fact that historically black antisemitism has been less of a threat to American Jews than white racism, despite sporadic outbreaks of Negro violence such as t h e Harlem riots of 1935 which bore a n anti-Jewish character. D o e s t h e Farrakhan

phenomenon

constitute a

break in that pattern? Certainly, it is remarkable that white hate-groups and individuals, from t h e Californian ’Aryan’ racist Torn Metzger a n d t h e Liberty Lobby founder (and patron of Holocaust denial literature) Willis Carto, to leading neoNazis a n d Klansmen, have all expressed sympathy with Farrakhan. Meetings have taken place between these rightwing racists a n d left-wing black nationalists without yet leading to a serious alliance of white and black antisemites. The white hate-groups still believe in t h e racial inferiority of blacks b u t c o n t i n u e t o see t h e Jews ( o r t h e so-called ’Zionist Occupation G o v e r n m e n t ’ ) a s t h e evil controlling-force responsible for America's problems. These w h i t e groups d o n o t

have a mass audience but they undoubtedly express some of the latent hatreds, phobias a n d paranoia within t h e majority p0pulation. Like Farrakhan, they too focus on the power of the Jewish lobby, u s e ’anti-Zionist’ code-language, like to attack

Hollywood a n d t h e ’Jewish' media, or blame sexual immorality a n d ’secular h u m a n i s m ' on t h e Jews. Parts of this message may also find a n echo among t h e far more respectable C h r i s t i a n conservative fundamentalists i n

America, w h o despite their support for the State of Israel still seem to consider Jews collectively responsible for shedding t h e

blood of Jesus Christ. Other parts of t h e white suprematist 124

America: Whites, Blacks and Jews

credo are m o r e openly espoused by Louisiana state representative D a v i d D u k e , whose o w n racist, antisemitic a n d neo-Nazi past did n o t prevent him from w i n n i n g a very substantial vote

in his recent bid for election to the United States Senate.29 These are w a r n i n g signals that the 19905 m a y prove less

hospitable to American Jews than the previous three decades. Nonetheless, the American strain of antisemitism seems distinctly less virulent than its European counterparts. Racist bigotry has a plethora of alternative targets against which to focus its animosities.3o Jews themselves remain vigilant and determined to defend their rights, and as long as American democratic ideals remain intact they are unlikely to succumb.

125

11 France: from Dreyfus to Le Pen France was the birthplace of Jewish emancipation in Europe, the home of the Great Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. At the same time ’Ia grande nation ’ has also been a kind of laboratory of antisemitic concepts, ideas a n d slogans since the nineteenth century, which have demonstrated remarkable intellectual a n d political continuity until the present day. The theories of integral nationalism, racism a n d Catholic antisemitism pioneered more than a hundred years ago by writers like Gougenot des Mousseaux, Arthur de Gobineau, Edouard Drumont, Jules Soury, Maurice Barres a n d Charles Maurras find more than a n echo in t h e French New Right, in ’revisionist’ circles, among Catholic fundamentalists a n d above all in Europe's largest fascist movement, Le Front National, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. This persistence of antisemitism in a country which was not only t h e first to emancipate t h e Jews but also the first to permit them to enter t h e state structure a n d the highest levels of a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d politics ( t h e r e have b e e n more Jewish

prime ministers in France than in a n y other country outside Israel) is at first sight surprising. Jews in France during the past two hundred years have, after all, been one of the most assimilated a n d best integrated Jewish communities anywhere in t h e world. Their patriotism a n d commitment t o French republican values have been second to none. Moreover, until the First World War this was a decidedly small Jewish community, numbering between 80,000 a n d 100,000 at the time of the Dreyfus Affair — t h e event which gave rise to o n e 126

France: from Dreyfus to Le Pen

of t h e most violent manifestations of antisemitism i n fin-de-

siecle Europe. Today, ironically enough, when France has the largest Jewish c o m m u n i t y

i n Europe ( o u t s i d e t h e Soviet

Union) — variously estimated at between 550,000 a n d 7 0 0 , 0 0 0 , antisemitism is less intense t h a n it was a century ago, though it still remains persistent a n d p o t e n t i a l l y dangerous. Traditionally, political antisemitism i n France h a s been strongest o n t h e nationalist a n d clerical Right, though it h a s a t

times been able to draw support from the Left and to cut across regional, class and other barriers. Although violent antiJewish riots broke o u t in Alsace in 1848, there was no organised antisemitic movement before 1870 — the year Henri Gougenot des Mousseaux published a book denouncing the ’Judaisation of the Christian peoples’ through the secret forces of freemasonry a n d the influence of eighteenth-century liberal rationalism. According to des Mousseaux, international Jewry (directed from Paris by the Alliance Israélite Universelle) was aiming to rule the whole world by promoting

the shocktroops of liberalism and secularism against Christianity. This reactionary, antimodernist Catholic refrain was repeated in the Abbé Chabauty's book, Les Juzfl, nos maz‘tres (1882) and with much greater success in the bestselling La France Juive, published by Edouard Drumont i n 1886.1 D r u m o n t

was a skilled journalist who

combined

Catholic, populist, quasi-socialist and frankly racist motifs in a pot-pourri of scandal, gossip and pointed denunciations of social a n d political corruption which appealed to a mass

audience. By 1889 he had founded an Antisemitic League and in 1892 he began editing the influential daily La Libre Parole, which concentrated its hatred against the Jews, the Republic and the parliamentary corruption exposed by the Panama Scandal.2 D r u m o n t ' s central thesis was t h a t t h e Jews had seized power i n France since t h e Revolution of 1 7 8 9 , t h a t they were successfully subverting French traditions a n d c u l t u r e , t h a t

they controlled the financial system and were expropriating 127

Enemies of the People

t h e French labouring masses. He found much support for these myths among t h e Catholic clergy, which since t h e 1870s had found itself in intense conflict with t h e Republic a n d was seeking a way to recover its political i n fl u e n c e . A n t i s e m i t i s m ,

by depicting the Jews as a symbol of all the liberal, secular, alien a n d capitalistic elements seeking to de-Christianise France, provided a n ideal, integrating ideology for t h e disorientated clergy, which would later align itself whole-

heartedly with the Army in the agitation against Dreyfus.3 The campaign against the Jews did reflect a fundamental social a n d religious crisis in French society, o n e which was exacerbated by modernisation a n d urbanisation but was still more often

expressed in traditional Catholic terms.4 In the 18905 a whole range of antisemitic organisations were created in France around such ephemeral figures as the Marquis de Morés, Jacques de Biez, Jules Guérin ( w h o organised a section of his Parisian lower-class supporters into anti-Jewish commandos) a n d Max Régis. The latter was a naturalised Italian who in 1898 was elected Mayor of Algiers a n d together with Drumont became a member of the antisemitic faction i n t h e French Chamber of D e p u t i e s . Régis a n d

his hot-headed followers among t h e French ’colons' carried

out anti-Jewish atrocities in Algiers.S In 1898, the peak year of the Dreyfus Affair, there were also small-scale antisemitic riots i n most of t h e largest French cities, including Paris,

Marseille, Lyon, Nantes, Rennes, Tours, Bordeaux a n d C l e r m o n t - F e r r a n d . The cry ’ D e a t h to t h e Jews' swept France,

a n d for a few months it appeared a s one of t h e most popular weapons in t h e arsenal of those in t h e Army, t h e Church a n d u l t r a - n a t i o n a l i s t circles w h o hoped to overthrow t h e Republic.

The case of Captain Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew o n t h e French General Staff who had been wrongly convicted (as it turned out) of selling military secrets to t h e Germans, now divided French society into two camps — for o r against t h e Republic — a n d it h a d a l s o exposed a festering, deep-rooted a n t i s e m i t i s m .

Not only t h e lower clergy a n d many provincial Catholics, but 128

France: from Dreyfus to Le Pen

also small traders, businessmen, journalists, army officers and members of the liberal professions voted for antisemitic deputies, read the flourishing

press, supported boycotts against

antisemitic

Jewish shops, demonstrated or even joined the Antisemitic Leagues.6 Nevertheless, Dreyfus was eventually acquitted in 1 9 0 6 (he had been pardoned in 1 8 9 9 following a retrial which and, again found him guilty with ’extenuating circumstances'!)

more importantly, the Dreyfusards were victorious in their struggle against the enemies of the Republic. Politicians like Clemenceau and Jean Jaurés, officers like Picquart, writers and intellectuals like Emile Zola, Charles Péguy or Marcel Proust, whatever their personal ambivalence towards Jews, did henceforth oppose antisemitism as a matter of principle once the lines

of battle were clearly drawn. The eventual success of the Dreyfusards in routing

the opposition

appeared

therefore to

vindicate the ’politics of assimilation' which had prevailed in

France since the Revolution.7 Antisemitism, though temporarily marginalised, nonetheless remained a vehicle for all kinds of grievances and discontent in French society which would resurface between the wars. Politically

heterogeneous, i t could

appear as both

radical and conservative, royalist and republican, anticapitalist and anti-Marxist. Above all, as the founder of integral nationalism and Boulangist deputy Maurice Barres put it in 1889 - it offered a ’national union’ against the alien, cosmopolitan

Jews, which

cut across t h e division

of social classes.8

Barres, himself one of France's most distinguished writers, was an excellent example of that literary antisemitism of the French intelligentsia which from Paul Bourget in the 18805 to Céline a n d Jean Giraudoux in t h e 1 9 3 0 3 included many firstrate talents as well as successful, popular writers. The antiJewish stereotypes disseminated in French letters exercised a

great influence, due to the prestige of their authors and the brilliance of their prose.9 The depiction of Jews as strangers, intruders, cosmopolitan financiers, as rapacious parasites,

unscrupulous

parvenus, or as base, immoral, 129

cowardly,

E n e m i e s of the People

treacherous a n d dishonest, abounds in French popular fiction. '0 But even among the most sophisticated writers there is a similar sense of t h e supposedly unassimilable, corrosive nature of the Jew, his shiftiness, his unpleasantly manipulative qualities a n d cold, abstract intellectuality. Such images can be found in Maupassant, Zola, Bourget, i n famous literary personalities like Edmond d e Goncourt, Jules Valles o r Alphonse Daudet or in a far more pathological form in Céline’s hysterical calls for the destruction of Jewry in the 19305. Even so eminent a figure as André Gide expressed the wish that the literature of French Jewish writers appear ’in translation‘ only so as not t o contaminate the purity of the French language. Gide's private thoughts o n his close friend, the highly assimilated a n d quintessentially French socialist intellectual Léon Blum, reveal a similar disdain for his ’foreignness'. For Gide it was ’enough that the virtues of the Jewish race are not French

virtues'.ll The antisemitism of the intelligentsia, particularly evident among academics, journalists, playwrights, painters and cartoonists ( t h r e e of t h e m o s t famous — Willette, Jean Forain

a n d Emmanuel Poiré drew hideously anti-Jewish caricatures) n o doubt reflected a mixture of snobbery, envy, prickly national sensitivities a n d t h e generally hostile climate of public opinion. In t h e long run this enmity was probably more dangerous than the snobbish antisemitism of the antiRepublican officer class a n d the hostility of t h e l o w e r clergy o r of t h e poor, u n e d u c a t e d peasantry with their atavistic n o t i o n s

of Jews as Devils with horns or as mythical incarnations of Antichrist. For it was intellectuals who formulated the new antisemitism, with its modern, ’scientific’ pretensions and racial concepts (Gobineau, Jules Soury, Vacher d e Lapouge) o r its carefully constructed bureaucratic measures to restrict Jewish immigration and naturalisation, to ban Jews from public employment, to withdraw full citizenship, to restore t h e ghetto o r even to expel Jews from France. This was a t t h e heart of the ideology of Drumont, t h e high-priest of French 130

France: from Dreyfus to Le Pen

a n t i s e m i t i s m , a n d a l s o of C h a r l e s M a u r r a s , t h e founder i n

1899 of the Royalist Action Francaise, which remained a political force in France for t h e next forty years.'2 Maurras’s antise’mitisme d ’Etat was above all political — aimed at eradicating the influence of the four ’e’tats conféde’rés’ within the state whom he believed to have seized t h e levers of command — the Jews, the Protestants, t h e freemasons a n d the me’téques (foreigners). This purging of a l i e n e l e m e n t s w o u l d

involve sweeping away t h e satanic Republic a n d the evil work of the Revolution in order to restore t h e strong, homogeneous state of the ancient régime — based on the Roman virtues of order, hierarchy and authority. For t h e ’Catholic’ atheist Maurras (proscribed in Rome during the 19205 but rehabilitated by Pope Pius XII in 1939) antisemitism seemed almost ’providential’ as a n ideological pillar of his counterrevolutionary world-view. In the 19305 Maurras a n d his disciples, though overtaken by more dynamic groupings o n the French Right, were indeed as radical as a n y of their rivals in t h e ferocity of t h e i r antisemitism, directed with special hatred

towards the Popular Front government of 1936 and its Jewish leader, Le’on Blum. Such campaigns, led by t h e nationalist, antisemitic Right in the 19305, undoubtedly prepared the ground for t h e lack of public resistance to the racial policies of t h e Vichy government (1940—4) a n d its active participation i n

the deportation of 100,000 French Jews to their deaths.'3 The anti-Jewish sensibility of the 19305 claimed to be defending France against t h e fears of revolutionary change — against t h e spectre of Bolshevism, of t h e P o p u l a r Front, w a r

with Nazi Germany and t h e inundation of France by foreigners — especially Jewish refugees. It thrived o n a sense of French decadence a n d weakness, of parliamentary disorder, demographic d e c l i n e a n d fears of racial p o l l u t i o n whose symbol a n d cause w a s supposedly t h e J e w , w h e t h e r assimilated patriot o r a

recent immigrant from the Polish ghettos. The more radical, y o u n g e r s p o k e s m e n of t h i s fascist a n t i s e m i t i s m — Lucien

Rebatet, Robert Brasillach, Henry Coston a n d Darquier d e 131

Enemies of the People

Pellepoix — were openly racist in their outlook,

especially

towards the immigrant, refugee Jews. B u t even a republican like

the celebrated dramatist Jean Giraudoux complained in 1939 that France was being swamped by hundreds of thousands of lawless, corrupt, racially inferior Ashkenazi Jews who had escaped from the Polish and Rumanian ghettos. They were, he suggested, ’a constant threat to the spirit of precision, of

honesty, of perfection which is that of the French artisan

class’.'4 Giraudoux, who at the time headed the Commissariat of Information, declared that h e was in full agreement with Hitler ’that a policy only attains its highest level if it is based on race,

because this was also the thinking of Colbert and Richelieu’.l5 Within a year of these remarks, the new French government in Vichy under Marshal Pétain, set up after the defeat by Germany, had already passed its first Statut des Juific eliminating Jews from a n y important position in the Army, civil service, teaching, journalism, theatre or films. A second statute passed i n J u n e 1 9 4 1 set q u o t a s of 2 a n d 3 per c e n t respectively for Jews i n most professions a n d i n educational institutions. A

month later a n Aryanisation Law was adopted, permitting government confiscation of Jewish property. These and other measures of Vichy antisemitic legislation designed to eliminate ’all Jewish influence in national life’ were not taken under German pressure b u t reflected a n autonomous racist tradition. As legal measures, they met with open opposition from very few Frenchmen, with t h e approval of growing numbers a n d with the indifference of the majority. The judicial system not only facilitated legal persecution b u t in 1942 it became a n i n s t r u m e n t of t h e German policy of systematic deportation.

The French police provided critical support in enforcing the anti-Jewish policies of a n occupying Nazi power that was desperately short of manpower. I n d e e d , n o w h e r e i n Western E u r o p e did t h e Nazis receive such substantial assistance, a n d

the strictness of the Vichy racial laws even outdid such traditionally antisemitic allies of Germany as Hungary, Rumania a n d Slovakia.16 132

France: from Dreyfus t o Le Pen

There is n o doubt that t h e Pétain regime was backed by a large section of t h e French population who saw nothing wrong with excluding Jews from all but t h e most menial jobs, even though their families had lived in France for generations. The racial l a w s were a l s o approved by t h e C a t h o l i c C h u r c h , t h o u g h i n 1 9 4 2 a h a n d f u l of Catholic priests supported by Protestant

Churchmen, appalled by t h e brutal application of the roundups of Jews, helped to bring them to a temporary halt.l7 It m u s t a l s o be said t h a t if 7 0 p e r cent of French Jews n e v e r t h e less survived t h e war, despite t h e institutional a n t i s e m i t i s m

a n d daily vilification in t h e media which took place o n a n unprecedented scale, this was a result of t h e help a n d protection of m a n y non-Jews in France, as well a s of their own escape routes a n d organisations. The t r a u m a of Vichy a n d Hitler’s genocide d i d , however, m a r k t h e e n d of t h e naive t r u s t w h i c h p r e - w a r F r e n c h Jewry

had felt in t h e French state, which after 1940 had abandoned the universal principles of t h e Revolution a n d betrayed its Jewish population.'8 It was, after all, a French government w h i c h h a d set u p p e r m a n e n t concentration a n d l a b o u r camps

holding thousands of Jews who died of disease, starvation a n d neglect even before they reached the death trains; it was French gendarmes who hunted Jews down with t h e help of detailed race-censuses or forced t h e old, the sick, mothers a n d even children of three or four into cattle trucks that took them to Poland. It was also a French administration which stamped identity cards with t h e word ’Juz'f’, which tolerated hysterical, unrestrained slander of t h e Jews in t h e antisemitic press a n d which encouraged t h e isolation a n d stigmatisation of its Jewish p o p u l a t i o n .

For nearly forty years after t h e war t h e complicity a n d collaboration of official France u n d e r P é t a i n i n t h e G e r m a n

’Final Solution’ was barely acknowledged in official French textbooks.l9 Eminent Frenchmen continued to pretend that Pe’tain h a d s o u g h t t o protect Jews d e s p i t e h i s racial legislation a n d t h e fanatical a n t i s e m i t e s i n h i s e n t o u r a g e . M o r e 133

Enemies of the People

important still, t h e French government a n d judiciary have continued until t h e present to obstruct the trial of high Vichy officials like Paul Touvier (the Lyon milice chief hidden for forty years by the Catholic Church) a n d Maurice Papon, formerly a Gaullist minister a n d Paris prefect of police, who during 1942—4 had helped deport Jews from Bordeaux. Perhaps the best-known example of all has been that of Re’né Bousquet, a prominent French banker, who in 1942—3, as the young Secretary General of t h e Vichy police, was responsible for coordinating with t h e Nazis the deportation of Jews from the Free Zone. It is currently a socialist government, and a judiciary with much to answer for concerning its condemnation of Jews during the war, that has been delaying the trial of Réné Bousquet.

Another disturbing phenomenon with echoes of the Vichy past is the renewed personality cult of Marshal Pétain in National Front circles, including t h e recommendation of his

nationalist antisemitic programme at its rallies.20 Taken together with Le Pen’s dismissive reference to the Holocaust a n d to t h e deportation of Jews from Vichy France a n d with t h e spread of ’revisionist’z' and also notoriously antisemitic Vichy literature, freely available in the bookshops, the old taboos which for a t i m e made a n t i s e m i t i s m itself disreputable i n

post-war France no longer appear to apply. Already in the 19705 le mode re’tro i n films and literature dealing with t h e Vichy period, the publication of memoirs by former fascist collaborators like Lucien Rebatet, t h e rediscovery of Céline, t h e provocative interview i n L’Express

with unrepentant

collaborator Darquier de Pellepoix a n d t h e fascination with t h e German SS were all signs of the potentially seductive influence of a rehabilitated and sanitised fascist legacy. Already a t t h a t t i m e , a former Pétain admirer, Alfred Fabre-

Luce, accused Jews of seeking to deliberately blacken t h e

record of Vichy, and was given a respectful hearing.22 Antisemitism had of course never died in post-war France a n d popular hostility to Jews was still strong — a 1946 opinion 134

France: from Dreyfus t o Le Pen

poll showed, for example, that over a third of the French population felt that Jews could never become loyal French citizens. The French philospher Jean-Paul Sartre’s m o v i n g a n d brilliant analysis Réflexions sur la Question Juive ( 1 9 4 6 ) reflects this climate of opinion. After having provided a devastating

portrait of the French antisemite as an inauthentic Manichean, a sadistic mediocrity and ’a criminal in the very depths of his heart’, he critically observes the silence of his compatriots about the Jews at the end of the war: Today those Jews whom the Germans did not deport or murder are coming back to their homes. Many were among the first members of the Resistance; others had sons or cousins in Leclerc’s army. Now all France rejoices and fraternises in the streets. . . . Do we say anything about the Jews? Do we give a thought to those who died in the gas chambers at Lublin? Not a word. Not a line in the newspapers. That is because we must not irritate the anti-Semites. . . . Well-meaning journalists will tell you: ’In the interest of the Jews themselves, i t would not do to talk too much about t h e m just n o w . ’ For four years French

society has lived

without them; it is just as well not to emphasise too

vigorously the fact that they have reappeared.23 This uneasy silence on the Jewish question lasted for about twenty years after the war, with prejudices remaining strong, especially on the Right. In the mid-19505 over half of those identifying themselves with the Right denied that ’Israelites’ (the polite French term for Jews) were French like anybody else, in a survey conducted in Paris.24 This poll was taken at a time when t h e Jewish Prime Minister,

Pierre Mendes-France,

was the object of scurrilous antisemitic attacks, whose rhetoric at least was reminiscent of the invective directed at Léon Blum in t h e 19303. The lower middle-class, populist movement l e d by Pierre Poujade, which was o n t h e upswing in this same 135

Enemies of the People

period, had revived some of the classic themes of French antisemitism. In 1966 another poll indicated that about 2 0 per of the French population ’held seriously antisemitic opinions’.25 Exactly a year later, at a notorious press conference following t h e S i x Day War, French President General Charles d e G a u l l e

referred to Jews as ‘an e’lite people, sure of itself and domineering’. This was the first time a major Western head of state since the Second World War had so openly linked criticism of Israel with a stereotypic image of the Jewish people as a whole. Whatever de Gaulle’s intentions, it conjured up the image of Jewish power and domination, an arrogant sense of

’chosenness', and encouraged suspicions about Jewish loyalties. In this public statement — designed to explain France's new, pro-Arab foreign policy — de Gaulle not only implied that Israelis were driven by a ’burning ambition for conquest’ b u t managed to hint that Jews in general may have ’provoked’ antisemitism in different times a n d places by their wealth, influence a n d propaganda. Moreover, Israeli traits of aggressiveness and ’arrogance’ were depicted by de Gaulle as if

they were inborn Jewish characteristics.26 Not surprisingly, the distinguished French-Jewish political commentator Raymond Aron (at o n e time a strong supporter

of de Gaulle) accused the French President of having once more made antisemitism respectable, of having ’knowingly, voluntarily, opened a new era in Jewish history and perhaps in t h e history of antisemitism'.27 In fact, de Gaulle’s statement expressed a rather traditional prejudice, deeply rooted in t h e mentality of the French bourgeoisie — one which had been reactivated by t h e reorientation of French Middle East policy a n d b y irritation at t h e pro-Israeli attitudes of most French

Jews. The spectre of dual allegiance was henceforth to be periodically brandished not only by the Gaullists but by successive French Presidents, who supported the Arab cause

and denounced Jewish lobbying.28 There can be little doubt that French governmental hostility to Israel and its policies 136

France: from Dreyfus t o Le Pen

also helped to make the display of domestic antisemitism more open, more nonchalant a n d more respectable in the 19705. O n t h e Left, b e g i n n i n g with Fourier a n d P r o u d h o n , t h e r e

was a tradition of socialist antisemitism dating from the n i n e t e e n t h century - w h i c h h a d been a t t e n u a t e d i n t h e w a k e

of the Dreyfus Affair - but had never entirely disappeared. In t h e aftermath of t h e Six D a y War a section of t h e French Left which came to s e e t h e ’liberation of Palestine' ( a n d c o n s e -

quent dismantling of t h e Jewish State) as central to their ’anti-imperialist' crusade began to revive this old antisemitism in a new anti-Zionist form. In contrast to t h e Right, what bothered t h e m was n o t so much d u a l loyalties b u t t h e fact t h a t Jews were allegedly acting a s t h e ’accomplices' of Israeli

colonialism and Western power structures in their repression of Third World liberation. The Communist Party, still a force i n the 19605 and 19705, had not only whitewashed Soviet antisemitism, but its own neo-Stalinist hostility to Zionism frequently contained more plebeian anti-Jewish insinuations. The pro-Palestinian discourse of the gauchiste sects on French campuses even more often oozed a n unadulterated antisemitism. Moreover, the left-wing media in the 19705 pioneered new themes a n d motifs that lent themselves to anti-Jewish manipulation such as the equation of Zionism with racism and Nazism and the portrayal of Israel as a terrorist state practising ’genocide'

against the Palestinians.” Left-wing French Catholicism combined some of these themes with a more traditional theological animus and disdain for the expression of Jewish ethnic particularism.3O By the time of the Lebanon war (1982) a partly familiar yet i n some respects novel anti-Jewish

discourse was in place that contained Christian, Marxist a n d Third Worldist e l e m e n t s which contributed to a paroxysm of

anti-Zionist hysteria in t h e French media (’Ie fascisme aux couleurs d 'Israé'l') which had no counterpart in t h e rest of the

Western media.3| Another new element adding to this litany of hostility has been the rise of Muslim fundamentalism 137

Enemies o f the People

among the growing North African Arab immigrant community in France. Imbibing the negative Jewish stereotypes of radical Islam along with its visceral enmity to Israel, sections of the Muslim population (despite being the prime target of indigenous white racism) have also contributed to the spread of antisemitism i n France. It is still not clear whether the bomb which killed four people outside a Paris synagogue i n the Rue Copernic i n 1980 was the work of Palestinian terrorists, their left-wing supporters o r neo-Nazi groups. It followed a series of bombings a n d outrages carried o u t during t h e previous year against synagogues, schools and other Jewish or Israeli institutions, provoking acute anguish among most French Jews.32 Over half the respondents to a n opinion poll taken shortly afterwards indicated that they felt that antisemitic feeling i n France was ‘widespread’, though only 10—12 per cent felt that there were too many Jews in France or that they were not ‘as French’ as other citizens. Nevertheless, there was a definite feeling among Jews in particular that the Giscard d’Estaing government’s laxness towards Arab terrorism, its unfriendliness towards Israel and its coolness towards the Jewish community had encouraged a climate of opinion in which such actions could flourish. This was reinforced by the 1982 terrorist assault in t h e Rue des Rosiers on a Jewish delicatessen which left six dead and twenty-two wounded — an event which further

heightened the sense of isolation among many French Jews.’3 Although there was no further repetition of such anti-Jewish violence, throughout the 19805 there was a steady flow of desecrations of Jewish graves throughout France, climaxing with t h e gruesome incident a t Carpentras i n Provence o n 9

May 1990 which seemed symbolic of the recrudescence of the ugly face of French racism.34 Vandals damaged o r destroyed thirty-four graves, while the corpse of a n 81-year-old man was exhumed a n d impaled upon a n umbrella. A rash of similar incidents occurred across the country, provoking a mass demonstration in Paris called by Jewish leaders, which 138

France: from Dreyfus t o Le Pen

included prominent Christians a n d Muslims

as w e l l as most

leading French politicians. President Francois Mitterrand also answered the call, the first time a French President had joined a street demonstration since the Liberation i n 1944.3'5

Conspicuous by his absence was the leader of the ultra-Right Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose party had polled 14.4. per cent o f t h e vote i n the A p r i l 1 9 8 8 presidential elections. U n t i l that p o i n t t h e main target o f Le Pen's diatribes h a d been t h e more t h a n two million Arabs l i v i n g in France. His

appeal of ’La France aux Frangais’ (’France for the French') was aimed at the defence of the French race or ethnie against dilution by immigrants from North Africa, against multiculturalism, Communism and cosmopolitan, universalist ideals. His movement has consistently blamed the high unemployment rate in France o n the immigrant workers, denounced laxity in law and order and the contemporary decadence of French culture.36 Anti-Jewish motifs were also apparent in the Front National propaganda during the 19805, w i t h p r o m i n e n t Jewish personalities l i k e t h e former Justice

Minister Robert Badinter, the former Minister of Health Simone Veil and the converted Jewish-born Archbishop of Paris, Mgr Lustiger, being specially

targeted. Simone Veil, a n

Auschwitz survivor, was accused, for example, of carrying out a ’genocide' against French babies w i t h her abortion bill.37

More recently Le Pen has been increasingly explicit in his attacks against ’L'Internatz'onale Juive’ and the alleged Jewish control over the French media. The journals and newspapers of the Front National and the radical Right like Pre’sent,National Hebdo, Minute o r Choc du Mois support t h e ’revisionist’ (i.e. denial o f t h e Holocaust) theorists; they systematically attack

Jewish politicians or journalists (the ’Judeo-cosmopolitanme’dz'ocratz'e’), insinuate dual loyalties at every opportunity and use the language of the pre-war fascist Right.38 The cult of Jeanne d’Arc, m i x e d w i t h that o f Pétain a n d o f a m o n o l i t h i c

Catholic civilisation allied against the forces of ’anti-France’ (Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, leftists a n d other deviants), 139

Enemies of the People

recalls the familiar traditions of the counter-revolutionary Right in France from d e Bonald a n d de Maistre through Drumont, Barres a n d Maurras to Vichy. Roman-Marie, t h e closest lieutenant of Le Pen and one of the

first

ultra-right

deputies

elected

to

the

European

Parliament, openly espouses t h e conspiratorial theories of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, blaming Jews for fomenting the Russian Revolution a n d for being one of the foreign superpowers who are ’colonising’ France. More recently he expressed his joy a t t h e declarations of t h e Polish Primate, Cardinal Glemp, concerning the controversy over the Carmelite nuns at Auschwitz a n d t h e control which international Jews exercise over t h e world media. This imaginary monopoly exercised by Jews over t h e press, television, radio, international communications and finance has once more become a veritable obsession for t h e ideologues of the radical Right.39 The opposition of t h e mainstream media in France to t h e Front National is conveniently explained away by this alleged conspiracy.

It would be dangerous to underestimate Le Pen and the most powerful fascist movement in Europe since t h e Nazi era, one which attracted 4.37 million votes from across t h e social spectrum in t h e last presidential elections, eclipsing the Communist Party and emerging as a kind of ’national opposition’. This is a mass movement with a charismatic leader and-a hate-filled message that is clearly fascist, racist and antisemitic behind its more respectable patriotic a n d Catholic veneer. Moreover, u n l i k e Barrés, Maurras a n d t h e o l d French Right,

which was more literary, ideological and ineffectual, Le Pen, t h e ex-paratrooper and street brawler, relies o n instinct, force a n d shameless demagogy to make his impact.40 Primitive a n t i - A r a b racism provides a n invaluable method for c h a n n e l l -

ing real social grievances and discontent, but visceral antisemitism is probably more central to t h e hard-core militants of t h e Front National. When Le Pen made his notorious remark about t h e Nazi 140

France: from Dreyfus to Le Pen

Holocaust b e i n g ’just a detail i n t h e history of t h e Second World W a r ’ h e was clearly testing t h e waters to see h o w f a r t h e

climate was receptive to a n antisemitism that is so integral to

his followers' vision of a White and Christian Europe.4| His s u b s e q u e n t attacks o n government m i n i s t e r s like Michel a n offensive, Durafour ( w h o m h e called ’Durafour-crématoire’, Holocaust-related p u n o n t h e word for crematorium i n

French) a n d o n Lionel Stoleru for having ’dual nationality’, revealed that the gloves have come off since 1989.42 Even Israel, which Le Pen once supported for its hard line against Arabs, has been sharply criticised a n d t h e fascist leader has become o n e of t h e strongest advocates in France of Saddam Hussein, who h e praises a s a great ’Arab p a t r i o t ' .

Other Front National figures, like t h e film-maker Claude Autant-Lara, until very recently a member of t h e European Parliament, have also gone public with their antisemitic opinions. In a public speech in 1989 which eventually led to his forced resignation from t h e Parliament, Autant-Lara slandered Simone Veil, cast doubt on t h e existence of Auschwitz a n d claimed that France was in t h e hands of a leftwing dominated by Jewish internationalists a n d cosmopolitans. Such views are rampant in a movement where, according to a recent o p i n i o n poll, 7 7 per cent of its members agreed t h a t

they hated Jewish people.43 This is of course considerably higher than the average in the French population as a whole, where, if a 1990 survey is to be believed, ’only’ 20 per cent said they disliked Jews a n d 2 4 per cent that there were too m a n y Jews in France. No less than 9 0 per cent said t h e same about

Arabs!44 But for the radical Right, the racism is always en blocanti-Arab, antisemitic, anti-Israel and also anti-black. Apart from t h e growing p o p u l a r i t y of ‘revisionist' l i t e r a t u r e i n France, most of t h e t h e m e s i n Front National l i t e r a t u r e b e l o n g t o classic a n t i s e m i t i s m : t h e a s s e r t i o n of u b i q u i t o u s Jewish power i n b a n k i n g , t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l e c o n o m y , politics

and t h e media. The Jew is portrayed as a stateless nomad, connected only to t h e shadowy ’Jewish international 141

Enemies o f the People

conspiracy’ which strives to win control over France, Europe and ultimately the world. The influence of this propaganda is once again growing a n d finding

expression o n t h e streets i n

graffiti, in attacks on synagogues, desecrations of cemeteries, in hate-mail and acts of violence against individual Jews and Jewish or Israeli institutions. A similar language can be heard among the conservativeCatholic inte’grz'stes who condemn the Vatican for its doctrinal liberalism and describe their enemies as part of a Judeo— Masonic—Republican conspiracy against the true faith. For an z'nte’griste like the Abbé Laguérie, for example, the ArchbishOp of Paris, Cardinal Lustiger, is only a ’so-called Catholic' whose Judaism ’is always ready to peep out', who is ’more Jewish than Catholic’ and who believes that Israel, not Christ, is the Messiah. The z'nte’gristes share the belief of the Front National that there is a media conspiracy of ’antiracist’ organisations manipulated by Jews, who in reality provoke and stir u p an anti-French racism in t h e country. W i t h their traditional

Catholic theology of the Jews as a God-rejected people, they provide a religious underpinning to the xenophobic racism of

the Front National.45 The recent upsurge i n French antisemitism cannot therefore

be dismissed as an ephemeral or marginal phenomenon. I t has to be seen against a wider background of resentment at Third World immigration, at the growth in Muslim fundamentaliSm within France, at the paralysis of government and of the political parties, worries over u n e m p l o y m e n t , over a falling

birth-rate, a newly unified Germany and economic fears about the European free-for-all i n 1992. Many of these anxieties may be irrational, but i t has always been easier to displace them on to immigrants and Jews, especially in a country where the ghosts of Dreyfus and of Vichy have never been laid. The myth of ’Jewish power’ has for at least a century struck a chord in part of the French population, and with the end of the post-war taboo on open, public antisemitism i t is being more vocally expressed. For t h e m o m e n t less popular t h a n the 142

France: from Dreyfus to Le Pen

hatred of Arabs, its profile is nonetheless being heightened. As t h e news editor of Radio B e u r (a radio s t a t i o n for Arab

immigrants), Abdel Aissou, puts it, t h e radical Right ’uses racism a n d antisemitism as a two-stage, rocket. By lighting the first stage, of anti-Arab racism . . . they want to kick the Arabs out of France. . . . But when they attack t h e Jews they want to

wipe them off the map of the world.’46 France is not, of course, a n antisemitic state, nor is the level of contemporary antisemitism as yet comparable t o that of the 19305. Jews play a very active role i n its c u l t u r a l and political life — indeed t h e r e have never been so m a n y Jewish C a b i n e t ministers a n d prominent advisers a s d u r i n g President M i t t e r r a n d ' s Presidency of t h e 19805.

The Jewish community is the only one among those in the Western democracies to have significantly increased i n size

since 1939, when it numbered 300,000, to over 600,000 in 1 9 9 0 . Not only is it t h e largest Jewish community on t h e

European continent, but also, thanks to its majority Sephardic component (over 250,000 North African Jews have settled in France since t h e m i d 19505), it h a s a vibrant e t h n i c a n d

religious identity which is more self-assertive than that of its Ashkenazi brethren before the war a n d more emotionally attached to Israel. It is both culturally integrated a n d at t h e same time vigilant and militant in its self-defence against antisemitism. It has also benefited from the relative toleration of the Socialist government in France for ’the right to be different’, though this era may already be fading. Furthermore, given its numbers, its activism, its enterprise and defence of its interests, t h i s is a community which cannot b e

ignored by t h e French political establishment. Despite tensions between it a n d t h e government over M i d d l e Eastern policy, its

objective position has probably never been better. All t h e major political parties except for t h e Front National have publicly opposed a n t i s e m i t i s m . There h a s , moreover, rarely b e e n s u c h a degree of political stability o r c o n s e n s u s over t h e basic republican i n s t i t u t i o n s i n France a s d u r i n g t h e past 143

E n e m i e s of th e People

thirty years; nor so little ideological polarisation between t h e mainstream Left a n d Right. The French intelligentsia since t h e Second World War h a s no l o n g e r thrown

up antisemitic

writers a n d ideologues of real talent like Drumont, Barréts, Maurras, Céline, Brasillach and Drieu la Rochelle who could provide a convincing intellectual or aesthetic underpinning t o movements like that of Le Pen. Indeed, France itself has changed since t h e 19605 beyond recognition, emerging as a n industrially modern and technological society, more mobile, European, cosmopolitan a n d

reconciled to t h e ’spirit of capitalism’ t h a n at any earlier period in its history. All these broader societal factors make t h e prospects for a full a n d successful Jewish integration seem bright. Nevertheless, the ideological continuity in French antisemitism has shown remarkable persistence, a n d t h e power of ancient stereotypes of t h e Jew nurtured o n Catholic, nationalist, populist and racist myths continues to cast its shadow into t h e 19905.

144

12 E a s t European Nationalisms Throughout Eastern Europe between t h e two world wars t h e ’Jewish q u e s t i o n ’ a n d antisemitism became a socio-economic,

cultural a n d political issue of t h e first importance. Newly created o r restructured n a t i o n - s t a t e s like R u m a n i a , Hungary,

Czechoslovakia a n d Poland had to contend with intractable internal a n d external difficulties, many of them deriving from the ethnic diversity of t h e region. In all these countries there were substantial Jewish communities whose occupational structure, levels of acculturation a n d political orientations

posed serious problems for mixed-nationality states which had not yet industrialised, which often lacked a fully crystallised ’native’ bourgeoisie a n d whose sometimes fragile n a t i o n a l

identity was threatened by powerful neighbours to t h e East a n d West.

Antisemitism thrived in this environment on t h e weakness of liberal democratic traditions, the absence of sustained economic growth, t h e endemic political instability, t h e con-

suming fear of Communism felt by traditional ruling élites a n d o n all-pervasive, intolerant chauvinism. In t h e 19905, with t h e

collapse of a Communist tyranny that kept these nations in a vice-like grip for forty years, m a n y of t h e o l d , p r e - w a r

ideologies and political parties have resurfaced with a vengeance. Along with a virulent anti-Communism, reinforced by t h e bitter experience of four decades, traditional peasant a n d Christian v a l u e s wrapped u p i n populist demagogy have revived. The resurgence of a n t i s e m i t i s m i n

contemporary Eastern Europe — traditionally linked with 145

E n e m i e s of t h e People

conservative nationalism, populism a n d a n t i - C o m m u n i s m —

must be seen against this background.l Rumania is a particularly interesting case, since, with t h e exception of Tsarist Russia, it a l o n e a m o n g European s t a t e s

before the First World War refused to emancipate its Jews.2 Only in 1919, u n d e r Allied pressure, did t h e Rumanians promise absolute equality to all citizens without distinction of race, religion o r l a n g u a g e . As a r e s u l t of t h e Peace Treaties

which brought w h a t was formerly Hungarian Transylvania, Austrian Bukovina a n d R u s s i a n Bessarabia i n t o t h e R u m a n i a n

nation-state, its Jewish community came to number around 750,000 in 1930. This increased t h e traditional Judeophobia which was part of the general hatred of foreigners in Rumania a n d the suspicion, especially in Transylvania, that Jews were agents a n d natural allies of the former Hungarian rulers. Rumanian antisemites were also quick to denounce alleged Jewish domination of t h e economy, though many Rumanian Jews were i n reality extremely poor.

In t h e 19205 violent antisemitism was mainly t h e province of university students a n d of the radically anti-Jewish League of National Christian Defence, led by Professor Alexandru Cuza, which helped foment riots against Jews in Transylvania.3 The Rumanian students were especially attracted to a militant, xenophobic, anti-Communist brand of antisemitism. The large number of Jewish students, their ’foreign’ origin (i.e. a s formerly H u n g a r i a n , German o r R u s s i a n citizens) a n d t h e general economic insecurity

favoured this stance a n d support for t h e radical Right in t h e

19305. The Iron Guard Movement led by Corneliu Codreanu, a fanatically anti-Communist disciple of Cuza, was strongly influenced by the German Nazi model, proclaiming t h e ’Jewish question’ to be a life-and-death issue for Rumania. By 1937 the third strongest party in t h e state with 16 per cent of the total vote, t h e Iron Guard openly called for t h e destruction of t h e Jews. The government felt obliged to appease t h e extremists by itself adopting a programme calling for removal 146

East European

Nationalisms

of t h e Jews from t h e economy a n d the universities, for t h e

expulsion of Jews who had entered Rumania after 1918 a n d other drastic measures.4 Although King Carol acted against t h e Iron Guard, by 1939 about a third of Rumanian Jews had been deprived

of

t h e i r citizenship, a n d

under

the

National

Legionary State of Marshal Antonescu established in September 1940, Rumanian Jewry would be terrorised by a n Openly antisemitic regime. The Iron Guard celebrated its revived power with a bloody pogrom in the Rumanian capital, Bucharest, in January 1941; t h e majority of Jews in Bukovina and Bessarabia were murdered with alacrity and great cruelty by R u m a n i a n ( a n d G e r m a n ) troops, expelled o r sent to concentration c a m p s . B u t for political reasons ( t h e d e s i r e to

preserve a modicum of sovereignty in internal affairs a n d to keep his Western options open) Antonescu did not accede t o German pressure to m a s s m u r d e r t h e Jews of t h e Regat or of southern Translyvania. As a r e s u l t more Jews were saved

under Rumanian rule during t h e Holocaust than in any other country of Eastern Europe, despite the strength of indigenous antisemitism and the presence of such a powerful local fascist movement. Out of the 800,000 Jews who lived in Rumania in 1939 385,000 perished during the Holocaust, a n d the overwhelming majority of those who survived emigrated in the post-war years, mainly to Israel.5 Today there a r e approximately 2 0 , 0 0 0 Jews left i n R u m a n i a , yet with t h e end of t h e Ceaucescu era t h e antisemitism which had been officially suppressed by a n authoritarian C o m m u n i s t

regime has now returned i n force. There are not only desecrations of synagogues and antisemitic graffiti, but also articles i n t h e R u m a n i a n press representing t h e Jews a s S a t a n

o r Antichrist, blaming them for having imposed the Communist scourge o n post-war Rumania. Remnants of the old fascist Iron Guard have also returned from abroad o r revived i n s i d e t h e country. Increasingly, there a r e efforts to

rehabilitate Marshal Antonescu, t h e nation's wartime fascist l e a d e r . The spokesman of t h e traditionalist National Peasants’ 147

Enemies of the People

Party, Valentin Gavrielscu, expresses outrage that Rumania’s Prime Minister, Petre Roman, is of Jewish origin - ’a disgrace

to o u r Revolution’, while o n the walls of Bucharest one can find graffiti with a Star of David under pictures of Roman and Silviu Brucan, the chief ideologist of the ruling National Salvation Front.6 These are worrying signs in Rumania’s fragile democracy, where a breakdown of law and order, as the country’s Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen has warned, can mean pogroms. Rabbi Rosen’s own role under the Ceaucescu regime is itself a problem, for the Balkan dictator allowed the Jewish community freedom of worship as long as the Chief Rabbi could assure the Western world that Rumanian Jews lived well u n d e r Communism. The official policy under Ceaucescu had indeed been two-faced, permitting Rumania’s Jews greater autonomy than that allowed under any other Communist regime, while tolerating antisemitic writings of a sometimes virulent nature. Rumania did not break off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967 and encouraged it to ‘buy' Jews from the Rumanian government for a price depending on the citizen’s v a l u e to each state.7 This policy of semi-independence

from Moscow and the silence on human rights abuses in Rumania (in which Rabbi Rosen is alleged to have acquiesced) helped Ceaucescu acquire the economically advantageous

’most favoured nation’ status with the United States. In public opinion, however, resentment was stirred by the perception that Jews enjoyed better conditions than other Rumanians o r ethnic minorities under the Ceaucescu regime. For t h e Jews, already associated by many R u m a n i a n s with t h e

post-war imposition of Communism on their country, such notions have helped to feed the visceral cultural and religious antisemitism which is endemic to Rumania.8 The revival of the historic pre-war parties for whom Jews a n d C o m m u n i s m were

always synonymous has exacerbated this trend. Not by chance h a s t h e role of t h e ’diabolical’ A n n a

Pauker,

post-war

Rumania’s Stalinist Foreign Minister, with her Jewish back148

East European N a t i o n a l i s m s

ground as t h e daughter of a Moldavian rabbi, been heavily underlined i n t h e R u m a n i a n press after t h e downfall of t h e

Ceaucescu dictatorship. Needless to say, t h e fact that Jews also suffered under t h e Stalinist terror, along with other Rumanians, is today forgotten in t h e mood of overheated nationalism a n d suspicion of all minorities - whether they b e Hungarians, Gypsies o r J e w s . H u n g a r i a n Jewry, i n contrast to t h a t of R u m a n i a , was

already before 1914 one of the most assimilated Jewries in t h e world, playing a central role in t h e economy a n d cultural life of t h e n a t i o n . From t h e i r legal emancipation i n 1 8 6 7 right u n t i l t h e collapse of t h e Habsburg Empire i n 1 9 1 8 , t h e ’Magyarised’

Hungarian Jews, almost a million in number and 5 per cent of the total population of Greater Hungary, enjoyed almost optimal conditions for their development. They were indispensable for preserving Magyar hegemony in outlying areas like Slovakia, Transylvania a n d the subcarpathian R u s — a role

which aroused antisemitic sentiments among the Slovak, Rumanian and German minorities who lived under Hungarian rule. But t h e ruling aristocratic élite in p r e - l 9 l 8 Hungary, eager to modernise the country and imbued with liberal ideas, welcomed the Jews as partners and encouraged their full integration. The Jews took over the role of the absent Hungarian middle-class, concentrating their talents in industry, business, commerce and the professions - in which they came to play by 1 9 0 0 a n absolutely preponderant part.9

Interestingly enough, Jewish assimilation a n d economic success d i d n o t produce a n a n t i s e m i t i c backlash of comparable i n t e n s i t y i n pre- 1 9 1 8 Hungary to t h a t which occurred i n either Germany o r Austria. Although t h e Jews were seen a s a group

apart and suffered some social snobbery a t the hands of the ruling elite, t h e alliance was mutually beneficial and t h e H u n g a r i a n government

repressed open a n t i s e m i t i s m more

firmly than in neighbouring Austria. Nevertheless, two distinct and temporarily influential antisemitic movements did develop in Old Regime Hungary. The 149

Enemies of the People

first, which was led by the Liberal deputy Victor von Istoczy, won

its greatest success in 1883 when it returned seventeen antisemitic deputies to the Hungarian Parliament, following the agitation and riots that surrounded the notorious Tisza—Eszlar

ritual-murder trial a year earlier.10 But its strong links with the antisemitic movement

i n Germany made it appear too a n t i -

Magyar to many Hungarians, and it had no clear position on the critical issue of relations with Habsburg Austria. Moreover, the Hungarian government, fearing that attacks on Jews would end with a n assault on the great landowners, did everything they could to neutralise its influence. By 1885 the party had begun to break up, and for a decade antisemitism virtually disappeared from the parliamentary arena. In the late 18905 the Catholic People’s Party focused its attacks against what it held, in Nathaniel Katzburg's words, to be 'destructive ideas introduced and disseminated by Jews, such as liberalism, socialism, cosm0politanism and similar currents of thought, regarded as anti-Christian, unpatriotic and alien to the deep-rooted Magyar

tradition’.” But this type of Catholic antisemitism had nOthing like the resonance which Karl Leuger’s populist movement

achieved in Vienna during the same period, and Jewish assimilation in Hungary proceeded apace. What transformed antisemitism into a serious political force in Hungary was the catastrophic effects of defeat in the First World War and the Trianon Treaty, as a result of which Hungary lost 60 per cent of its population and 70 per cent of its territory. The demise of the old multi-national state meant that the Hungarian ruling class no longer needed the Jews as ’agents’ of Magyarisation in the peripheral regions which it had lost. Moreover, in the harsher economic conditions of p o s t - 1 9 1 8 Hungary, where unemployment

was growing, a

’native’ Hungarian middle class began to compete with Jews in commerce, industry a n d the free professions. '2 Discrimination was introduced into t h e state bureaucracy a n d a numerus clausus l a w of 1 9 2 0 restricted Jewish access to the Hungarian

universities. Above all, the national trauma and humiliation of 150

East European

Nationalisms

1 9 1 8 w a s i m m e d i a t e l y followed b y a C o m m u n i s t c o u p led by Bela K u n (a Transylvanian H u n g a r i a n of J e w i s h origin) i n whose short-lived government 3 1 o u t of 4 9 People’s

Commissars were Jews.l3 Although the Red Terror did not spare Jewish capitalists o r traditional, orthodox Jewry, it was perceived by many Hungarians as anti-Christian a n d antiMagyar in its essence, ‘acting under t h e guidance of a hostile foreign power, t h e Soviet U n i o n . A v e n o m o u s a n t i s e m i t i c literature came i n t o existence a s a c o n s e q u e n c e , i n w h i c h Hungary was depicted a s b e i n g e n s l a v e d to t h e J e w s . Nationalism i n i n t e r - w a r Hungary increasingly s h e d its

liberal ethos, becoming authoritarian, closed in on itself a n d hostile to t h e Jews, though traditional Old Regime politicians like Admiral Horthy a n d Count Bethlen resisted efforts to revoke Jewish civil rights or damage Jewish financial interests. But in 1932 Gyula Gombos, a military officer influenced by Nazi racial doctrines, who stood for a ’Christian Hungary’ free

of Jewish influence, came to power.'4 The Hungarian radical Right continued to grow in influence throughout t h e decade a n d by 1938—9 Jewish participation i n i n d u s t r y , commerce,

banking, law, medicine, government employment a n d t h e universities had been drastically reduced. During t h e Second World War a total of 564,507 Hungarian Jews were killed, despite the fact that t h e Germans did not begin deportations until May 1944. This ghastly slaughter would not have been possible w i t h o u t t h e full collaboration of t h e H u n g a r i a n police,

gendarmerie, civil servants and other officials. Only t h e entry of t h e R e d Army i n January 1 9 4 5 saved t h e r e m a i n i n g 2 5 0 , 0 0 0

Jews in Budapest.l5 As i n P o l a n d , a n t i s e m i t i c pogroms occurred a l m o s t i m -

mediately after t h e war, in protest against t h e payment of reparations to Jews w h o h a d suffered losses a n d a g a i n s t

alleged black marketing activities. At the same time, Communists of Jewish origin like Matyas Rakosi (General Secretary of the post-war Hungarian Communist Party) played a k e y role i n t h e Sovietisation of t h e c o u n t r y . Rakosi, a 151

Enemies of the People

faithful ally of Stalin, who had spent t h e war years in Moscow, dominated t h e political scene for t h e next decade. Many of his leading lieutenants were Jews like Erno Gero, Mihaly Farkas, Zolta’n Vas a n d J ozsef Révai, while a disproportionate number of high police officials (including t h e head of t h e political police, Major General Gabor Peter) were also of Jewish

origin.‘6 As in Poland and Rumania, these facts gave some plausibility to the pre-war stereotypes identifying Jews with Communism, a n d resentment was particularly heightened by t h e prominence of J e w s i n t h e apparatus of repression. Nevertheless, t h e p o p u l a r revolution i n t h e streets of B u d a p e s t

in October 1956 against Stalinist rule did not lead to pogroms o r to open expressions of a n t i s e m i t i s m o n a n y significant scale

- possibly because Jews were also well represented among the anti-Stalinist reform Communists. The new regime of Janos Ka’dar also avoided using antisemitism as a means to establish its popular legitimacy a n d did not exclude Jews from positions of responsibility, though it did not parade them in its top leadershp either. A good example of Kadér’s balanced policy w a s h i s refusal to tolerate t h e k i n d of rampant ’anti-Zionist’

antisemitism which occurred i n t h e Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia after 1968. At the same time public discussion of t h e ’Jewish question’ and of Hungarian collaboration during t h e Holocaust w a s for a l o n g time virtually suppressed. A s a

result t h e ’Jewish question’ was never really addressed in Hungary b u t was simply swept under the carpet. '7 During t h e Kadar years, a new antisemitism nevertheless began to grow from below, among a section of t h e middle classes, v e h e m e n t l y a n t i - M a r x i s t a n d opposed to t h e dissident intellectuals (a h i g h proportion of w h o m were J e w i s h ) who

were regarded as ’alien elements’.’8 Since the collapse of Communist rule it has come more visibly to the surface (as in other East European countries), along with t h e revival of n a t i o n a l i s m , p o p u l i s m a n d t h e ideology of t h e p r e - w a r p e a s a n t

writers' movement. Some observers have seen residues of this right-wing nationalist antisemitism in t h e Democratic Forum 152

East European N a t i o n a l i s m s

Party which

won H u n g a r y ' s p a r l i a m e n t a r y elections i n April

1990. '9 Many of its members are from the minor intelligentsia whose advance was blocked b y t h e C o m m u n i s t s , a n d s o m e h a r b o u r a p a t e n t r e s e n t m e n t of t h e u r b a n i s e d J e w i s h intelli-

gentsia with their international connections — many of whom a r e p r o m i n e n t i n t h e rival Free Democrats m o v e m e n t . Thus a

division which was characteristic of Hungarian history before 1 9 3 9 — between a c o s m o p o l i t a n , social democratic, intellect u a l , Westernised a n d ’Jewish’ B u d a p e s t a n d t h e more ’national’, ’ C h r i s t i a n ' p e a s a n t countryside, h a s returned t o

h a u n t Hungary fifty years later. Nevertheless, life in Hungary for its 80—100,000 remaining Jews ( t h e largest c o m m u n i t y i n

Eastern Europe) is more tolerable than in the neighbouring countries, a n d there has been a resurgence of cultural activity alongside t h e signs of a n increase i n p o p u l a r antisemitism.20 I n contrast t o H u n g a r i a n , R u m a n i a n o r Polish J e w s , t h e i r

co-religionists in independent pre-war Czechoslovakia had enjoyed a far more congenial environment, relatively free of antisemitism. This had not always been t h e case, for in Habsburg Austria a n d Hungarian-ruled Slovakia before 1918, Czechoslovakian Jews had found themselves caught in a crossfire of national conflicts which adversely affected their interests. There had been n o Czech-Jewish alliance comparable to that existing in Hungary, a n d already in t h e 18405 there had been anti-Jewish riots in Prague directed against Jewish entrepreneurs a n d protesting against t h e identification of Bohemian Jews with German language, culture a n d political aspirations. O n e of t h e founders of Czech n a t i o n a l i s m , t h e

radical publicist Karel Havlicek-Borovsky, described t h e Jews i n 1 8 4 6 a s ’a separate S e m i t i c n a t i o n which lives o n l y

incidentally in o u r midst a n d sometimes understands o r speaks o u r language’.2| The language issue was indeed of critical importance to nineteenth-century Czech nationalists, who placed g r e a t p r e s s u r e o n J e w s t o a b a n d o n G e r m a n - l a n g u a g e schools i n B o h e m i a a n d Moravia, w h i c h were perceived a s a

thorn in the flesh of t h e Czech national renaissance. Jewish 153

Enemies

o f the People

reluctance to comply was seen as a slap i n the face t o t h e

Czechs, fighting to assert their national rights against the large German minority in the Czech lands, and against the refusal of the Habsburg State to give them equality with the ruling nations of the Dual Monarchy. In the 18905 anti-Jewish violence exploded against the Jews in Prague

a n d i n parts o f t h e Czech countryside, against a

background of intense and bitter conflict with the Germans. This Czech antisemitism had religious and economic facets as

well as a nationalist dimension.22 1t culminated in the Hilsner r i t u a l - m u r d e r case i n Polna (Bohemia), which

greatly exacer-

bated the atmosphere.23 Although Thomas Masaryk, the future President of Czechoslovakia, denounced this irrational medieval superstition, he was disowned at the time by most of

the Czech press.24 Calls for a boycott of Jewish traders and slogans like ’Buy only from Christians' were encouraged by the lower clergy and by nationalist agitators at the end of the century. In 1899 there were a series of anti-Jewish disturbances i n Bohemian and Moravian towns, with widespread

assaults on Jewish property.25 After 1900 this agitation against Jews subsided, but i t revived briefly during the First World War and its aftermath, with allegations against Jewish profiteering and continued resentment at the loyalty of the Jewish community to the Habsburg cause. This mistrust was somewhat mitigated by the support which the Zionist movement and the American Jewish community gave to Masaryk in his bid to w i n Allied support for Czech independence during the war. Masaryk’s warm sympathy for Zionism and his commitment to full Jewish equality in the new Czechoslovak state after 1918 partly reflected his gratitude for this important help. The n e w

Czech leadership, though far from uniformly pro-Jewish, was conscious of the dangers of antisemitism and sought to limit its malignant influence where possible. I t could n o t , however, prevent t h e spontaneous eruption o f

anti-Jewish disturbances in Prague in November 154

192026

East European

Nationalisms

(though this was the last such instance in independent Czechoslovakia) o r t h e c o n t i n u i n g u n d e r c u r r e n t of social a n d

political antisemitism which persisted until the German i n v a s i o n of 1939. This w a s especially t r u e i n t h e G e r m a n -

speaking Sudetenland a n d in t h e m u c h less developed, agrarian a n d overwhelmingly Catholic region of Slovakia, where a religious, economic a n d nationalist a n t i s e m i t i s m h a d

already flourished before 1918. Slovaks had especially resented t h e Jews a s i n s t r u m e n t s of oppressive pre-war

Magyar

rule

and

claimed

that

Jewish

store-keepers,

merchants and industrialists dominated the local economy.27 After 1918 they perceived the Jews as agents of Czech domination, a n d antisemitism became closely linked to the m o v e m e n t for Slovak i n d e p e n d e n c e . It w a s reinforced b y t h e

anti-Jewish doctrines of t h e Roman Catholic Church, which profoundly shaped Slovak nationalism. The clerical, authorit a r i a n e t h o s of Slovakia i n t h e 19305 was very different from

t h e liberal, tolerant politics that developed in t h e more

industrialised Czech lands under Masaryk’s leadership.28 In March 1 9 3 9 G e r m a n troops p u t a n e n d to t h e Czech Republic

a n d 277,000 Jews o u t of a pre-war population of 357,000 were annihilated by the Nazis, some of them with t h e collaboration of the clerico-fascist Slovak regime. By 1950 there were fewer than 20,000 Jews left in post-war Czechoslovakia, three-quarters of the Jewish community having emigrated in t h e wake of t h e Communist coup. Nevertheless, t h e General Secretary of the ruling Party was a veteran Communist of Jewish origin, Rudolf Slansky, who together with eleven other leading ’Jewish’ Communists would be tried a n d sentenced to death for alleged crimes against t h e s t a t e i n 1 9 5 2 . The charges i n t h i s n o t o r i o u s Stalinist

show-trial included allegations of collaborating with Western imperialism, w i t h Titoists, Trotskyites a n d especially w i t h ’Zionists'. T h e a n t i s e m i t i c t o n e of t h e proceedings w a s u n m i s t a k e a b l e a n d partly o r c h e s t r a t e d by Soviet advisers from Moscow. T h e Czech C o m m u n i s t m e d i a o p e n l y e n c o u r a g e d 155

Enemies of the People

this incitement, which reached heights redolent of wartime Nazi-style Judeophobia in occupied Czechoslovakia.” This neo-Stalinist a n d ’anti-Zionist’ type of antisemitism, which accused J e w s of being a fifth column of subversive intriguers against the socialist fatherland, was repeated in the wake of the Russia invasion of Czechoslovakia a n d t h e crushing of t h e Prague Spring i n August 1 9 6 8 . F o r t h e n e x t twenty y e a r s , u n t i l

t h e recent overthrow of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, t h e existence of the tiny Jewish community (numbering around 12,000 today) was frozen in a time-warp. Jewish history was systematically distorted, its religious a n d cultural life destroyed, a n d for the first time in its thousand-year-old history the J e w i s h community d i d n o t h a v e a rabbi between

1970 and 1984.30 A politically motivated antisemitism masquerading u n d e r the guise of hostility to Israel a n d to Zionism was allowed free rein a n d was virtually indistinguishable from that which prevailed in the USSR. Today, Czech Jews have been liberated from this nightmare a n d J e w i s h issues are once more discussed sympathetically

a n d freely in the Czech media. The new President Vaclav Havel appears to be renewing the more liberal pre-war tradition of Thomas Masaryk in his friendly relations with Israel and with the Jewish population of his country. Although popular antisemitism has not disappeared, particularly in Slovakia, it is significantly — as in the p r e - l 9 3 9 era - less evident t h a n in most neighbouring East European states, where the ghosts of the past are once more resurgent.

156

13 Poland: Antisomitism

without Jews

In 1939, on the eve of the German invasion, Poland contained t h e largest Jewish community i n Europe, numbering a r o u n d

3,460,000 persons. As a result of the devastating Nazi Holocaust the Jewish population had fallen to 250,000 in 1945, many of them having returned from the USSR, where they spent the war years after Poland’s eastern territories were annexed by the Soviet Union. Before the war Jews had already suffered from a n increasingly hysterical a n d nationalistic

Polish antisemitism which led to t h e deaths of hundreds of Jews in the late 19305, to economic boycotts, government discrimination a n d open calls from most Polish political parties for the mass emigration of Jews.I The nationalist doctrine of ’Poland for the Poles’ was exceedingly popular in a newly independent state with many national minorities ( U k r a i n i a n s , Byelorussians, G e r m a n s , etc.) a n d a n i m mensely creative Jewish community t h a t represented over 1 0

per cent of t h e total population. An intensely chauvinist, xenophobic antisemitism was particularly central to t h e ideology of Poland’s largest opposition movement,

t h e N a t i o n a l Democrats ( E n d e k s ) , a n d it

also exerted a n influence on the authoritarian, post-Pilsudski regime which came to power after 1935.2 The National Democrats believed t h e Jews were fundamentally u n a s s i m i l a b l e a n d i n t r a n s i g e n t e n e m i e s of t h e Polish n a t i o n a l cause.

After t h e Soviet invasion of 1920 they were also charged by Endeks with supporting Bolshevism a n d being bent o n destroying t h e traditional social order. T h i s m y t h of ’Jewish 157

E n e m i e s of the People

Communism’ (Zydo-Komuna) which has never really died in Poland, would have a devastating effect o n Polish-Jewish relations for t h e next seventy years. At t h e same time Jews were also attacked for having a disproportionate influence i n Poland’s economic and intellectual life, a n d the drastic reduction of the Jewish role in t h e Polish economy was even declared a government aim in t h e

mid-19305.3 There was a certain plausibility to these demands i n so far a s Jews constituted ( a s i n most other East European c o u n t r i e s ) a very high proportion of all doctors, lawyers,

educators, journalists a n d publishers; in commerce they were ubiquitous a n d in t h e largest Polish cities like Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna, Lwow a n d Cracow they formed between a quarter and a third of t h e entire population.4 Moreover, t h e distinctiveness of their religion, customs, speech, dress a n d culture i n a predominantly agrarian and intensely Catholic society inevitably provided a constant source of tension, conflict and pressure for assimilation. The very influential a n d deeply conservative Catholic Church was a particularly active promoter of pre-war antisemitism. Although opposing Nazi racial doctrines, it condemned t h e Jews as ’atheists', revolutionaries and subverters of C a t h o l i c m o r a l i t y . The Primate of t h e Church, C a r d i n a l

Hlond, even declared publicly in 1936 that ’the Jews are

committing frauds and dealing in white slavery’.5 They were widely seen by t h e Catholic hierarchy as a threat to the Polish tradition a n d national spirit. In t h e Polish countryside, too, t h e peasantry tended towards a more instinctive antisemitism, influenced by t h e priests and by its own folk superstitions, including a n atavistic belief in ritual murder that has not disappeared to t h i s d a y .

But such religious prejudice, cultural estrangement or nationalistic persecution, while vividly remembered by Jews, was overshadowed for most Poles by the devastating blows inflicted by t h e Nazis during t h e Second World War, in which Poland itself suffered three million dead, lost h e r indepen158

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d e n c e a n d e v e n t u a l l y fell, after 1 9 4 5 , u n d e r Soviet d o m i n a -

tion. The Jewish historian Emmanuel Ringelblum, w h o witnessed t h e Holocaust in Poland, paid tribute to t h e magnanimity of those common Polish people who made great sacrifices t o save Jews d u r i n g t h e war, b u t was o n t h e w h o l e

deeply disappointed by t h e passivity of most Poles (including the underground resistance) in t h e face of Nazi atrocities against Jews. Their apathy and long-standing hostility seemed, if anything, to intensify during t h e course of t h e war.6 Some Poles e v e n rejoiced openly that Hitler appeared to b e solving t h e ’Jewish Q u e s t i o n ’ for t h e m , albeit i n a b r u t a l l y G e r m a n i c fashion; some unfairly blamed t h e Jews for t h e i r lack of resistance t o t h e G e r m a n s or else, like t h e more s i m p l e -

minded peasants in the countryside, imagined that this was a divine punishment for the Jews having killed Christ. O n t h e other h a n d there is n o basis to t h e widespread legend that Poles ’collaborated’ in t h e ’Final Solution’ or that t h e Nazis placed t h e death-camps in Poland because it was considered such a n antisemitic country. If ’collaboration’ was impossible in t h e light of the German determination t o enslave t h e Poles a n d physically liquidate their élites, there was nonetheless considerable approval among Polish nationalists a n d fascists for Hitler’s Jewish policy.7 Moreover, during t h e war itself, Poles materially benefited from the liquidation of Jewish businesses, property a n d homes by t h e Nazis — a fact which drove a wedge between Poles and Jews after 1944 when Jews in their thousands returned from t h e East to reclaim what had previously belonged to them. The already embittered relationship was made worse by Polish claims that Jews in Eastern Poland had welcomed t h e Soviet invaders i n 1 9 3 9 w i t h open a r m s ; 8 t h a t

they were disproportionately represented in t h e Soviet security policy; a n d t h a t t h e Jewish ’ M u s c o v i t e s ' (Polish

Communists who had spent t h e war years in t h e USSR) had returned to Polish soil with t h e Red Army in 1944—5 in order to dance on Poland’s grave. 159

Enemies of the People

Between 1944 a n d 1947 tens of thousands of Poles were killed in t h e civil war being fought over t h e future of the‘ country, among them some 1,500 Jews who fell victim to specifically antisemitic assaults. Lucjan Dobroszycki writes: ’Jews were killed when they came to ask for the return of their houses, workshops, farms, a n d other property. They were a s s a u l t e d when they tried t o open stores o r w o r k s h o p s . Bombs

were placed in orphanages a n d other Jewish public buildings. Jews were shot by u n k n o w n snipers and i n full view of witnesses. Jews were attacked in their homes a n d forcibly removed from buses a n d trains.’9 Some of these physical attacks were carried o u t by t h e anti-Communist underground, convinced that Jews were betraying Poland a n d the Poles to t h e hated Soviet occupation forces. Amidst the general brutalisation engendered by the Nazi occupation a n d its immediate, post-war aftermath, human life — a n d especially that of the massacred Jews - had become cheap. The full-scale pogrom of July 1946 which erupted in Kielce (a town notorious for its pre-war antisemitism), during which about forty Jews were killed and more than seventy-five wounded, revealed the extreme physical vulnerability of the remnants of Polish Jewry which had survived the Holocaust. Some saw the pogrom, (which had been sparked off by a blood libel,) as a spontaneous eruption of anti-Jewish feeling which was part of the general hysterical atmOSphere in post-war Poland. The right-wing elements and some prominent Catholic bishops blamed it on ’Jewish provocation'; others, like Poland’s deputy premier Mikolajczyk, accused the Communists of a deliberate ‘provocation’ in order to discredit their nonCommunist rivals a s fascist antisemites i n the eyes of Western

opinion; while the Communists themselves declared that the pogrom was the work of ultra-nationalistic extremists.IO Whatever the real causes, about 100,000 Jews emigrated from Poland in the following year, a n d another 50,000 would leave between 1 9 4 8 a n d 1 9 5 0 . It was already apparent to most of them t h a t despite, o r perhaps a s a result of, t h e Holocaust, antisemitism 160

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had become even more violent in Poland than it was before 1939. Those Jews who nevertheless remained in Poland, did for the most part have a genuine commitment to the building of a new classless, Communist society.ll In t h e period after 1948 s o m e , like Jakob B e r m a n , Hilary M i n c o r R o m a n Z a m b r o w s k i , rose to top positions i n t h e Party, t h e security services a n d i n economic p l a n n i n g . They were probably considered m o r e

reliable agents by Moscow than Polish Communists like Gomulka, who were suspected of nationalist ’deviations'. By the same token these ’Muscovites’ were especially hated by t h e Polish p o p u l a t i o n , not o n l y a s Jews b u t for serving a n a l i e n

Communist system of quasi-colonial servitude imposed by the Soviet Union. During t h e Polish October of 1956 t h e ’Jewish’ Stalinists were a convenient scapegoat for p o p u l a r wrath, a n d on a visit to Warsaw the Russian C o m m u n i s t leader Nikita Khrushchev encouraged his Polish comrades to purge them a s a means of restoring the popularity of the Party.12

With the restoration of Gomulka to power after 1957, a more openly nationalistic ideology became a prominent feature of Communist propaganda. It stressed the ’Polishness’ of Poland, which in t h e post-war era, as a result of the German massacres a n d territorial changes, had in a n y case lost its old multi-ethnic character, becoming mono-cultural a n d virtually homogeneous. Although antisemitism had traditionally been viewed by Communists as a reactionary petty-bourgeois ideology, o r else as a by-product of fascism, it now became clandestinely incorporated i n t o t h e neo-Stalinist v a r i a n t of

Polish chauvinism — above all as a political lever in internal party struggles. From t h e early 19605 Jews ( w h o by this time numbered a little over 30,000 in a population of over thirty million p e o p l e ) were b e i n g s l o w l y removed from t h e i r r e m a i n -

ing high positions in t h e party a n d state administration as well as from t h e civilian a n d military security apparatus.l3 Senior officials of Jewish origin were u n d e r surveillance, and a full card i n d e x for Polish Jewry w a s a l r e a d y b e i n g prepared. P l a n s 161

Enemies of t h e People

for a complete purge of Jews from all positions of influence were in place even before t h e Six Day War of 1967 a n d t h e s t u d e n t riots of early 1 9 6 8 which provided t h e necessary

pretext to implement this policy. The a n t i s e m i t i c campaign t h a t was u n l e a s h e d i n 1967—8

u n d e r the official banner of ’anti-Zionism’ had little in common with t h e agitation in pre-war Poland, which had a t least been related t o some kind of sociological reality - namely, the existence of a three-million-strong national minority with its own distinct culture on Polish soil.14 The witch-hunt of 1968, which forced two-thirds of Poland’s remaining Jews into emigration, was about t h e manipulation of myths in t h e service of a battle for power between two warring Communist Party factions — those of Gomulka a n d of his challenger General Moczar. The latter appealed to a traditional Polish chauvinism, to anti-Russian sentiment a n d to a n antisemitism that attracted young party careerists, seeking to move u p t h e apparatus, as well as members of t h e Veterans' Association (Zbowid) which was Moczar's political b a s e . His supporters

proposed a n even more nationalist Communism than that of Gomulka, purged of ’Jewish’ cosmopolitanism a n d of Marxist ’revisionism’ - a n allegedly Jewish or ’Judaising’ vice of reformist intellectuals. Gomulka, as Party leader, countered Moczar’s campaign by adopting his own more moderate brand of antisemitism, singling out Polish Jews in a speech of 19 J u n e 1967 as instigators of a n anti-Soviet campaign, agents of Western imperialism a n d propagators of a n aggressive brand of

’Zionism'.” (Polish Communist Jews were for the most part ideologically anti-Zionist, but many Polish Gentiles did indeed welcome t h e decisive Israeli victory over t h e Arabs as a defeat for t h e Soviet U n i o n . ) The Polish Army was made Judenrein,

t h e Foreign Ministry a n d other government departments, t h e universities, t h e press a n d party schools were purged of t h e dangerous ’Zionist fifth column’. Jews who had been thoroughly

assimilated

and

lifelong

162

Communists

were

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accused of b e i n g ’ideologically a l i e n t o Polish c u l t u r e ' , cosmo-

politan ’national nihilists’ or Jewish nationalists loyal to Israel r a t h e r t h a n P o l a n d . A t t h e s a m e t i m e ’ i n t e r n a t i o n a l Zionism’ was b l a m e d for h a v i n g incited Polish s t u d e n t y o u t h t o t h e

anti-government protests of March 1968. The role which a few Jewish s t u d e n t s d i d play i n t h e m e e t i n g s a n d d e m o n s t r a t i o n s w a s singled o u t a t every opportunity b y t h e government m e d i a

a n d public prosecutors to demonstrate that there was a n organised Zionist conspiracy a g a i n s t P o l a n d . All t h e a t t e n t i o n w a s focused o n t h e m a s ringleaders, t h e y were systematically described a s of ’Jewish origin’ o r ’Jewish nationality’ a n d t h e i r real J e w i s h n a m e s were c o n s i s t e n t l y p u t i n brackets a f t e r t h e i r

Polish-sounding names (a familiar tactic from t h e Soviet

’anti-cosmopolitan' campaign twenty years earlier).'6 In addition to ’Zionism' they were also accused of t h e old C o m m u n i s t heresies of ’Trotskyism’ a n d Social-Democratic ’revisionism’ — vices t o w h i c h Polish C o m m u n i s t Party theorist Andrzej Werblan considered Jews especially prone. The t i m e h a d come, Werblan stated i n a notorious essay of 1 9 6 8 , to correct t h e e t h n i c imbalance i n cadre policy. This, h e declared, was n o t a n t i s e m i t i s m b e c a u s e ’ n o society can tolerate excessive participation of a n a t i o n a l minority i n t h e élite of power,

particularly in t h e organs of national defence, security, propaganda a n d representation abroad, coming from a n o u t s i d e

cosmopolitan background’. '7 Such contorted ideological rationalisations were merely a thin masquerade for t h e forced exodus of Jews from Poland. They were followed by a more far-reaching campaign of vilification against Zionism and world Jewry in general, falsely tainted with having ’collaborated’ with t h e Nazis a n d also with West German ’revanchists' against P o l a n d , a n d accused of

systematically seeking to blacken its good name.'8 The campaign, originally initiated b y Moczar ( a n d supported by

the PAX organisation of t h e pre-war Polish Catholic fascist Buleslaw Piasecki), appeared t o h a v e swiftly a c h i e v e d its a i m

of a ’Final Solution’ of t h e Jewish problem in Poland. 163

Enemies of the People

Gomulka’s speech of J u n e 1967, which picked u p Moczar’s challenge, set in motion the final exodus of the remnants of the great Jewish community which had lived o n Polish soil for a l m o s t a m i l l e n n i u m . After such a tragic de’nouement what

possible further uses could antisemitism serve in a country where after 1968 there were only about 5,000 surviving Jews, most of them sick a n d elderly? Could t h e virtual disappearance of a once vibrant Jewish community, which now represented only 0.02 per cent of the country's population, still generate new witchhunts?

The first signs that political antisemitism could renew itself came in 1980—1as part of a Communist campaign to discredit the increasingly powerfuly trade-union movement Solidarity a n d its ally, t h e dissident organisation KOR. Antisemitic articles appeared in the official Communist press charging that ’cosmopolitan' KOR activists had a dominant influence in Solidarity a n d that they serve ’Jewish' interests. Party newspapers misleadingly suggested that a Solidarity activist like Karol Modzelewski was a Jew masquerading as a Catholic, a n d antisemitic pamphlets, probably encouraged by the regime, caricatured one of the leading Solidarity advisers, Bronislaw Gieremek, with a large nose a n d Hassidic side-curls. Other labour activists like Jacek Kuron a n d Jan Josef Lipski, both Catholics and founders of KOR, were accused by the Communist Party press of having ’Zionist links’, a familiar codeword from the 1968 antisemitic campaign. Outside t h e government, too, the anti-Jewish Grunwald Patriotic Association sprang to life a g a i n a s a rallying-point against

Solidarity while the Catholic Church remained noticeably silent in the face of the government campaign. Even within Solidarity itself, in the final weeks before martial law was imposed, factions within the Warsaw branch were falsely accusing left-wing labour leaders in their own movement of

being Jewish. '9 Ten years later, after the collapse of Communism in Poland, the wheel has come full circle. In the Polish elections of 1990 164

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Lech Walesa, Solidarity’s working-class hero, i n a n u n r e strained, often v u l g a r b u t u l t i m a t e l y successful campaign for

t h e presidency, helped to stir u p atavistic feelings, including antisemitism a n d hatred of intellectuals. His former ally, t h e liberal Catholic Prime Minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki — o n e of the first intellectuals to support Solidarity — found himself smeared by Walesa's supporters a s a crypto-Jew who was soft

on Communism.20 Mazowiecki’s government was allegedly controlled by Jews rather than ’real Poles’, a theme that went down well w i t h a n electorate embittered b y economic chaos,

poverty, unemployment a n d t h e soured promise of its present experiment in democracy.2| In t h e power vacuum of a volatile post-Communist Eastern Europe, a n d noticeably in Poland, old hatreds were rising to t h e foreground, especially antisemitism. A s i n t h e Soviet U n i o n , Hungary a n d R u m a n i a , people once

more recalled that t h e Communist Parties in their Stalinist phase had seemed to be full of Jews, a convenient peg on

which to hang all the failures of their society and economy.22 The return of t h e old slogan ’Judeo-Communism’ reflected t h e depths of hatred for a discredited regime, t h e new politics of resentment, xenophobia a n d a renewed emphasis on t h e identity of nation a n d religion. Not only the issues but also t h e style a n d language of the 19305 seem to be making a comeback a s a popular alternative to t h e earnest efforts a t creating a

liberal market economy and democratising t h e political system. The endemic weakness of the Polish economy a n d the persistence of antidemocratic sentiments i n t h e Polish n a t i o n ,

along with the long tradition of denigrating o r blaming minorities, has further favoured the re-emergence of a n antisemitism, paranoically directed at ’hidden' Jews in t h e government responsible for t h e crisis. Even before t h e 1 9 9 0 electoral c a m p a i g n , t h e controversy

over the Carmelite monastery in Auschwitz had helped to reactivate a w h o l e c l u s t e r of a n t i - J e w i s h stereotypes a n d a n i m o s i t i e s still b u r i e d i n t h e Polish n a t i o n a l c o n s c i o u s n e s s . 165

Enemies o f t h e People

Despite t h e fraternal Catholic-Jewish dialogues inspired by Nostra

Aetate ( t h e Vatican Council’s historic declaration o n

Judaism in 1965) it transpires that little of the new thinking has percolated through to t h e masses. Many Polish peasants still believe in t h e medieval blood libel - namely that Jews

actually use Christian blood for the baking of matzos.23 Many young children are still taught that ’the Jews killed Christ'. Even university students, though more open a n d curious about Judaism than in t h e past, still tend to think in a stereotypical m a n n e r about ’Jewish traits’, unable to test them through contact with real, living persons. The ignorance about Judaism a n d Jewish history is, of course, a particularly fertile breeding-ground for antisemitism, a s is t h e q u a s i - a u t o m a t i c i d e n t i fi c a t i o n i n P o l a n d of ’Polak-

katolik’ (’the Pole is a Catholic’).24 This identification, so strongly m a d e in t h e pre-war period by the leader of t h e rabidly antisemitic National Democrats, Roman Dmowski, is today upheld by o n e of his most illustrious post-war disciples, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Jozef Glemp. The Cardinal’s antisemitic homily in Czestochowa o n 2 6 August 1989 warned Jews not to ’talk to u s from the position of a peOple raised above all others' a n d not to ’dictate conditions that are impossible t o fulfil'.25 Rather demagogically claiming that ’a squad of seven Jews from New York launched attacks o n t h e convent

at

Oswiecim

[Auschwitz]'

which

supposedly

threatened the lives of the nuns, h e then addressed world J e w r y : ’Your power lies i n t h e m a s s m e d i a t h a t are easily a t

your disposal in m a n y countries. Let them not serve to Spread

anti-Polish feeling.’26 Glemp presented antisemitism as a legitimate form of self-defence and even proclaimed that it was a natural response to Jewish ’anti-Polonism’. His posture was that of a ruler defending his Catholic nation against unprovoked foreign attacks. O n e of Glemp's closest advisers, Professor Maciej Giertych, whose conscious a i m is to rebuild t h e p r e - w a r National Democratic m o v e m e n t with t h e full backing of t h e C a t h o l i c 166

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Church, was very supportive of this stand, calling h i s speech

’very sensible a n d very correct' in a n interview with me in Warsaw in October 1990.27 Giertych suggested that it was t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l media a n d t h e ’Jewish press’ i n particular which

deliberately and artificially whipped u p antisemitism in Poland, where it does n o t i n fact exist! This was n o t h i n g b u t a concerted campaign b y Jews with ’a great i n fl u e n c e i n the world’s m e d i a ' , directed against Poland i n order, so h e

believes, to whitewash German war crimes. Professor Giertych, it might be noted, is now editor of the monthly Slowo Narodowy, which combats Socialism, C o m m u n i s m , the G e r m a n menace, Western m a t e r i a l i s m , ’cosmopolitanism’ a n d all those v a l u e s a l i e n t o C a t h o l i c Poland

and its national culture — which naturally includes the pernicious influence of international Jewry. Along with other radical right groupings like the Polish Catholic-Social Union, the Pax Movement a n d the National Front, they reflect that ’natiocentric’ tradition in Poland which has always combined antisemitism with c h a u v i n i s m , xenophobia, authoritarianism

and a n archaic form of Catholicism. The great vacuum left by the death of Communism may heighten their appeal, especially among the marginalised youth who in Poland, as elsewhere i n Europe, a r e a natural source of recruitment for populist right-wing movements.

Antisemitism itself has, however, really never been marginalised in post-war Poland, as the slogans, graffiti, murmurings a n d insinuations during t h e most recent electoral campaign so shockingly revealed. Walesa’s hints about ’true Poles’ a n d deeply equivocal statements saying t h a t h e h a s

nothing against Jews (but ’why d o some of them hide under Gentile names’?) — along with t h e implication that the allegedly Jewish origins of a political rival must be considered significant — are signs of a deep disorientation and definitive proof t h a t actual Jews are n o t necessary for a n t i s e m i t i s m t o thrive. T h e p r o b l e m , a s it was p u t to m e i n Warsaw by t h e Polish 167

Enemies of the People

journalist Konstanty Gebert ( w h o deliberately writes under t h e Jewish-sounding pen-name of David Warszawski), is that antisemitism was never truly discredited i n Poland. O n e reason for its seeming legitimacy is that Poles have seen their o w n extraordinary suffering d u r i n g t h e w a r as having been o n

a par with that of the Jews, a n d as having continued for forty years u n d e r a tyrannical system of Communism. In other words, they feel themselves to be as victimised as the Jews, a n d for t h e m Auschwitz is n o less important a symbol, representing

as it does Polish national a n d religious martyrdom. Indeed, Poles for a long time tended to posthumously ’Polonise’ the Jewish victims of t h e death camps (grouping t h e three million Jews massacred in Poland in the general category of Polish victims). Not recognising t h e exceptional character of Nazi treatment of t h e Jews has enabled many Poles to avoid confronting questions about their own responsibility during this tragic period and obfuscates the need to critically reexamine Polish antisemitic traditions. As a result antisemitism has often been considered to be a legitimate opinion, a viewpoint that is tolerated a n d rarely subjected to firm moral rejection o r to serious political

resistance.28 This ambivalence has been as true of the Solidarity movement (though in its earlier period it did r e p u d i a t e a n t i s e m i t i s m a s a political programme) a s it is of t h e

Catholic Church, while the Communists never hesitated to manipulate antisemitism for their own needs. The rather grotesque (if partly understandable) reverse side of that particular coin was the massive popular hostility to the Jews, engendered by their involvement in Stalinism a n d t h e postw a r C o m m u n i s t regime.

There are, of course, those who would argue that Poles absorbed antisemitism with t h e teachings of t h e Church and that t h e m y t h of t h e Christ-killers is t h e main reason for its

persistence.29 The Polish Catholic Church is certainly wedded t o more a r c h a i c , conservative a n d a n t i m o d e r n i s t concepts t h a n its counterparts i n t h e W e s t . Moreover, w i t h a Polish 168

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Pope in Rome and t h e highest number of churches and proportion of practising Catholics of a n y country i n Europe,

the influence of the Church cannot be underestimated.” No doubt its post-war failure to take a clear stand in condemning antisemitism outright has contributed to t h e respectability

which anti-Jewish stereotypes still enjoy.3| When the Mother Superior of t h e embattled Carmelite Sisters of Auschwitz could recently tell a Polish-American weekly that Jews had no right to ’special treatment’ a t t h e camp; t h a t t h e y believe themselves

to be a ’chosen’ race: a n d that ’Polish Communist Jews' ran t h e government after 1945 ’with the specific intention to introduce atheism into Poland’, there is no doubt that she exemplifies a popular strain of Christian antisemitism in t h e

country.32 More seriously, such statements are an unwitting indictment of t h e Polish Catholic Church. They would be inconceivable without its public refusal to acknowledge its own role as a catalyst in igniting traditional Polish antisemitism and its singular failure to re-educate the Polish people a t grassroots level.33 It would, however, b e misleading and unfair to place all the blame o n the Catholic Church, which is responsible neither for the folk superstitions of the Polish peasantry nor for the nationalist a n d political antisemitism which has been a fairly continuous

feature of Poland’s history i n t h e t w e n t i e t h

century. Moreover, such a n indictment would ignore the fact that there has been in recent years a Catholic-Jewish dialogue involving liberal Catholic intellectuals and priests who d o not agree with Cardinal Glemp’s vision and who reject the a n t i s e m i t i c past w i t h o u t ignoring it. Despite t h e i r prestige, t h e

influence of such intellectuals is probably rather limited, but this does not mean that the prospect of a genuinely democratic, pluralist Poland without antisemitism is forever doomed. A t t i t u d e s towards Jews i n contemporary Poland are n o t , of course, based o n real experience b u t more o n mythological

images, whether positive o r negative -— themselves the 169

Enemies of the People

outcome of history, religion, folk superstition, parental structures a n d political manipulation.

I n contrast to pre-war

antisemitism, it h a s no direct connection — be it rational o r perverse— with the presence of a coherent Jewish community. Contemporary Polish antisemitism expresses a deeper existential uncertainty — t h a t of disorientated, lost a n d con-

fused individuals in a society now undergoing rapid social change, dislocation and doubts about its own identity. There is a climate of fear as well as hope, bitterness as well as opportunity opened up by the fall of Communism. Antisemitism represents in this context a morbidly defensive reaction t o perceived threats a n d ’conspiracies', whether real

or imaginary, as well as a desperate response to unsatisfied

needs and to economic adversity.34 In such a climate of prejudice and anxiety about the future there has been a nearly automatic response in modern Polish society — ’the Jews are to

blame’ — even when there are barely any Jews to be found.35

170

14 The Soviet Disunion

There was n o o t h e r state o n t h e European continent which

officially pursued such repressive anti-Jewish policies in the nineteenth century as the Tsarist Russian Empire. For as long as they could, the Russian Tsars had sought to keep Jews out of the lands which they ruled, but the partitions of Poland a t the end of the eighteenth century brought nearly half a million Jews under their sway. By 1897 this number had increased to 5,189,400 (4.13 per cent of the total Russian population), and by 1914 about half of world Jewry was concentrated i n the gigantic, sprawling land-mass controlled by the Tsars. Most of them were confined by law to the ’Pale of Settlement’ (a territory of approximately a million square kilometres which stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea), where they lived in poverty and deprivation and were subjected to endless, humiliating decrees purportedly designed to ’protect' the local p0pulation from the spectre of ’economic exploitation'. Russian antisemitism was in its origins a combination of simple primitive hatred for the Jews as ’aliens’ and of Christian orthodox religious prejudice which regarded the Jewish people as deicides. Such prejudice remained alive and virulent both at the state level (Tsarist absolutism derived its legitimacy from a Byzantine Caesaropapist version of Christianity) a n d among the millions of superstitious a n d illiterate Russian peasants.I The Orthodox Christian idea was i n many ways t h e spiritus mavens of Tsardom, one of the m o s t important criteria

of Russianness a n d the most basic part of the nation’s spiritual essence. Polish Catholics, Baltic Lutherans a n d even more the 171

Enemies of the People

Jews, with their ancient loyalties, distinct customs, religion and languages, stood outside the fold. Moreover, very few Jews chose to convert, and even then the distinction between converts and ’real' Christians was generally maintained. By t h e end of the nineteenth century, however, t h e older, more

traditional Judeophobia was becoming transformed into a set of distinctly modern myths which viewed the Jews as engaged i n a n international conspiracy to subvert the very foundations of Holy Russia. The Tsarist regime, by constantly imposing economic dis-

abilities on t h e Jews and driving them into insecure middleman occupations which involved direct, often unpleasant contact with the poorer peasants, itself contributed

to t h e

exacerbation of popular Judeophobia. When pogroms occurred i n 1881 i n about 160 cities and villages of Russia, the government did not intervene to stop t h e murder and pillage. Instead, a year later, it enacted further anti-Jewish economic legislation ( t h e notorious May L a w s ) . Jews were made to feel

even more isolated by the fact that the Narodniki (populist revolutionaries) had welcomed the 1881 pogroms a s a rising of t h e peasantry against Jewish petty-bourgeois ’exploitation', which supposedly heralded the coming social revolution. Despite this acute disappointment,

many young Jews con-

tinued to join the Russian revolutionary movement in the hope that it would succeed in overthrowing the backward, oppressive Tsarist regime and lead to a Western-style parliamentary social democracy. The involvement of Jews i n Russian radicalism gave a convenient pretext t o conservative antisemites within the

government like Konstantin Pobedonostsev (Director of the Holy Synod) and the Minister of the Interior Count von Pleve to divert popular discontent away from the regime and against Jewry by means of pogroms.2 It was widely believed that von Pleve had encouraged the brutal Kishinev pogrom of 1903, or w a s a t least morally responsible for it. The increased strength

of the revolutionary movement i n 1905 and the threat which 172

The S o v i e t D i s u n i o n

it posed i n t e n s i fi e d t h e a n t i s e m i t i c propaganda

fostered by t h e

government. Tsar Nicholas II subsidised t h e monarchist, antisemitic organisation t h e Union of t h e Russian People, a n d t h e proto-fascist gangs of Black H u n d r e d s , w h o s o u g h t t o rally

t h e masses against liberals a n d revolutionaries by spear-

heading pogrom agitation.3 It was in the context of the 1905 revolution t h a t The Protocols of the Elders

of Zion was first

published under secret police auspices by t h e press of t h e Tsar, although h e personally believed t h e work t o be a fraud. The pogroms of 1905 a n d t h e Beilis ritual-murder trial in Kiev ( 1 9 1 1 ) , i n which t h e government

p u t its full w e i g h t

behind t h e frame-up of a n innocent Jewish artisan, confirmed the unique position of Russia a s by far t h e most reactionary monarchy in Europe in its treatment of Jews. As t h e historian Hans Rogger has pointed out, although Russia’s official antiJewish policy was not based on t h e pseudo-scientific racial ideas already fashionable i n t h e W e s t , ’it came a s close to racism a s it is possible to be w i t h o u t a n explicit theory’.4

Russian antisemites — monarchist, Christian, illiberal a n d a n t i - W e s t e r n — were i n d e e d hostile not o n l y t o t h e Jewish

religion but also to Jewry as a n ethnic group, a ’racial' a n d ’nationalistic cult’, to use t h e terminology of t h e Slavophile

ideologue Ivan Aksakov.S They believed that the passion for acquisition a n d money-grubbing were innate characteristics of t h e ’Semites’, a n d that Jews represented a particularly harmful a n d dangerous group in Russian society which had to be isolated from t h e rest of t h e population. Such half-formed racist a r g u m e n t s helped t o justify t h e refusal of t h e Tsarist regime to grant t h e Jews emancipation a n d civic rights.6

Jewish numbers, power a n d economic prowess would, so t h e argument ran, overwhelm t h e still backward Russian moujiks and intensify popular anger even further, if they were ever fully emancipated. With t h e coming t o power of t h e Bolshevik Party in November 1 9 1 7 a n d t h e e n s u i n g Civil War, p r e - w a r a n t i semitism a s s u m e d a n u n p r e c e d e n t e d l y violent c h a r a c t e r a s t h e 173

Enemies of the People

counter-revolutionary

W h i t e Armies carried o u t murderous

pogroms, eSpecially in the Ukraine. The troops of Petliura, Denikin a n d Kolchak, fed o n t h e modern myth of a JudeoMasonic conspiracy against Russia a n d persuaded that t h e Revolution was t h e work of Antichrist, massacred over 100,000

Jews — perhaps t h e worst disaster i n modern Jewish

history before t h e Holocaust. The Whites distributed t h e Tsa rist forgery of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as part of their propaganda against t h e Bolsheviks, whose armies were commanded by Leon Trotsky, a brilliant Russified Jew who, together with Lenin, had masterminded the Communist coup

d 'e’tat in Petrograd.7 Lenin, t h e new head of t h e Soviet government, had already written in 1914 that ’no other nationality in Russia is so oppressed a n d persecuted as t h e Jews'.8 As a Marxist h e sincerely believed that antisemitism, like all forms of ethnic prejudice, was a n outgrowth of class conflict which would eventually disappear in a classless society. It was essentially a feature of reactionary feudal a n d capitalist regimes, exploited for t h e benefit of the ruling classes t o sow division in t h e masses a n d deflect them from supporting the radical cause. Lenin realised, moreover, t h a t a n t i s e m i t i s m was b e i n g t u r n e d

against t h e Bolshevik regime by its most dangerous opponents — t h e White counter-revolutionaries - who took advantage of the fact that a number of t h e top Russian Communist leaders were

of Jewish

o r i g i n . Hence, for pragmatic a s well a s

ideological reasons, h e fiercely attacked antisemitism in statem e n t s a n d speeches during t h e Civil War, and as early as 2 7 July 1918 t h e Soviet government defined instigators of pogroms as ’enemies of t h e Revolution' who had to be outlawed.9 Stringent legislation, backed u p by education and propaganda, was employed to suppress antisemitism in t h e 19205, though such feelings continued to persist, especially during the New Economic Policy. Popular antisemitism was stimulated mainly by t h e large influx of Jews from the former Pale of Settlement to industrial 174

The S o v i e t D i s u n i o n

a n d administrative centres, where they now competed for jobs; by t h e new agricultural settlements of Jews o n land in southern Russia a n d t h e C r i m e a ; a n d by t h e p r o m i n e n t role which t h e more literate, urbanised Jews came t o play i n t h e

apparatus of the Communist Party, of t h e state a n d in t h e emerging, new Soviet culture. Jews were to be found occupyi n g leading government posts, a s top Party Commissars, a s

heads of t h e security services, in t h e universities a n d in other areas of public life which, less than a decade earlier, had been

hermetically sealed to them.'0 There were, however, other features of Soviet policy which were spiritually harmful to Jewish life. Synagogues were being closed down as part of t h e atheistic campaign directed against all religions b u t especially against t h e R u s s i a n Orthodox

Church. In the early 1'9205, Hebrew was outlawed as a ’counter-revolutionary’

language;

Jewish

political move-

ments, including Zionism and t h e Bund (Jewish Workers’ Movement), were prohibited; a n independent, autonomous Jewish culture (which in pre-revolutionary Russia had been especially rich a n d diverse) was gradually crushed. In its place came a flattened ’proletarian’ socialist culture in the Yiddish language - ideologically neutralised a n d in conformity with t h e official party line. Nevertheless, until the mid-19305 there was n o hint of public anti-Jewish propaganda, no acts of violence or discrimination against Jews, no teaching of contempt such as had been

the norm before 1917.11 Stalin’s Great Purges of 1936-7 signalled t h e beginning of a change for the worse, not only because they rooted o u t all opposition t o his totalitarian rule but because the government initiated a systematic liquidation of Jewish institutions a n d of those who were in charge of Jewish affairs. The Jewish Section of the Communist Party (Yevsektsia) had already been disbanded in 1931, but it had been unpopular among many Jews for its suppression of t h e Jewish religion, Hebrew culture and Zionism. During t h e Great Purges, however, organised Jewish life was almost 175

Enemies of the People

completely paralysed. Hundreds of Jewish schools were closed, departments for Yiddish language and culture at the universities of Kiev and Minsk were shut down, most Jewish papers ceased to appear a n d special courts where Yiddish could

be used by the Jewish population stopped functioning.” Moreover, during the years that the Nazi-Soviet pact was in operation (1939—41) the Soviet press ceased to report on the anti-Jewish persecution in Germany, o r o n the murder of Jews i n Poland after the Second World War broke o u t . The Soviet regime did nothing to alert its Jewish population to the facts of Nazi genocide and indeed discouraged, criticised and even punished those who after the war sought to emphasise the special suffering of the Jewish people. During the war with Nazi Germany it is true that the position of the Jews did improve as Stalin saw the utility of winning the support of Jewish public opinion in the West (especially in America and Britain) for the Soviet cause. A Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was established, which was chaired by the Director of the Jewish State Theatre in Moscow, Solomon Mikhoels (he would be murdered on Stalin’s orders by the Soviet secret police i n 1948). Jews were briefly permitted to re-establish their links with other Jewish communities i n the Western world and even with Palestinian J e w r y . 1 3 Despite the consistent anti-Zionism i n Communist

ideology and practice, overtures were made to Zionist leaders i n Palestine which would eventually culminate in Stalin's

support for the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine.” But such measures were taken solely for reasons of Realpolitik and did not change Soviet hostility to Zionism o r Stalin's growing suspicion of Jews, which after 1945 seems to have developed into a paranoic hostility. The blackest years of Soviet Jewry, between 1948 and 1953, began with a two-pronged campaign against the sins of bourgeois Jewish nationalism and of ’rootless cosmopolitanism' — two deviations that seem mutually contradictory yet expressed t h e same ingrained, deeply-rooted suspicion of 176

The S o v i e t D i s u n i o n

Jews t h a t h a d revived i n the Soviet U n i o n during t h e war

years.'5 At a popular level the intensive Nazi antisemitic propaganda had undoubtedly left its mark on sectors of the Soviet population, especially in the Ukraine, Byelorussia a n d the Baltic States, who had collaborated with the German invaders i n massacring Jews. The Soviet government itself was

now more willing to exploit this antisemitism from below in the service of reinforcing its rule. With the onset of the Cold War, as Stalin concentrated o n hermetically sealing the USSR off from any Westernising influences and openly encouraged a cult of Great Russian nationalism, the Jews appeared as a useful tool and also a convenient scapegoat for h i s policies. I n t h e satellite countries

of Eastern Europe, like Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria, which had come u n d e r Communist r u l e , Jewish Stalinists were trusted allies i n

the first stage of ’Sovietisation’, for their loyalties to Moscow had already been amply demonstrated. B u t Stalin did not

hesitate to sacrifice them i n show-trials like that of Rudolf Slansky

in

Czechoslovakia

(1951—2) i n

which

leading

Communists of Jewish origin were branded as ’crypto-Zionist' traitors to the cause of socialism. One reason for encouraging this antisemitic agitation among the masses may have been t o

deflect East European hatred of Russian domination. In the USSR itself, the Jewish cultural institutions which had been revived during the war were rapidly liquidated in 1948. Virtually all of the most prominent Soviet Yiddish writers a n d many Jewish artists were arrested a n d sent to prison or to Siberian concentration camps. In 1 9 5 2 , the cream

of this Soviet Yiddish intelligentsia (including famous authors like Perez Markish, Dovid Bergelsen and Itzik Feffer) were secretly executed and others were allowed to die in prison.'6 Stalin's pretext for t h i s crime was t h a t a proposal made after

the war by leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee for Jewish settlement in the Crimea, was in reality a plot to create a pro-Western base o n Soviet soil serving t h e ’imperialist’

enemies of the USSR.'7 177

Enemies of the People

The ’Doctors Plot’ of 1953 in which nine prominent physicians (six of them Jews) were accused of seeking to poison the Soviet leadership under instructions from Western intelligence agencies and from the American Joint Distribution Committee ( a Jewish philanthropic organisation)

escalated antisemitism to new and unprecedented heights in

the USSR.18 Virtually all Jews came under suspicion, Jewish employees were dismissed from various institutions, Jews in t h e streets were sometimes assaulted, as were Jewish children in schools. Only Stalin's death a few weeks after the announcement of t h e ’plot’ may have averted a pogrom and t h e planned deportation of most Soviet Jews to Siberia, which appears to have been t h e Soviet dictator’s goal. Stalin’s successors retracted the accusations concerning the ’doctor murderers’ as a secret police fabrication, but they did n o t initiate a n y c a m p a i g n a g a i n s t p o p u l a r a n t i s e m i t i s m . I n Khrushchev’s famous s e c r e t r e p o r t t o t h e Twentieth P a r t y C o n g r e s s ( 1 9 5 6 ) h e d e n o u n c e d Stalin’s m a n y c r i m e s b u t o m i t t e d t h o s e a g a i n s t the J e w s from t h e list. T h i s w a s n o t surprising in view of Khrushchev’s own prejudices against Jews a n d h i s defence o f Stalin’s p o l i c y in t h e n o t o r i o u s C r i m e a affair. K h r u s h c h e v ’ s criticism of the R u s s i a n p o e t Yevgeny Yevtushenko for having evoked the spectre of antisemitism in

his famous poem ’Babi Yar’ (1961) — which had commemorated the war-time German masscre of Jews in Kiev indicated his personal feelings only too clearly. It was under his rule that Jews were being singled out for having committed ’economic crimes’ a n d executed in disproportionate numbers. Atheistic campaigns were now revived with new intensity and Judaism presented as a n extremely negative religious, cultural and historical phenomenon. O n e of the worst examples was the openly antisemitic book by the Ukrainian ’scholar’ Trofim Kychko, Judaism without Embellishment (1963), published b y the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. It was also Khrushchev who initiated the Soviet military alliance with Nasser and the Arab world as a part of a more aggressive Third-World ’anti178

The Soviet D i s u n i o n

imperialist’ strategy which

brought i n its w a k e constant

denunciations of Israel and Zionism that adversely affected the image of Jews in the USSR.'9 It m u s t be emphasised that by the 1 9 6 0 s Jews h a d been

almost completely eliminated from the diplomatic and foreign service, from leading positions i n the Army a n d from a n y prominence i n top Communist Party posts, a n d they were

noticeably underrepresented in such institutions as the Supreme Soviet or the Soviet of Nationalities. Their representation was much higher among members of the Soviet academic a n d professional élite (i.e. among physicians, scientists, academicians, journalists a n d artists), but i t w a s

significantly lower than in the 19305. Moreover, the number of Jewish students a t the universities has been steadily falling i n the post-war period, clearly the result of a n unofficial but fairly systematic policy of numerus clausus. This discriminatory government policy undoubtedly reflects the deep suspicion of the Communist Party a n d the security services concerning the loyalties of Jews (e.g. their possible links with the West and with the State of Israel) and their different mental outlook and nonconformity to the totalitarian mould, as well as representing a concession to popular resentments and frustrations.

The Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel decisively defeated the Arab States (armed and supported by the Soviet Union), provoked an official anti-Jewish campaign which has lasted for two decades a n d has been unprecedented even by Soviet

standards for its longevity and virulence.20 Although the target was ostensibly the State of Israel a n d its so-called ’racist’ or ’Nazi’ policies towards Arabs, the style, techniques a n d motifs of this verbal and visual propaganda were unmistakeably antisemitic in their underlying meaning. Judaism was presented, for example, as a criminal, religious tradition from a n c i e n t times, educating its followers in racial superiority a n d

hatred of other peoples. At a 1971 debate in t h e United Nations Security Council on the M i d d l e East, t h e Soviet Ambassador

Yakov Malik declared, for example, that Zionism is ‘fascist’ a n d 179

Enemies of the People

'racist' because it is purportedly based on a doctrine of chosenness ( t h e r e is n o such idea i n Zionism b u t it is central to

Judaism).

The chosen people: is that not racism? What is the difference between Zionism a n d fascism, if the essence of the ideology is racism, hatred towards other peoples? The chosen people. The people elected by God. Where i n the second half of the twentieth century does one hear anyone advocating this criminally absurd theory of the superiority of one race and one people over others. . . . Try to prove that you are the chosen people

and the others are nobodies.2| As the context makes clear, the Soviet attempt to link Zionism with racial chosenness evokes not only German fascist strivings for hegemony but also the Protocols myth of a Jewish plan for world domination. This was also a central motif in books by ’anti-Zionist' ideologues of the Brezhnev years like Vladimir B e g u n , whose

Creeping

Counter-Revolution ( 1 9 7 4 )

specifically denounced the ’chauvinistic idea of the Godchosenness (bogoz'zbrannost) of the Jewish people, the propaganda of messianism and the idea of ruling over the peoples of the world’.22 For Begun, ’Zionist gangsterism’ is rooted in the Torah — ’an unsurpassed textbook of bloodthirstiness, hypocrisy, treason, perfidy a n d moral degeneracy' and i n t h e

Judaic division of the world into Jews who are ’chosen’ and non-Jews who are ’despised by God’. Begun also advanced the idea that Jewish capitalists and businessmen stood behind the mad monk Rasputin, who had dominated the Tsarist court in its closing years. This was part of his general re-evaluation of the position of Jews under Tsarism, a theme adopted by other Soviet ’anti-Zionists’ of the 19705. Like t h e well-known critic Dmitri Zhukov, Begun stressed that t h e real power of the Jewish bourgeoisie was far

greater than its formal civil rights (a thesis already to be found 180

The Soviet D i s u n i o n

in the young Marx) — hence, even u n d e r Tsarism it was becoming part of t h e ruling caste. Russian popular a n t i -

semitism of this period could therefore be best understood (and justified) as part of the class-struggle of the oppressed masses against their Jewish capitalist oppressors.23 B e g u n ,

Ivanov, Zhukov, Kichko, Skurlatov, Yevseyev a n d other imitators emphasised that, in the twentieth century, Zionism ( w i t h its notions of ’racial exclusivity’) had become the official

ideology of Jewish banking capital in its drive for world domination. No perfidy was too base for these ’Fascists under the blue star of David’ (Yevseyev’s phrase), including ’col-

laboration with Hitler’ and helping the Nazis burn hundreds of thousands of Jewish ’workers’ a n d poor people i n order to

achieve their political goals.24 Reviving a n old antisemitic canard, Yevseyev claimed, for example, that a t the centre of the ’Zionist’ operation stood some 500 of the ’most influential and most mighty bankers and businessmen from dozens of small and large capitalist countries of all continents’; in addition to this financial monopoly (according to Yevseyev’s purely fictitious statistics)

no less than ’80 per cent of the local and international information agencies ”belong to the Zionists” ’.25 It is obvious that in this genre of Soviet hack literature, massively diffused i n the 19705 and early 1980s, the conspiracy theories that informed Henry Ford’s The International Jew or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion fifty years earlier had merely been updated, replacing t h e term ’International Jewry’ with t h e myth of

’World Zionism'.26 This was simply old antisemitic wine in new anti-Zionist bottles! Nor is it a coincidence that such veterans from the official Brezhnevite anti-Zionist campaigns a s Yevseyev, B e g u n , Valery Emelianov or Alexandr Z. Romanenko — author of t h e racist diatribe The Class Essence of Zionism ( 1 9 8 6 ) - have been among t h e post popular lecturers of the ultra-nationalist

Pamyat organisation.” For their overtly antisemitic works, published in large runs (and probably filtered through the 181

Enemies of the People

KGB), helped to form the mass consciousness that shaped the popular Jew-baiting rhetoric of the late 19805 in a disintegrat-

ing Soviet society.28 They could flourish the more easily given t h e total lack of information about Jews from other officially permitted sources. Even for several generations of Soviet Jews, this antisemitic literature was all that was available concerning Jewish history, religion o r culture — l e t a l o n e t h e history of

Zionism or of Israel.29 As a result, a wildly distorted picture of the Jewish people a s a historical phenomenon has emerged, i n which terms like Judaism, Zionism, the ’Jewish bourgeoisie’ a n d Israel are used interchangeably to create a n undifferentiated malevolent stereotype. The Jews were turned into a group lacking any identity of its own, a n y historical continuity, a n y link with Palestine o r even with the revolutionary movements of modern times i n Europe o r i n the Russian Empire — except t h a t of a negative, parasitic o r reactionary

presence. Conspiracy theories and pure slander replaced any serious scholarly research or objective portrayal of the place of Jews i n S o v i e t society, i n world culture o r i n international

affairs. Thus, semi-official prOpaganda has reinforced the suspicion a n d hostility towards Jews deriving from religious, social and ethnic stereotypes, creating a n overall image of Jewish disloyalty, subversion a n d sinister plotting. Official discrimination and popular prejudice nourished by class and national tensions in Soviet society were further strengthened by a kind of pseudo-intellectual antisemitism t h a t h a s come t o the

foreground in recent years. In this widely diffused literature disseminated i n historical novels, science fiction, essays and

pamphlets, it is the Jews who are held responsible for undermining the basis of Russian society - destroying its cultural cohesion, causing its military and economic failures, the collapse of Tsarism, the cruelties of the Russian Revolution, the Gulag labour-camp system a n d the Stalinist terror. Expanding o n the theories of nineteenth-century conservative Slavophiles, this contemporary literature has assigned a 182

The Soviet D i s u n i o n

completely Manichean role to the Jews — that of embodying evil throughout history a n d more specifically of being t h e

hereditary enemies of the Russian people.30 Since t h e coming to power of Gorbachev i n 1 9 8 5 the main

standard-bearers of chauvinist antisemitism have been the xenophobic Great Russian organisations that have flourished under glasnost. The most active and well-known of these organisations is Pamyat, which

h a s some support in the

government, the Communist Party and the Soviet cultural establishment as well as among the masses.“ It controls the Movement for the Restoration of Monuments of Russian Culture, the Russian Republic Culture Fund and a number of environmental movements. There are active supporters of Pamyat in the Union of Russian Artists and the Society Against Alcoholism, and very vocal antisemites in the highly influential Union of Writers of the Russian Republic.32 Other ultra-nationalist organisations aligned to the world-view of Pamyat are the Patriot Society, Otchestvo (Fatherland) based in Novosibirsk, and Rossy, centred in Leningrad. The most important publications which espouse antisemitism as an integral part of their nationalist ideology are Nash Sovremenik (Our Contemporary), the journal of the Union of Writers of the Russian Republic, and the Komsomol literary monthly, Molodaya Gvardiya, but the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya and the weekly Nedelya have also participated in the campaign. Among the most prominent publicists and agitators of Pamyat are the journalist and photographer Dmitri Vasiliev and Igor Sichev, while veteran ’anti-Zionist’ authors like Romanenko and Emelianov are among its leading ideologues. More disturbing, perhaps, is the intellectual basis of the new antisemitism provided by such a prominent mathematician

and former dissident intellectual as Igor Shafarevich or by leading writers like Valentin Rasputin, Valentin Pikul and

Vasily Belov.33Thus, alongside the uniformed thugs of Pamyat with their black-shirted youthful cohorts, there is also a more respectable New Right with supporters i n high places among 183

Enemies of the People

government officials, KGB personnel, writers, artists, scientists and planners. Their ideology is rooted in the bitter disappointment with Communism, i n the general crisis of Soviet society a n d i n t h e i r

anger a t alleged discrimination against ethnic Russians.34 They are in favour of patriotism, law and order, and traditional values blended with ecological concerns to preserve the Russian cultural heritage.35 What they claim to hate are the destructive influences of ‘liberals' in Soviet life, the fads and trends imported from the West, the cosmopolitan intellectuals and so-called ’Russophobes’ — those émigrés, dissidents and above all Jews who are quite falsely said to denigrate Russian history and mock the backwardness of Russian culture. Shafarevich's tract, entitled Russophobia

( 1 9 8 9 ) , can be taken

as the Bible of this anti-Western, anti-Socialist and antisemitic gospel, driven by intellectual paranoia and a n apocalyptic vision of the spiritual crisis confronting Soviet society. One of his key notions is that a small group of people (maly narod), motivated by a rabid fear and hatred of everything Russian, are conducting a n internal struggle against ’the Big People' (bolshoy narod), to ruin their self-respect and depict them as a nation of power-worshipping slaves. According to Shafarevich, ’Russophobic literature is under the strong influence of Jewish nationalist sentiments’. Among the Russophobes whom h e mentions ( n o t all of them Jews) are

Galich and Vysotsky, Amalrik, Grossman and Tarkovsky, Bialik and Babel. Similar efforts a t domination by this small Jewish nation can b e found, he argues, i n the influence of Freud, the fame of the composer Schoenberg, Kafka, or the poets Heinrich Heine and Joseph Brodsky. The aim of the ’small nation’, writes Shafarevich, is ’the ultimate destruction of the religious and national foundations of o u r life, and given the first opportunity, the ruthlessly purposive subversion of our national destiny, resulting in a new and terminal catastrophe, after which probably nothing will be left of o u r people I . 3 6 184

The S o v i e t D i s u n i o n

Shafarevich regards t h e mere discussion of a n t i s e m i t i s m a s

proof that a powerful Jewish lobby exists a n d that Jewish issues have ’acquired a n incomprehensible power over people’s minds’, overshadowing t h e problems of Russians, Ukrainians, E s t o n i a n s , Crimean Tartars, etc. ’Jewish n a t i o n a l e m o t i o n s , ’ h e complained i n Nash Sovremenm'k, ’are t h e fever of the whole country a n d the whole world. They are a negative and agreements trade disarmament, on influence international relations of scientists. They provoke d e m o n s t r a -

tions and strikes and emerge in almost every conversation.’37 It must be stressed that such vulgar ideological myths about

foreign and internal Russophobes (Jews, dissidents, liberals, democrats and émigré intellectuals) enjoy increasing popularity among the Soviet intelligentsia. Hundreds of openly antisemitic

articles have appeared in papers like Nash Sovremenm'k (whose circulation has increased two-fold and is close to a million), Molodaya Gvardiya, Literatumaya Rossia and other strongholds of

the nationalist current.38 They have revived the old Stalinist concept of ’rootless cosmopolitans’ (a euphemism for Jews) and repeatedly identify Jewry in the words of Anatoly Buylov at a recent meeting of the Russian Writers’ Union, as ’the only

nationality with an interest in dissension among us’.39 Jewish ’cosmopolitanism’ is contrasted with pochvenm’chestvo (being rooted i n one’s native soil) as best expressed in the works of

nationalist writers like Viktor Astafev, Vasily Belov, Stanislav Kunyayev, Iury Kuznetsov or Valentin Rasputin.40 An émigré Russian Jewish poet like the Nobel Prizewinner Joseph Brodsky can by this criterion never be a true Russian even if he writes in

the Russian language; the songs of Aleksandr Galich are deplored as ’amoral belletrisation’ divorced from the blood of the nation; the ’genetic memory’ and ’national traits’ of Jews and Russians are totally different, according to the critic Vladimir

Bondarenko;‘“ in Stanislav Kunyayev’s absurdly simplistic view the aesthetic ’impoverishment’ of Jewish culture is t h e result of the extreme rootlessness induced by 2,000 years of Diasporic

existence.42 185

Enemies of the People

Hence, the cosmopolitan Jews naturally encourage the obnoxious a n d destabilising foreign fads from the West which have acquired a n enormously harmful influence over indigenous Russian culture. The impact of the Western-style consumer society, of Western rock music, beauty contests, sex education, defence of homosexuality, pornography in the Soviet cinema, theatre a n d arts, of rising crime and drug abuse are all classic symptoms

for Slavophiles, nationalists and

’village prose' writers of the decadence of Soviet society.43 For a conservative historian like Apollon Kuzmin, only a fundamentally alien social element like the Jews would have had an interest i n introducing such Western models into t h e USSR.

The current policy of cultural liberalisation, the ’pluralism’ of tastes, viewpoints a n d predilections which characterise perestroika are clearly anathema to the New Right and all too easily blamed on urban, intellectual and ’rootless’ Jews. The anti-perestroika alliance of the late 19805 has included neo-Stalinists a s well as radical Slavophiles and conservative nationalists i n its ranks. In Sovetskaya Rossiya (March 1988) the college teacher Nina Andreyeva articulated the neo-Stalinist critique of perestroika, whose chief political sponsor has been Yegor Ligachev, at the time Gorbachev’s most dangerous rival in the Communist Party Politburo. Her essay, rabidly antisemitic in its depiction of Trotsky and of the Jews a s a ’counterrevolutionary' nation, was also intended to rehabilitate Stalin a n d Stalinism for having transformed Russia into a

superpower.44 These and other similar critiques of liberalisation argued that perestroika was undermining the Russian State simply by allowing freedom of expression and ideological rapprochement with the bourgeois West. The most antisemitic element in this critique has been the attempt to shift the blame for the Soviet Gulag, the forced collectivisation and the terror from Stalin to his ’Jewish' lieutenants like Lazar Kaganovich, or back to Trotsky a n d other Bolsheviks of Jewish origin prominent in the 19205. Thus, for Stanislav Kunyayev it was Trotsky (always called 186

The S o v i e t D i s u n i o n

Leib Bronstein to emphasise his Jewishness) who invented the Gulag camp system shortly after the Revolution, as well as the Communist terror a n d the idea of breakneck industrialisation.

Kunyayev carefully selects all senior NKVD officers with Jewish-sounding names to reinforce his claim that they had organised the Gulag system.“ The only non-Jew attacked in this indictment is Nikolai Bukharin, whom the nationalists still hate for having initiated a drive against Russian national culture. But it is above all the Jewish intelligentsia which is seen as instigating in t h e 1920s and 19305 the assault o n the ancient cultural traditions of the fatherland. These ’enemies of the people' deliberately set o u t to destroy the soul, body and memory of the nation, of Russian culture and of the Russian pe0ple as a whole. They were responsible, according to the editor of Molodaya Gvardiya, Anatoly Ivanov, the radical Slavophile critic Vadim Kozhinov and other New Right intellectuals, for terrorising the Russian peasantry during the drive towards collectivisation and for blowing u p Moscow's

churches in the 19305.46 The ideology of the Russian New Right is of course reminiscent i n many ways of t h e German vc'ilkisch antisemitism i n

the Weimar period or of pre-war French integral nationalism. There is the same illiberalism, preoccupation with cultural decadence, apocalyptic mood and sense that the Russian people have become strangers in their own home, threatened both biologically and culturally with extinction. What cements this ideology together is once again the same bogeyman, the image of the omnipotent and ubiquitous Jew — a crafty a n d immensely malevolent enemy. He has many disguises — liberal, freemason,

Social-Democrat, Stalinist, Trotskyite,

fascist or Zionist — but h e embodies everything that is today defined as Western, modernist, cosmopolitan and above all non-Russian. This was exactly the kind of ideological mind-set out of which Nazism developed in Weimar Germany, as a simplistic answer to t h e spiritual, economic a n d political crisis

of modernity.47 187

Enemies of the People

The seeming collapse of Stalinist Socialism in the USSR which brought this congealed intellectual débris to the surface has also been a fertile breeding-ground for the racist antisemitism of the gutter. Threats of pogroms, anti-Jewish rallies in public, street scuffles, graffiti with signs like ’Death to the Yids!’ and harassment of Jewish children i n schools have become commonplace. In January 1990 Pamyat thugs beat their way into the Moscow Writers’ Club armed with megaphones and knuckledusters and began to shout: ’You dirty Jewish mongrels, you’re not writers! Get out to Israel! Now we are masters of the country and neither the Party, nor KGB, or the militia are going to help you! Next time we’ll come with machine-guns!’ Hurling abuse at the writers (most of them not even Jews) and laying about them, the gang went on an

unrestrained rampage.48 When the militia eventually arrived after a long delay it dealt very courteously with the Pamyat people, a s if they were old friends, and seemed indifferent to the damage done — raising once more the question of official complicity. Admittedly, Konstantin Smirnov-Ostashvili, the Pamyat activist who led this escapade, was recently convicted at. the Moscow city court of insulting Jews and promoting ethnic hatred — the first and only time that the Gorbachev government has acted firmly in response to the resurgence of Russian antisemitism. Smirnov-Ostashvili, it should be said, holds Jews ’responsible for the mass genocide of the Russian pe0ple’, denies that the Jewish Holocaust took place, sympathises with Muslim fundamentalists and American neo-Nazis

and wants a Russo—German alliance to eliminate the ’dark

forces’ of Zionism from the world.49 Despite his imprisonment, it must be recognised that the Russian nationalist antisemites have protectors a t various

levels of the Communist Party a n d the KGB. As I heard personally from the former KGB General Oleg Kalugin, towards the end of 1990 in Moscow, on the basis of his intimate knowledge, ’some people in the top echelons of the KGB and the Communist Party were antisemitic a t the core of 188

The S o v i e t D i s u n i o n

t h e i r thinking’; a considerable n u m b e r of K G B officers have

always regarded Jews a s ’potential enemies of the State' and spies for the CIA; he personally knew of ’people in the top echelons of Pamyat who have dealings with the KGB o n a daily basis’; and many of his former colleagues in t h e KGB suspect Jews of being behind t h e radical, progressive forces i n t h e

USSR today.'50 This might help to explain why the Communist Party has permitted Pamyat meetings on its premises, extended official approval for public marches a n d the use of

public halls and generally avoided criminal indictments of antisemitic organisations, even though incitement of racial or religious enmity is forbidden in the USSR. The Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has also failed to denounce publicly the growing tide of antisemitism in his country. Indeed, he even appointed a Russian writer sympathetic to Pamyat, Valentin Rasputin, to his new Presidential Council. Although no serious person imagines that Gorbachev is himself a n antisemite, the tolerance of the authorities towards movements that openly style themselves as heirs to the Russian Black Hundred tradition is troubling. There has been, for example, no response to several appeals by leading Jewish activists to Gorbachev to curb the threatening propaganda that has helped to generate the largest mass exodus in the history of Soviet Jewry since the 1917 Revoluton. There has been no educational campaign against antisemitism, no sustained judicial interventions, no demonstrations in the streets against the black-shirted fascists; no unequivocal or authoritative

statement

by the President pointing to t h e

dangers which antisemitism might represent to the general well-being of Soviet society, let alone reassurances concerning the physical menace to Jews themselves.51 The present economic chaos, the i n t e r - e t h n i c violence a n d

the possible disintegration of t h e Soviet Union as a result of the calls for secession and full national independence by a growing number of Republics can only add to t h e sense of demoralisation of the Jewish minority. As one of their leading spokes189

Enemies of the People

men, Mikhail Chlenov, put it to me in Moscow, they feel that the social crisis is ’reminiscent of the situation in Germany during the 19205 which was so propitious for the growth of

Nazism’.52 Antisemitism, as Soviet Jewish activists emphasise, now exists at all levels of society, from the establishment down to t h e street, among the educated and the uneducated, i n t h e

bureaucracy, the intelligentsia and the working class. It is a product of glasnost and at the same time a weapon against perestroz'ka whose increasingly palpable shortcomings merely

feed the resentment and anger of its victims among the Soviet population at large.53 As so often in the past — whether in Russia or in other societies i n deep spiritual, economic and political crisis — antisemitic mythology displaces and ventilates all the bottled-up hatreds against the most vulnerable and

time-honoured scapegoat.54 Thus far, there have been no antisemitic pogroms i n the European parts of the Soviet Union, though in the more volatile southern Republics — in Baku, i n Sungeit, NagarnoKarabakh and Uzbekistan — there has been violence against Armenians, Turkic Muslims and other minority groups which

bodes ill for the Jews.55 They have the feeling that the Soviet government is either unwilling, unable or not interested in containing these inter-ethnic conflicts, which may even serve to perpetuate Communist rule for a time. The lack of govern-

ment response to the incendiary rhetoric of the antisemites suggests to the Jewish population that no real protection will be forthcoming should mass violence against them also be unleashed. For example, a Leningrad Jewish activist, Avram Dyomin, recently told m e :

These antisemitic organisations expound their propaganda very actively a t factories, i n the new

technical schools; they disseminate their literature among t h e people there. As a rule, the authorities’

attitude towards them is one of approval; either they do not remark upon their activities or in several cases they 190

The S o v i e t D i s u n i o n

even help. Several times recently, Jews have been subjected to serious attacks o n the street, and there have even been several murders with antisemitic motives, and as a rule the police try not to make investigations into

these cases.56 With the disastrous state of the Soviet economy and a long tradition of both state a n d popular antisemitism to contend with, the outlook for Soviet Jewry is grimmer than ever before. Uncertainty, anxiety, even panic have been t h e

response, although thus far the antisemites have not been effectively organised on a political platform o r achieved any striking electoral successes. Indeed, outside of the Russian Republic and some disturbing trends i n Soviet Central Asia, there has been little overt violence, even i n such traditionally antisemitic regions as the Ukraine. Nevertheless, the Jews have been made to feel that they are unwanted strangers in the Soviet Union, for whom there is no future.57 They are being blamed by reactionary forces for all the worst catastrophes in Russian history, and being made the scapegoat for a Communist experiment that after seven decades and untold suffering is ending in disaster.

191

Part 3

Between

Moses

and Mohammed

15 Jews in Islamic

Lands

Although Jews and Muslims have coexisted continuously since the emergence of Islam in the seventh century of the Christian era, sometimes a t peace a n d a t other times i n bitter

conflict, generalisations about antisemitism in Islamic lands are notoriously difficult to m a k e . Partly this is d u e to t h e sheer size, ethnic heterogeneity a n d religious variety of t h e Muslim world a n d the Jews within it, often so disparate i n their

demographic structure, cultural background and level of development. But it is also a function of the relative lack of objective research into the field itself. Myths have grown u p which either grossly exaggerate the hospitable, idyllic and harmonious nature of Jewish—Muslim relations over the centuries or, at the other extreme, present Islam as being relentlessly persecutory and unredeemably oppressive in its treatment of Jews.1 The matter is complicated by t h e contrast

between theory and practice, between anti-Jewish stereotypes a n d actual anti-Jewish behaviour in different periods of Islamic history. The Jewish condition in the age of Mohammed and the early Muslim conquests (620 to 750), in the relatively flourishing period until around 1200, in the later Middle Ages, under the Ottoman ascendency, during the period of Western colonialism a n d finally in the later twentieth century has, after all, been far from uniform. A t times, tolerance towards Jews prevailed a n d they m a d e real intellectual advances, enjoyed economic prosperity a n d occasionally even some political influence. B u t more often,

their existence from northern Africa to Iran was punctuated by 195

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Moses a n d Mohammed

misery, humiliation a n d persecution.2 Admittedly, under Muslim rule, Jews before t h e modern era usually found greater toleration t h a n u n d e r Christianity a n d were spared the regular massacres a n d frequent e x p u l s i o n s which were their

curse in Christendom. There were indeed towns a n d cities u n d e r Muslim rule in t h e Mediterranean a n d t h e Near East with Jewish communities that had known more than two thousand years of continuous Jewish settlement; this, despite a constant danger of anti-Jewish discrimination a n d popular violence, sometimes sporadic but at other times more persistent a n d sustained. I n t h e Moroccan city of Fez, for example, more t h a n 6 , 0 0 0

Jews were massacred in 1033; in the Muslim part of Spain, between 1010 a n d 1013 hundreds of Jews were killed (mainly in Cordoba), a n d in Granada during t h e Muslim riots of 1066 the entire Jewish community of approximately four thousand people was massacred.3 This was a disaster, as serious as that which overtook t h e Rhineland Jews thirty years later during t h e First Crusade, yet it has rarely received much scholarly a t t e n t i o n . I n K a i r o u a n (Tunisia) t h e Jews were persecuted a n d

forced t o leave in 1016, returning later only to be expelled again.4 I n T u n i s i n 1 1 4 5 they were forced to convert o r t o

leave, a n d during the following decade there were fierce antiJewish persecutions throughout the country.5 A similar pattern of events occurred in Morocco after the massacre'of Jews in Marrakesh in 1232. Indeed, in the Islamic world from Spain to the Arabian peninsula t h e looting a n d killing of Jews, along with punitive taxation, confinement to ghettos, t h e enforced wearing of distinguishing marks o n clothes (an innovation i n which I s l a m preceded medieval C h r i s t e n d o m ) ,

a n d other humiliations, were rife. It was such eleventh- a n d twelfth-century tribulations which led the greatest of medieval Jewish philosophers, Maimonedes, to lament in his Epistle to Yemen: ’. . . it is o n account of o u r m a n y sins that God has hurled u s amidst this nation of hostile Ishmael. . . . Never has a nation risen more injurious to us than this people; n o r 196

J e w s i n I s l a m i c Lands

o n e which has come t o degrade us a n d decimate us a n d m a k e

hating us their chief intent.’6 On the other side of the coin, i t must, however, be recognised

that the period from Saadya Gaon (born in AD 882)

to the death of Maimonedes in AD 1204, also marks a Golden Age of medieval Jewish creativity nurtured in a receptive Islamic environment. To this era belongs the poetry of Judah Halevi

(died 1141), Samuel

Hanagid,

Solomon

Ibn Gabirol,

and Moses Ibn Ezra; the renowned Bible commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra; and Maimonedes’s own masterpieces, Mishneh Torah and Guide of the Perplexed. These and other Sephardic

Jews participated fully

in the cultural renaissance

inspired by medieval Islam, often composing their philosophical works and halachic treatises in a form of Judeo-Arabic (Arabic in Hebrew letters), though poetic composition was more often in Hebrew. Arabic was indeed the lingua franca of the day, in which Jews conducted their business, carried o n correspondence

a n d studied classical Jewish

sources.7 Not

until the nineteenth century in Germany and Austria would Jews once more develop a symbiotic relationship of such significance with a surrounding culture. Jews also participated actively in the economic life of the larger, Arabic-speaking society, even though in theory they did not enjoy the same rights and privileges as their Muslim neighbours. From the beginning of the ninth century under the Muslim caliphate, a stratum of wealthy court Jews emerged, first in Baghdad, then in Egypt and Muslim Spain.8 Their opulence, ostentatious life-style and position of authority aroused the xenophobic hatred of the masses. The Caliph Al-Ma'mun (813—833)had already acted against the rise i n Jewish economic

status, a n d u n d e r his successors

popular resentment of Jews in senior administrative positions also increased. But i t was not until the end of the tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh that really systematic antiJewish propaganda was produced, especially in Egypt, which resulted i n hatred a n d violence

towards t h e Jews by the Sunni 197

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Moses

a n d Mohammed

masses. This poisonous propaganda in the time of Yaqub Ibn Killis (a Jewish vizier who had converted to Islam) depicted Jews as treacherous exploiters and oppressors of the Muslims, condemning them as the true rulers of Egypt. Such hatred, based on envy of the socio-economic success of the Jews, became widespread in many sections of the population.9 It continued i n Spain, using similar motifs of contrasting the wealth a n d authority achieved by the Jews with the poverty of the Muslim masses. Already a t the end of the tenth century, intense envy and hostility had been directed against prominent Jewish courtiers like Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, Jacob Ibn

Jau, Samuel Ha-Nagid and Jehoseph ben Samuel Ha-Nagid.‘0 The assassination of the last-named, as a religious duty, was demanded by Abu Ishaq of Elvira in a long poem which denounced Jews for selfishly exploiting Granada’s wealth, abusing the trust of Muslims, mocking their faith and learning

their secrets in order to betray them.11 Such polemics were particularly directed against t h e financial success and influence of the Jews, tending to decrease once their position in the royal courts of Muslim Spain had been eroded. Nevertheless, o n e can find i n the Arabic sources for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, for example in the works of ’Abd al-Rahim al-Dimashqi, examples of how the envy of Jewish success continued t o inspire venomous accusations."-

The Jews might seem outwardly submissive, h e suggested, but their religion required them to hate Muslims and, where possible, to poison their food or cause them harmful illnesses. In such literature, t h e Jews ( a n d to some extent Christians

also) are presented as enemies of Islam and their degradation is s e e n a s desirable. B u t Christians were sometimes regarded

more favourably, for they had wielded power in Byzantium (itself a source of some of t h e anti-Jewish traditions a n d

discriminatory legislation in Islam) and elsewhere, a n d they were thought to engage in more respectable occupations a n d also to assimilate more easily. In order to understand the religious roots of such feelings 198

Jews in Islamic Lands

o n e m u s t go back to t h e d a w n of Islam i n s e v e n t h - c e n t u r y Arabia a n d t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p of t h e prophet M o h a m m e d w i t h both J u d a i s m a n d Christianity. Mohammed s a w himself a s t h e last of a series of prophets sent by God to bring h i s revelation to m a n k i n d . H e regarded t h e Torah a s revealed to M o s e s , the Psalms a s g i v e n t o David a n d t h e Gospels a s ’given’ to J e s u s a s valid written revelations to b e believed b y all M u s l i m s . A t t h e s a m e t i m e , h e went back to Abraham ( i n M u s l i m tradition neither Jew n o r C h r i s t i a n b u t the father of the Arabs) a s t h e

protagonist of a pure, undiluted monotheism which had been revived i n the fi n a l a n d perfect faith of Islam. The earlier

revelations of the Old a n d New Testaments had been authentic but they had been corrupted by their unworthy custodians a n d were n o w superseded by the Koran, the literal word of God as mediated to Mohammed through t h e angel Gabriel.l3

The Koran contains echoes of Mohammed’s conflicts a n d polemics with the Jews after his emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622 (the Hz'jra) where h e encountered resistance from the various Jewish clans and three major Jewish tribes. Two of these tribes h e expelled from Medina a n d t h e t h i r d , the

Qurayza, h e exterminated. This conflict, in which h e emerged victorious, no doubt explains the harsh passages in the Koran, in which Mohammed brands the Jews as enemies of Islam or depicts them as possessing a malevolent, rebellious spirit.l4 There are verses i n the Koran which speak of t h e i r abasement

a n d poverty, of the Jews being ’laden with God's anger’ for their disobedience and ’because they had disbelieved the signs of God a n d slain t h e prophets unrightfully' (Sura 2261/58). According to a n o t h e r verse, ’ t h e unbelievers of t h e C h i l d r e n of Israel' were cursed both by David a n d b y J e s u s ( S u r a 5 : 7 8 / 8 2 ) ,

a n d the penalty for those who suffer God’s wrath forever is to become apes a n d swine or worshippers of idols (Sura 5:60/65). The curse was related to their disbelief in God’s signs, in t h e miracles performed by t h e prophets, in t h e Book of God given to t h e m and in t h e prophecy of Jesus. They had rejected Mohammed, even though they k n e w him to be a prophet, 199

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because he was not a Jew a n d out of jealousy of the Arabs. Such actions were supposedly consistent with the deceitful, treacherous a n d vile nature of the Jews, whom another verse described as ’they whose hearts God desired not to purify; for them is degradation in this world’ and a ’mighty chastisement’ in the world to come. (Sura 5:41/45) Muslim commentary a n d exegesis interpreted these words to mean that Jews would never walk in the straight path, for God Himself h a d made t h e i r hearts that way a n d wanted t o lead them

astray. Many verses accuse them of ’falsehood' (Sura 3:71), of distortion (4:46) a n d of being ’corrupters of Scripture’ (3.63), along with such other vices as cowardice a n d greed. The Koran explicitly declares that ’the strongest in enmity against those who believe are the Jews and the idolaters’. (Sura 5:85).ls The main archetype fostered by this Koranic portrayal is that Jews have rejected Allah's truth and always persecuted His prophets, including Mohammed who had been given the perfected version of their own revelation. Indeed, driven by their perfidious nature, they had acted with conspiratorial malevolence towards the Prophet, allying themselves with his enemies. This notion, a commonplace in the hadith, sira a n d early Islamic literature, even included a standard story of Mohammed’s painful, protracted death from poisoning by a Jewish woman called Zaynab and the attribution of sectarian civil strife in Islam t o a putative Jew, ’Abd Allah b. Saba, allegedly the founder of the heterodox Shi’ite sect. The existence of such mythological archetypes (probably reflecting the conflict betweem Islam a n d the Jews i n M e d i n a ) were constructed ’as part of Islam’s portrayal of the ”proper” world

order where malevolent, conspiratorial Jews were finally humbled under Muslim rule.’ Once the ’Jewish threat' had been tamed and domesticated by early Islam, Jews generally became objects of contempt (and often of legal or social discrimination) rather than hatred.l6 Since Jews and Christians did after all possess authentic revelations and scriptures, under Muslim law they were 200

Jews in Islamic Lands

accorded a certain tolerance w i t h i n t h e framework o f dis-

As ‘Peoples of the Book’ (Ah! al-Kitab), their

crimination.

religions were officially recognised a n d a special status was subjection w i t h protecevolved for them w h i c h combined

tion.'7 As dhimmis (’protected peoples’) they were in a more honourable

category t h a n pagans a n d were permitted, o n

payment of the poll-tax (iizya) to practice their religious rites even i n t h e dar aI-Islam (’the house o f Islam’) a n d t o have their

own communal organisations. '8 But they were also subject to certain disabilities designed to emphasise their inferior status and to underline the superiority of Islam. Thus they could not bear arms, they could not ride horses, they were required to wear distinctive clothing (the yellow badge has its origins in Baghdad, not in medieval Europe), and they were forbidden at least i n theory — t o build n e w places o f worship. Here is t h e

description by the author Bat Ye’or, based on a profusion of documents relating to the status of the dhimmis as elaborated by Muslim jurists from the inception of Islam until the twentieth century: Dhimmis were often considered impure

segregated from the Muslim community. holy Muslim

a n d h a d to be

Entry into

towns, mosques, public baths, as well as

certain streets was forbidden them. Their turbans — w h e n they were permitted t o wear them — their

costumes, belts, shoes, the appearance of their wives and their servants had to be different from those of Muslims in order to distinguish and humiliate them; for the dhz'mmz's could never be allowed to forget that they were inferior beings. The humble donkey was generally the sole beast of burden permitted them and then only outside the town and on condition that they would, as a sign of respect, dismount o n sight of any Muslim and mount again only after their superior was out of sight. Even their saddles had to be ugly and uncomfortable a n d often they were forced to m o u n t side-saddle. In the 201

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street, dhz'mmis were obliged to walk on the left, or impure, side of a Muslim. Their gait had to be rapid and their eyes lowered. Their graves had to be level with the ground so that anyone could walk on them, and in desert lands it was assumed that t h e elements would quickly obliterate their remains. These were the more common r u l e s which i n some regions prevailed into t h e twentieth

century; but there were other no less vexing obligations

applicable to the dhimmz's and to them alone. '9 O n e might of course argue that t h e position of dhimmis (Jews

and Christians) under Islam was better than anything which existed in pre-modern Christendom, however remote either may b e from the standards of twentieth-century democracies with their concepts of human rights, equality before the law and social justice. The dhz'mmi status did not, for example, preclude Jews from owning land, practising various crafts or even participating as equals in a burgeoning imperial economy. Commercial life under Islamic rule did not carry the same stigma as in medieval Christendom, nor were Jews restricted to usury, with all the accompanying negative stereotypes i n European society. They were not associated with t h e Devil, with ritual murder (it was Orthodox Christians

under Muslim rule who would introduce this charge during t h e nineteenth century) with well-poisoning or with other medieval Christian superstitions. Above all, they did not carry the theological odium of being Christ-killers. Indeed, according to the Koran, Jesus had never actually been crucified (he had been saved by God a n d a likeness killed in his place), while Mohammed had won h i s battle against t h e Jewish tribes. This

helps to explain why the Koranic image of t h e Jew - while still predominantly negative, as we have seen — lacked t h e

diabolical quality which it acquired in medieval Christianity.20 The more relaxed theological attitude of Islam a t the peak of its civilisation is reflected also in the absence of that vast antiJewish polemical literature by means of which medieval 202

J e w s i n I s l a m i c Lands

C h r i s t i a n t h e o l o g i a n s s o u g h t to r e f u t e J u d a i s m a n d convert

Jews to Christianity. Until t h e twentieth century, Muslim theologians, not feeling t h e constant Christian compulsion to justify their ’usurpation’ of Judaism and replacement of the Old by t h e ’New' Israel, did not engage in frequent polemics against Judaism. It was more often Jews who converted to Islam, like S a m a u ’ a l al-Magribi i n t h e m i d d l e of t h e twelfth century, who felt obliged to d e m o n s t r a t e why J u d a i s m w a s so

contemptible that it ought to be degraded or repressed.“ Medieval Muslims, unlike their co-religionists today o r their Christian counterparts centuries ago, were o n t h e whole sufficiently self-confident not to be fearful of Jews as participants in a deadly plot to destroy them. The Jews, to be sure, were often viewed as devious a n d treacherous schemers but they were considered far too weak, cowardly and ineffectual t o be really dangerous. This would only begin to change with t h e decline of Muslim military power over the last two hundred years and the loss of many central Islamic lands to foreign colonial rule, which eroded the traditional sense of Islamic hegemony and m a d e Islam much more suspicious of minorities. I n t h e p r e - m o d e r n era, however, Islamic Jews c o n t i n u e d to

enjoy certain advantages over their co-religionists living u n d e r Christian rule. Whereas, by t h e end of the eleventh century, Jews were virtually t h e only non-Christians left in Christendom, in medieval Islamic civilisation with its Christians, Jews a n d Zoroastrians ( n o t t o mention t h e diverse

non-Arab ethnic groups), pluralism was more deeply ingrained. Muslim discrimination was directed at t h e dhimmis a s a w h o l e a n d n o t j u s t a g a i n s t t h e Jews i n particular. T h e

latter might be regarded socially and religiously as inferiors, but they were not rigidly set apart in the way that this happened in t h e more corporate, hierarchically organised C h r i s t i a n societies. N o r c o u l d Jews be seriously regarded a s

’alien' to a region where their ancestors had often lived for

generations before the Islamic conquests.22 203

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Forced conversions of Jews t o Islam were also comparatively rare a n d the religious hostility, while real enough, lacked the sharp edge of Christianity, with its whole theology of rejection a n d insistence o n the collectiveguilt of the Jews for having murdered God in t h e flesh. Nevertheless, scorn and c o n t e m p t for Judaism ( a n d Christianity) were well anchored

in Muslim tradition a n d were frequently brought into play when dhimmis rose to positions of authority at various times, in apparent contravention of the regulations governing Jews and Christians. The original decrees, which were called the ’Pact of ’Umar’ (in honour of the eighth-century Caliph ’Umar I), were after all intended to degrade the ahl ad-dhimma o r ’protected p e 0 p l e s ' , w h i l e permitting them to exercise their religion in

return for paying tribute and accepting certain humiliations. They had not originally been designed to permit Spanish, Iraqi o r Turkish Jews to make brilliant careers in the courts of Caliphs, Sultans a n d Princes, thereby seeming to mock the whole system of discrimination formulated by the Prophet and t h e Muslim jurists. Clearly, t h e discriminatory legislation was not rigorously applied by Muslim rulers when it conflicted with their own economic or political interests. The ruling authorities, where they lacked a n independent tribal o r military base for their r u l e , m i g h t have recourse to Christians o r Jews. Moreover, i n

a n age of Islamic expansion, prosperity, population growth, mobility a n d intellectual openness such as prevailed between the ninth a n d twelfth centuries, the dhz'mmi status might be honoured more in t h e breach than otherwise. But this did not

mean that the dhimmi status was purely theoretical.23 For in this same period, as we have seen, there were t h e fierce Almohad persecutions of the twelfth century in North Africa a n d Muslim Spain, t h e attacks o n Egyptian Jewry by the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim a n d t h e diatribes of Abu Ishaq against t h e Jews of S p a i n . The exercise of conspicuous power by a Jew

(or Christian) could easily arouse t h e Muslim masses a n d ignite demands by religious reformers to restore the dhimmis t o 204

J e w s i n I s l a m i c Lands

t h e i r proper place. T h e demand for a n y t h i n g approaching J e w i s h economic o r political e q u a l i t y ( i n d e e d a n y divergence from t h e norm of h u m i l i a t i o n a n d a b a s e m e n t ) w a s perceived

as a provocation, a breach of t h e Pact of 'Umar, a sign of haughtiness a n d arrogance which could be punishable by

death.24 The restrictions o n dhimmis were m o s t rigorously enforced

o n t h e periphery of t h e Muslim world, in countries like Iran, Yemen and Morocco, where o n e finds conditions of physical insecurity, marginalisation a n d submission in their pristine forms, well into the modern period. A British traveller to Morocco in the 18205 observed: ’The Moroccans think that they have a natural right to mistreat Jews a n d Christians.’25 The reports of virtually all travellers to Morocco from the end of the seventeenth century concur that Jews lived in abject fear of Muslims a n d were subject to continuous humiliation,

degradation, contempt and oppression.26 In periods of anarchy a n d insecurity, the mellahs of Moroccan Jewry were easy targets for looting, rape a n d killing, as in Meknes in 1728, D e m n a t i n 1 8 7 5 a n d 1 8 8 4 , Sefrou ( 1 8 9 0 ) , Taza a n d S e t t a t ( 1 9 0 3 ) . I n t h e sixteen years preceding 1 8 8 0 , more t h a n 5 0 0

Jews were murdered in Morocco, often in broad daylight in the main streets. Even in a coastal port like Casablanca, in 1907 30 Jews were killed a n d 200 women, girls a n d boys abducted, raped a n d then ransomed. While in Fez, on 18 April 1912, a t the start of French rule, Muslim riots led to the killing of 60

Jews and the sacking of the Jewish quarter in the city.27 In neighbouring Algeria, where under Turkish rule before 1830 Jews had to wear a black skullcap, grey cloak a n d hood, 40 Jews were murdered in 1805. At t h e end of the century there would be rampant anti-Jewish violence throughout Algeria, though this would be the work of French a n d European settlers rather than Muslim Arabs. Thirty years earlier, o n the Tunisian island of Djerba in 1864, Arab bands pillaged t h e Jewish communities, burned and looted synagogues a n d raped t h e w o m e n . 2 8 I n T u n i s itself, i n 1 8 6 9 1 8 205

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Jews were murdered in the space of a few months by Muslims.29 In Libya, too, there was violence (hundreds of Jews h a d b e e n murdered i n 1 7 8 5 ) , a n d harsh anti-Jewish

measures were carried o u t i n 1860. In neighbouring Tripolitania, the synagogues were plundered in 1897 througho u t t h e country a n d several Jews were killed. In Egypt Jews were attacked in anti-foreign riots in 1882, as they would be againin 1919, 1921 and 1924. More ominously, they would b e accused in Alexandria i n 1844,1881 and 1902 of using human blood for ritual purposes. The ’blood libels' which abounded in t h e Muslim Ottoman Empire, especially during t h e nineteenth century, were not in fact supported by t h e Ottoman state, which was generally tolerant of Jews a n d discriminated against them less than it did against Christians. They originated among the Greek Christian population, leading to pogroms in Smyrna (1872) and

Constantinople

(1874).30 The charges stemmed from

traditional Christian superstitions a n d economic rivalry with t h e Jews, who were dangerous competitors in trade a n d commerce. The ’blood libels’ were sometimes supported by the consuls of Catholic countries like France, as i n the notorious

Damascus Affair of 1840.3| This necessitated the intervention of prominent Western Jews like Moses Montefiore a n d Adolphe Crémieux, who rallied European opinion against this dangerous myth a n d persuaded t h e Ottoman Sultans to issue firmans unequivocally condemning the blood libels.32 But the calumny, initiated by Near Eastern Christians, nonetheless spread, w i t h instances recorded i n B e i r u t ( 1 8 2 4 ) , Antioch ( 1 8 2 6 ) , H a m m a ( 1 8 2 9 ) , Tripoli ( 1 8 3 4 ) , Damascus ( 1 8 4 8 ) ,

Aleppo (1853) and Damanhur (1877) to name only a few.33 The native C h r i s t i a n s ( G r e e k Orthodox, Catholic, Maronite, A r m e n i a n , etc.) who helped to pioneer t h e ideology of modern

secular Arab nationalism, also brought classical European a n t i s e m i t i c n o t i o n s to t h e Arab world, w h i c h u n d o u b t e d l y

infected the Muslims.34 A calumny, essentially alien to the Islamic tradition, has in the twentieth century been fully 206

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integrated into Muslim perceptions of Jews even a t the highest level. A good example can be found in the remarks of King Feisal of S a u d i Arabia, w h i c h appeared i n t h e 19705 i n the Arabic weekly al-Musawwar, stating t h a t Jews

have a certain day o n which they mix the blood of non-Jews into t h e i r bread a n d e a t it. It happened t h a t

two years ago, while I was in Paris o n a visit, t h e police discovered five murdered children. Their blood had been drained a n d it turned o u t that some Jews had murdered them in order to take their blood and mix it with t h e bread t h a t t h e y eat o n t h i s d a y . This shows

you what is t h e extent of their hatred and malice

toward non-Jewish peoples.3S Another more recent and no less chilling illustration can be found in the book The Matzah of Zion, written by the Syrian Defence Minister Mustafa Tlas a n d published in Arabic in 1983. In this hate-filled work, Tlas accepted as literally true the charges in the Damascus blood libel of 1840, in which eight Jews were falsely accused of murdering a Capuchin monk a n d his servant, a n d of u s i n g t h e victims' blood to bake matzot. Tlas,

a lawyer and respected a u t h o r who had presented his doctoral thesis a t the Sorbonne, claimed through his book ’to throw light on some secrets of t h e Jewish religion based on the

conduct of Jews and their fanaticism’.36 He relates that the people of Damascus learned t h e i r lesson i n t h e 18405: ’From

that moment on every mother warned her child: Do not stray far from home. The Jew may come by and put you in his sack to kill you a n d suck your blood for the Matzah of Zion.’ Further o n , Tlas describes the religious beliefs of Jews as being based on a ’black hatred of all humanity and all religions' and suggests t h a t ’Zionist racism’ is ’just a n extension of Talmudic teachings

including their crimes and deviations’?’7 It is indeed ironic that Christian dhimmis, so long t h e object 207

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of Muslim discrimination, should have heavily contributed to the dissemination of such archetypal antisemitism i n the Arab world, though it may be psychologically understandable a s a

form of ’identification with the aggressor'. For antisemitic rhetoric that points to the Jews as a common enemy of the Arabs may indeed have served as a n illusory way for Arabised Christians to escape from their minority status and low political status within Islam. For Muslims, too, there may be benefits in adopting traditional Christian accusations like the blood libel against the Jews. For this can provide a common link with Western antisemitic discourse that Muslim anti-Judaism based o n t h e Koran alone cannot hope to elicit. Moreover, o n the

internal Arab front, it might on occasion help to cement Muslim-Christian unity against the Jews and Zionism. During t h e period of Western colonial rule, however, t h e Christian minorities (and to a lesser extent the Jews) u n doubtedly sympathised with both British and French domination of t h e Middle East, to which they owed their liberation from t h e traditional dhimmi servitude. For a while, the minorities flourished u n d e r this protection, though in the case of t h e Jews, who were fewer, poorer a n d less influential than their Christian rivals, this proved to be a mixed blessing. The fact that Jews in North Africa o r t h e Levant came to be seen as the allies of foreign colonial powers was bound to add a new layer of resentment to t h e traditional Muslim attitudes of hostility a n d contempt. The rise of secular Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism strengthened the xenophobic suspicion of all minorities, with Christian Armenians a n d

Assyrians, as well as Muslim Kurds, being massacred during

the course of this century.38 But Jews were especially subject to hostility against t h e background of t h e growing struggle between the Zionists a n d t h e Arabs in Palestine after 1918. From t h e 19205 onwards, a much more virulent anti-Jewish propaganda became i n fl u e n t i a l , with m a n y M u s l i m s coming

to see t h e Jews not merely as a weak, religious minority but as a national-Zionist ’fifth column’. Although some Arab leaders 208

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claimed

t h a t they g e n u i n e l y distinguished between Zionists

and Jews, this distinction was barely tenable for the Arab masses. The net result would be a further undermining of t h e ever more vulnerable position of t h e Jewish minorities i n t h e M u s l i m Arab world.

The rise of Arab nationalism, the radicalisation of t h e M u s l i m masses, t h e effects of economic crisis, social unrest a n d

political instability, allied to the results of decolonisation and of Zionism, would eventually lead to the uprooting of Jews in

Islamic lands.39 The whole historic process was accompanied by riots and pogroms against virtually every Jewish community in t h e Arab countries. In Morocco in June 1948, 4 3 Jews were killed during Muslim riots and over 150 wounded in Djerada. In 1952, unstable political conditions led to antiJewish mob violence by Muslims, followed two years later by pillaging of Jewish property and the destruction of some Jewish schools. This was repeated i n 1 9 5 5 with several Jews

also killed i n Safi and Oued Zem. In February 1957 exit visas for Jews were abolished, with t h e result that they could no longer legally l e a v e t h e country, a n d a year later t h e number of

Jewish officials in the Moroccan government decreased. By 1974 only 20,000 Jews remained in Morocco, compared with the 285,000 who had lived there in 1948 — the majority having emigrated to Israel.40 In Algeria, before the Second World War, antisemitism had traditionally been a preserve of the French settlers, though in 1934 2 5 Jews had been killed during Muslim attacks i n Constantine.“ From the beginning of t h e Algerian war of liberation against t h e French, however, Jews suffered, with their shops sacked in Oran in 1956 a n d an Arab boycott slowly forcing them out of businesses a n d the professions. In 1960, in Algiers, during anti-French riots, t h e Great Synagogue was desecrated and destroyed.42 A year later, the Algerian provisional government opposed Jewish emigration t o Israel a n d i n 1 9 6 2 it deprived Jews of m a n y economic rights.

Following Israel's victory in t h e 1967 war against t h e Arab states, synagogues were desecrated. By t h e mid-19705 there 209

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were only 500 Jews left in Algeria, as against the 140,000 still present i n 1 9 4 8 . The majority emigrated t o France, a l o n g w i t h

t h e rest of t h e European settler population. In Tunisia, the Jewish population of 110,000 i n 1948 had fallen to a mere 2,000 by 1975. Before the war, Jews had already been attacked by a n Arab mob in Sfax (July 1932), protesting a t the Jews of Europe going to Palestine. Under t h e brief wartime German occupation, over 4,000 Jews i n Tunisia

had been arrested in November 1942 and some were even deported t o concentration camps in Europe. The antisemitic propaganda in Arabic, broadcast from Berlin, had a considerable impact in t h e country (as it did in Morocco, Egypt, Iraq a n d other Arab countries), leading some Arabs to point o u t Jews to t h e occupying German forces. After independence from France in 1956 the treatment of Jews deteriorated, even though the nation's leader, Habib Bourguiba, was a secular, pro-Western statesman who took a relatively moderate position on the Palestinian question a n d was anything but a n antisemite. There was a clamp-down o n Jewish community councils in the late 19505 a n d rabbinical tribunals were abolished. In 1964 t h e regime imposed serious restrictions o n Jewish economic activity. O n 5 J u n e 1967,during t h e Six Day War, the Great Synagogue of Tunis was burned a n d scrolls of t h e Law destroyed in anti-Jewish riots, which Bourguiba himself publicly condemned. But as the Tunisian-born writer Albert M e m m i ( w h o i n t h e 19505 had been a n a r d e n t s u p p o r t e r of t h e Arab nationalist m o v e m e n t ) noted i n 1975,

’We should have liked t o be Arab Jews. If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries t h e Muslim Arabs systematically prevented its realisation by their contempt a n d cruelty.’43 A Libyan Jewish writer, Maurice Roumani, i n t h e same year made some similar observations about his native country, where the Jewish population fell to twenty, from its 1948 figure of 38,000.He wrote that in Libya ’the man in t h e street w a s i n t o l e r a n t of t h e mere existence of t h e J e w i n h i s 210

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country’.44In 1938 Libyan Jews had already been subjected to Italian ’racial’ laws, despite their close identification w i t h t h e Italian rulers o f t h e colony. D u r i n g t h e war t h e situation o f

Libyan Jews became worse, for German occupation led to the sacking o f the Jewish quarter of Benghazi a n d t h e deportation across t h e desert o f about 20,000 Jews, w i t h m a n y d y i n g en route.45 The presence of a British m i l i t a r y administration failed

to prevent savage anti-Jewish riots i n Tripoli on 5 November 1945, in which more t h a n a h u n d r e d Jews were massacred.46 The pogrom was carefully planned a n d occurred against the

background of the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and stories o f violence i n Palestine. In Tripoli, three years later, Arab mobs attempted to repeat the performance b u t found t h e ham (Jewish quarter) w e l l prepared by t h e Haganah. This t i m e

the attackers were repulsed with 12 Jews and 4 Arabs killed, but many Jewish houses were destroyed. Before independence in 1951 the majority of Libyan Jews emigrated to Israel. Those who stayed had their right to vote removed in 1963 and were forbidden to hold office. During the Six Day War about 100 Jews in Benghazi and another 18 in Tripoli were killed: synagogues, shops and homes were looted and burned: and

there was widespread destruction of Jewishproperty.47In July 1970, the new Libyan ruler, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, one o f t h e most ferocious enemies of Israel, announced

t h e seizure

of all Jewish property without compensation.48 In Egypt a more complex situation prevailed, for Jews i n t h e i n t e r - w a r years occupied a secure a n d respected position i n

society and had considerable influence on the Egyptian economy. They were o n l y o n e a m o n g many minorities, outnumbered by t h e Christian Copts, rivalled by the Greeks i n economic a n d cultural influence, t o a lesser extent even by t h e

Italians, Syrians and Armenians. There was little hostility to Egyptian Jews until the Arab revolt in Palestine (1936—9), and whatever resentment there was appeared to come from t h e Christian minorities. Moreover, they were t o a certain extent protected by t h e European powers, especially the British a n d 211

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French. Nevertheless, Egyptian Jewry by the late 19305 had

become an internal enemy to committed Muslim nationalists.49 They were neither Muslim, nor were most of them familiar with the Arabic language and culture. Indeed, many Jews were not of Egyptian origin and held foreign nationality, which was not unusual for minorities in inter-war Egypt. Their activities in the Egyptian nationalist, and above all the communist movements, tended to be viewed with suspicion. Their association with Zionism (usually exaggerated) became a particular source of hostility as the Palestine Question assumed greater importance for Egyptian public opinion. The powerful Muslim Brotherhood was able to mobilise classic anti-Jewish themes against them, especially in militant Islamic circles, by adapting Koranic sources

to the needs of the anti-Zionist struggle.so Ahmad Husayn's proto- fascist Misr al-Fatat (Young Egypt) movement, with its paramilitary Green Shirts, was even more openly antisemitic, a s

part of its militant Egyptian nationalism.SI As a result of this agitation there were serious anti-Jewish riots in many Egyptian towns in 1938—9 against the back-

ground of the Palestine Question.52 On ’Balfour Day' (2 November 1945) violence again escalated with the looting of shops and wrecking of synagogues. There were 10 Jews killed and some 350 injured. During the first Arab—Israeli war, Jewish casualties and damage to homes by rioting Muslims was again extensive. In June—July 1 9 4 8 over 5 0 Jews were

killed, some of them suffering savage mutilations. O n 22 September 1948, 2 0 Jews died and 61 were injured following an explosion in the Jewish quarter of Cairo. The Suez war of 1956 brought new and more serious tribulations to Egyptian Jewry, with 4,000 being summarily expelled after they had been compelled to abandon all property rights and financial claims. During May—June 1967 all Jews i n official employment were dismissed, 5 0 0 Jews were

arrested and some were brutally tortured. By the mid-19705 only 350 Jews remained out of the once thriving Jewish 212

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community which had still numbered 75,000 in 1948. The persecutions of 1948, 1956 and 1967, which forced the Jews i n t o exile t o avoid the threat of prison a n d torture, h a d brought to a tragic e n d the long history o f Egyptian Jewry. Their fate belied t h e claims o f the Egyptian dictator Gamal A b d u l Nasser that h e was o n l y ’anti-Zionist’, for even Egyptian Jews w h o

guarded a low profile and wanted nothing to do with Israel suffered from t h e mass arrests a n d were accused of being ’ t r a i t o r s ’ . ” Moreover, the rabid antisemitism still prevalent today, i n a n Egypt ’ w i t h o u t J ews', more t h a n a decade after t h e Peace Treaty with Israel, suggests that, as in Europe, negative stereotypes can flourish even more successfully when the Jewish communities w h o were once their concrete object

have vanished from the scene. Syrian Jewry before the First World War had enjoyed the benevolent protection o f the Turkish authorities from the various blood libels, spread mainly by local Christians. For

most of the French mandate period, there were only isolated and sporadic incidents against Jews, except during the Druze revolt against French rule in 1925. But in 1938, with the Palestine question causing

great agitation i n Syria, attacks

against Jews became more frequent and serious.54 Following independence in 1945, passports were refused for travel to Palestine,

the Jewish quarter in Damascus was raided a n d in

June the director of the Alliance Israelite school was murdered. On 2 December 1947, in Aleppo, the masses ran amok in the Jewish quarter, burning most of the synagogues, breaking i n t o 6 0 shops a n d 150 houses a n d setting them

ablaze.SS In February 1948 and again in August 1949, bombs were placed in the Damascus Jewish quarter, leading

to scores

of deaths and many wounded. In July 1949 13 Jews were murdered in Damascus and the local synagogue was

damaged.56 The Six Day War brought new trials and tribulations, with S7 Jews killed by Syrian mobs in Kamishliye during antiJewish riots. Since that t i m e draconian restrictions have been 213

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enforced on Syrian Jews, completely forbidding them to emigrate, virtually confining them to their places of residence a n d stamping their identity cards with the word 'Musawz' (Mosaic, a J e w ) . They are frequently subject to curfews a n d

forbidden to have radios, telephones or postal contact with the o u t s i d e world. The property of t h e few Jews who managed to

leave Syria illegally was confiscated and the remaining relatives were mistreated by the Syrian police. At a n international conference in Paris in 1971 two Syrian Jews who had escaped testified that the secret police supervised all Jewish gatherings, including synagogue services, and that local Jews were subjected to unemployment, poverty, arrests and sometimes even to torture. In the Jewish quarter of Damascus, the remaining 3— 4,000 Jews are often maltreated by their Palestinian refugee neighbours, their life is very hard and they have for decades

been hostages of the brutal Assad regime.57 In neighbouring Iraq, there are today only a few dozen Jews left out of a community which in 1948 had still numbered 135,000. The historical record since the country gained independence from Great Britain in 1932 has been a grim one for a Jewish community whose origins dated back almost three millennia. Under the British mandate Iraqi Jews enjoyed full equality with Muslims, freedom a n d a feeling of security. They were accepted into the civil service a s officials and judges a n d enjoyed representation in the Iraqi parliament. A Jew even

held the office of Finance Minister between 1920 and 1925. Until 1934 there was no government discrimination against Jews or attacks by the Muslim populace, though Zionist activity was forbidden after 1 9 2 9 .

The situation deteriorated with the rise of Nazism in Germany (the German envoy Dr Fritz Grobba helped to disseminate Nazi propaganda with growing success) and with the growing influence of exiled Syrians and Palestinians in the administration, political parties and the school system. In September 1934 dozens of non-Muslims were dismissed from government service and the following year secret instructions 214

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were given by t h e Ministry of Education to limit t h e number of Jews in secondary schools a n d institutions of higher learning. Many Jews were prevented from travelling to Palestine. Following the disturbances there, which began in 1936, Iraqi Jews were accused of ‘ d u a l loyalties’ a n d some responded by dissociating themselves from Zionism o r even c l a i m i n g t o b e

fervent adherents of the Pan-Arab idea. But in 1936 ten Jews were killed by Arab rioters in Baghdad a n d Basra. Again, in July 1937 there were violent anti-Jewish demonstrations in

Baghdad, incited mainly by Syrians and Palestinians.58 Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, a new coterie of Arab exiles from Palestine, led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, arrived in Baghdad, a development which reinforced anti-British feelings a n d hatred of the Jews. Axis radio propaganda a n d pro-Nazi sympathies in the Iraqi army and among influential student leaders impressed by the German example also helped to poison the

atmosphere. On 18 April 1941 Rashid Ali al-Gailani formed his second Cabinet, which included individuals known for their Nazi connections a n d their anti-Jewish attitudes like

Yunus al-Sab’éwi.” With the collapse of the pro-German regime, following the reconquest of Iraq by Britain, a terrible pogrom (known in Arabic as Farhfid) was perpetrated by Muslims in Baghdad against the Jewish community on 1—2 June 1941. Several hundred Jews were slaughtered, many more wounded and Jewish property worth more than a million English pounds was looted. The British Army, at t h e gates of the city, did not intervene and showed n o inclination to appear a s t h e protector of the Jews by searching for t h e

perpetrators of the bloodshed.6o Anti-Jewish propaganda continued in Iraq during the war years, with Arabs welcoming G e r m a n military successes a n d

with leaflets circulating which promised further massacres against Iraqi Jews in t h e future. In July 1946 there were antiJewish riots in which hundreds of Jews were wounded a n d much property destroyed. In 1947 the political climate 215

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deteriorated still further, with the UN resolution on the partition of Palestine. In August 1948 Zionism was officially declared a crime by t h e Iraqi government a n d many Jews were

imprisoned, some of them even hanged - all were accused of supplying arms to the ’Zionists’. They included a Jewish millionaire, Shafiq ’Adas, whose contacts in high places did n o t save him from the unyielding hatred of the anti-Jewish Defence M i n i s t e r , S é d i q a l - B a s s a m . B y this time Iraqi Jews

began escaping by t h e hundreds to Israel via Iran. O n 4 March 1950 the Iraqi government finally legalised this haphazard exodus. An official decree confiscated all the property of Jews leaving for Israel, a n d appointed a special custodian to sell it b y

public auction. All bank accounts of emigrants were seized by the state. By the end of 1951, the vast majority of Iraqi Jews (113,545) had flown to Israel, leaving only a very small

number behind.6| Immediately after t h e Six Day War of 1967, scores of Jewish merchants were arrested on the pretext of having smuggled money o u t of t h e s t a t e . Then, a t the end of 1 9 6 8 , more Jews

were imprisoned, this time accused of spying for Israel by t h e Iraqi Ba’ath regime. Nine of them were sentenced to death for alledged ’Zionist’ activity and publicly hanged on 2 7 January 1969 to the shouts of jubilant crowds. The last remnants of Iraqi Jewry were n o w being held u p a s scapegoats for t h e Arab

military disaster of 1967, as the ’fifth column’, the local agents of imperialism a n d Zionism. This new outbreak of antis e m i t i s m ( 1 9 6 7 - 7 0 ) gave rise to a series of new discriminatory

measures, including the imposition of quotas o n Jews at Iraqi universities, t h e cancelling of jobs a n d contracts, t h e freezing

of Jewish property transactions and liquid assets.62 But it was t h e gruesome spectacle of the January 1969 show-trials (comparable in their more modest way to the Moscow trials of the 19305) and t h e public hangings which followed them which pointed the way to the totalitarian f u t u r e . For t h e mass participation i n t h e h a n g i n g of t h e

’Zionist’ spies in Liberation Square was crucially important to 216

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the legitimation of Ba’athism. It proved, as Tariq ’Aziz ( c u r r e n t l y t h e Iraqi Foreign Minister) would assert i n 1 9 7 2 ,

that t h e Ba'ath regime had the will and capability to eradicate all ’conspiracies’ a n d ’espionage n e t w o r k s ' . Referring t o t h e

1969 hangings, h e denied that they were ’barbaric’ o r ’primitive’: ’That event was a m o n u m e n t of confidence staged by t h e revolution i n t h e most important square i n B a g h d a d t o

prove to the people that what had been impossible in t h e past was now a fact that could speak for itself.’63 The monstrous regime of Saddam Hussein, built o n terror, fear a n d t h e u b i q u i t o u s secret police, h a s had many occasions since t h e n t o

demonstrate to t h e masses t h e concreteness of so-called ’imperialist-Zionist plots’ against t h e ’freedom-loving' Iraqi

Republic. His repeated threats to incinerate Israel with chemical weapons a n d his historic identification with Nebuchadnezzar, t h e pagan Babylonian destroyer of t h e First Temple, have been macabre reminders of t h e myth-making destructiveness of totalitarian politics. The d e m i s e of t h e once prosperous Iranian Jewish com-

munity as a result of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 has been a n equally tragic example of t h e fate of contemporary Jews in Muslim lands. The legal status of Persian Jewry before 1906 had been governed by traditional Muslim law, leaving t h e m without any rights as citizens a n d their residency dependent o n payment of t h e poll-tax. I n t h e Shari'a courts which controlled t h e judicial system, t h e evidence of a Jew against a M u s l i m w a s considered invalid a n d a M u s l i m was n o t p u t t o

death for t h e murder of a Jew, even if two Muslim witnesses had given testimony against him. Religious functionaries, who had great influence o n t h e masses in this devout Shi’ite country, were consistently hostile t o t h e Jews a n d adhered t o a

stringent theory about t h e ritual impurity of non-Muslims w h i c h d i d n o t exist i n S u n n i M u s l i m countries. T h e h u m i l i a -

tion, persecution a n d suffering of t h e Persian Jews induced constant i n t e r v e n t i o n by foreign s t a t e s a n d Western Jewry t o

ease their degraded dhimmi status. Constitutional equality was 217

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e v e n t u a l l y achieved i n 1 9 0 6 , b u t d u r i n g t h e n e x t four years

Jews were assaulted in Shiraz, while there was also looting a n d murder in Hamadhan, Darab a n d Kermanshah. In 1910, 12 Jews were killed a n d some 50 wounded in Shiraz.64 The military dictatorship instituted by Riza Shah Pahlavi after 1925 brought t h e Iranian Jews equality with Muslims in many spheres, though non-Shi’ite Muslims could still not serve as government ministers or elect any but their own representatives to parliament. The humiliating poll-tax was abolished a n d the impurity practices prohibited, though they were never successfully uprooted a m o n g religious Shi'ite

Muslims; even today they regard Jews as unclean a n d would not eat fruit handled by them o r use a glass from which they have drunk. But Riza Shah’s determination to modernise the country by i n t r o d u c i n g secular laws, civil marriage a n d other

measures that reduced the power of t h e Muslim clergy undoubtedly helped to improve t h e status of t h e Iranian

Jews.65 This policy was continued by his son, under whose regime t h e Jews became fully acculturated, were concentrated in Teheran a n d transformed into a n economically thriving c o m m u n i t y . Hatred of Jews d i m i n i s h e d , t h o u g h never entirely

disappeared, being periodically encouraged by t h e more fanatical religious a n d nationalist elements. The most formidable of all t h e opponents of the Shah was t h e A y a t o l l a h K h o m e i n i , who constantly d e n o u n c e d

the

attempts of the Pahlavi dynasty to circumvent Islam, its links to t h e United States a n d Israel, t h e cult of materialism in Iranian society a n d its growing loss of spiritual identity. As early as 1962 o n e can find a n antisemitic discourse i n Khomeini’s speeches a n d writings, linked to his obsession with foreign conspiracies a n d internal decadence. He warned Iranians that ‘the independence of the country a n d its economy are about to b e taken over by Zionists, who in Iran appear as t h e party of Baha’is, a n d if this deadly silence of Muslims continues, they will soon take over t h e entire economy of the country a n d drive it t o complete bankruptcy. 2.18

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I r a n i a n television is a J e w i s h spy base, t h e government sees

this a n d approves of it.’66 Khomeini consistently linked foreign cultural products with materialistic intoxication by t h e West a n d with the poisonous corruption of Muslim religious values. Israel, Zionism a n d t h e Jews of Iran played a crucial role in this ‘sinister influence’ of Western cultural a n d economic imperialism, a i d e d a n d abetted

by t h e S h a h ’ s

regime.67 ’Israel, the universally recognised enemy of Islam a n d the Muslims . . . has with t h e assistance of the despicable governm e n t of Iran’, so h e declared in 1971, ’penetrated all the economic, military, a n d political affairs of t h e country.’ In Khomeini’s eyes, Israel was a ’cancerous growth in the Middle East’, sowing dissension among Muslims a n d plotting, with the help of America, ’satanic’ conspiracies against t h e Islamic Revolution.68 But his anti-Israelism was often but a thin veneer for a virulent anti-Judaism, returning to t h e Koranic sources of the Islamic faith. As he put it in his ’Program for t h e Establishment of a n Islamic Government’ (1970), We s e e today t h a t t h e Jews ( m a y God curse t h e m ) have

meddled with the text of the Koran a n d have made certain changes i n t h e Korans they have printed i n t h e

occupied territories. It is o u r duty to prevent this treacherous interference. . . . We must protest and make the people aware that t h e Jews and their foreign backers are opposed t o t h e very f o u n d a t i o n s of I s l a m

and wish to establish Jewish domination throughout t h e world. Since they are a cunning a n d resourceful group of people, I fear that — God forbid! — they may o n e day achieve this goal, a n d that t h e apathy shown b y s o m e of u s m a y a l l o w a J e w t o r u l e o v e r u s o n e d a y .

May God never let us see such a day.69 With Khomeini’s Islamic revolution, t h e wheel came full circle for t h e remnants of Jewry in Islamic lands. A govern219

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ment was established for whom Islamic archetypes of the Jews (reinforced by specific Shi’ite phobias) from seventh-century Arabia were valid for t h e conduct of politics i n t h e l a t e

twentieth century. The strategems of Israel were merely a c o n t i n u a t i o n of t h e ’anti-Islamic propaganda’ which the Jews had allegedly engaged i n d u r i n g a n d since t h e days of t h e

Prophet. The Koranic teachings a n d the books of the hadith were eternally valid for society, the economy a n d political life. The jz'zya would have to be restored for the ahl ad-dhimma (’protected peoples’), along with all other rules of t h e Muslim religious law. The secular rulers of Muslim countries, o u t of touch with t h e believers a n d with God’s ordinances, would have t o b e overthrown. Because of t h e i r incompetence a n d

heresy, ’a handful of wretched Jews’ (agents of America, Britain a n d other foreign powers) had occupied Muslim lands a n d Holy Places, trampling on the sacred rights of the

faithful.70 This extremist, radical ideology, which has functioned with t h e full backing of t h e state for over a decade in Iran, has of course greatly strengthened antisemitism. The 15,000 Jews left in the country (just before the Revolution there were 80,000) are discriminated against, persecuted, physically insecure a n d deprived of a n y cultural or spiritual f u t u r e . They

have to keep a low profile, dissimulate their real beliefs, behave as if they were Muslims who identify with t h e cause of the Ayatollahs. They are always exposed to the risk that t h e government may claim that they are ’Zionists’, since many have relatives i n Israel a n d may desire t o correspond w i t h t h e m . S o m e t e n or eleven Jews have already b e e n executed i n

Iran on charges of being ’Zionist spies’. Such allegations, however spurious, reinforce t h e familiar image of t h e Jew as plotting against Islam, which is the standard refrain of Iranian

propaganda.71 Jews in Iran, as a matter of government policy, have at times been forced to identify with the antisemitism a n d anti-Zionism of the regime, a n d to demonstrate in favour of the future liberation of Jerusalem by the Muslims. 220

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This degrading spectacle is a sad conclusion to the history of what was once the largest-Jewish Diaspora community in Asia — one whose origins go back over two millennia. But it is a faithful reflection of the meaning of the dhimmi status, of the renewed and obsessive Muslim concern with Jews and Judaism in the contemporary world and the inability of Islam to transcend obsolete stereotypes from a bygone era.

221

16 Conspiracies a n d Holy Wars D u r i n g t h e past forty years a vast anti-Jewish literature h a s appeared i n Arab a n d Islamic countries using theological,

racial a n d demonological motifs as well as the more familiar forms of political anti-Zionism a n d anti-Israelism. Some of this literature is obviously European or Western in origin — texts t r a n s l a t e d i n t o Arabic like Hitler's Mein Kampf, Henry Ford’s

International Jew o r The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It seems a t first sight to have n o more basis i n local Middle Eastern tradition than the anti-Jewish cartoons and caricatures which have so frequently appeared in the Arabic press a n d remind o n e of German o r Russian a n t i s e m i t i c stereotypes. B u t a more careful analysis suggests that Muslim writers, even when they

exploit Western antisemitic images a n d concepts, usually manage to link these imported notions in a natural, even a n organic manner, with ideas from within their own cultural

tradition.1 Foremost in this synthesis has been the wedding together of archetypes fixed i n t h e consciousness of early Islam with the theories of a ’world Jewish conspiracy’ adapted from modern European antisemitism. This kind of fusion is evident in contemporary Islamic fundamentalist literature produced not only in the core-lands of t h e Arab world but also on t h e periphery, from the Maghreb a n d Sudan to Iran, Pakistan a n d Malaysia.2 Indeed, physical isolation from the Arab—Israeli conflict sometimes seems to give Islamic perceptions of t h e Jews as a threat a n d a n evil force in world affairs a more deadly quality of abstraction, altogether divorced from reality. Such 222

Conspiracies a n d Holy Wars

a t t i t u d e s are actively encouraged a n d spread i n t o the M u s l i m

diaspora i n Asia, Africa and Europe by government financing coming particularly from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya. They are reinforced by t h e ritual presentation o f anti-Jewish a n d at Islamic conferences a n d i n t e r anti-Zionist propaganda national meetings attended by government representatives

and Muslim notables. The alleged historical misdeeds of Jews against Islam, the revival of the blood libel by Muslims, the denunciations of the Talmud

a n d t h e demonic

image o f a ruthless, oppressive Israel

which dominate these diatribes are mixed together i n a highly combustible,

dehumanised

stereotype o f t h e Jewish a n d

Zionist enemy. This kind of literature is extremely popular today among Arab youth in Cairo, Jordan and in the territories occupied by Israel after the 1967 war, where i t is promulgated by fundamentalist groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.’ Indeed,

wherever Islamic

movements appear

t o be o n t h e

ascendant, the use of antisemitic symbols comes into the foreground as part of a cultural and religious confrontation with the Jews that transcends mundane politics. There is n o serious differentiation between the Jews, Judaism, world Jewry a n d Israel,

for they are all seen as part o f a global

conspiracy to create an alien body in the heart of the Muslim world, to violate the rights of the Palestinians and steal away a Muslim Arab land. For the fundamentalists there can be no compromise over Palestine since a Muslim land in the heart of dar aI-Islam (the abode of Islam) can only be ruled by a Muslim authority.4 The ’usurpation' of this holy land is perceived not only as an act of brutal aggression by Israel but as an assault on the morality and civilisation of Islam which the West actively encouraged out of a mixture of imperialist motives or to purge its own sense of guilt for the persecution of Jews. In t h e fundamentalist world-view there can be n o separa-

tion of politics and religion. The Arab-Israeli simply

conflict is not

territorial a n d political, i t has t h e theological a n d even

metaphysical dimension of a clash between Islam and the 223

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Moses and Mohammed

Jews, between two fundamentally opposed conceptions of the

world.5 The archetypal notions about Jews, like all other beliefs and doctrines laid down in the Holy Koran, have an unalterable quality, they are binding on all believing Muslims as eternal verities which must guide their actions. As long as the Jews conformed to their assigned role as dhimmis, they could be tolerated, even if they had been cursed by God and were suspected of plotting against the believers.6 The latent hostility and hatred was attenuated in the past not only by social, economic and cultural interaction between Jews and Muslims, b u t above all by a political order which guaranteed Islamic superiority. But once this military and political domination was undermined i n the modern era, first by Christian European powers and then by Israel, essential aspects of Arab—Muslim identity were thrown into question. For the eclipse of Islam threatened one of its central myths, that Allah had promised victory in this world to the followers of Mohammed. Fundamentalism

can b e seen in part as a way of grappling

with the tremendous shock induced by this painful encounter with modernity, in the form of a conquering, more technologically advanced Western civilisation. It seeks to restore Muslim greatness by countering the decline in religious belief which it holds to be a t the root of Islam’s problems in the modern world. The emergence of Israel in 1948 at the very moment when the process of de-colonisation had suggested to many Arabs that history might again be reverting to its proper course, dealt a traumatic blow to these hopes and to Muslim self-esteem in general. For not only did Israel establish a sovereign Jewish state i n a part of the Arab homeland, not only has it consistently defeated ,Muslim Arab armies on the battlefield and occupied the third holiest sanctuary i n Islam; it is a state which represents to many Muslim minds a group of people destined by Allah only for suffering and humiliation, entitled at most to be a protected minority under Islamic rule. Its very existence created a new ’Jewish question’ for Islam, 224

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the acuteness o f w h i c h was unprecedented a n d which has aroused such anxiety, precisely because i t seems t o threaten

their self-conception, their worth, their identity and their dignity as Muslims and Arabs. I t was bad enough to be b u t to defeated by the powerful forces o f Western imperialism, be humiliated b y w h a t h a d been traditionally perceived b y Muslims as a small, weak a n d defenceless m i n o r i t y , t h e Jews,

calls into doubt fundamental claims about Islam’s ’spiritual' superiority and finality. Fundamentalist antisemitism m u s t be regarded at the

psychological level as a somewhat desperate attempt to rationalise and explain away this failure which has been for many Muslims a truly wrenching dislocation of Allah’s plans for His chosen people. For this purpose i t is not enough

to proclaim

the immutable

simply

character of Koranic doctrines

about t h e Jews as t h e great enemy of Islam from its inception, o r t o emphasise their innate wickedness, perfidy, hypocrisy

and ungodliness. I t is also necessary to demonstrate how Jews in the modern world have been responsible for Islam’s civilisational crisis, how they are linked to pernicious Western domination, to the failures of secular Arab regimes and to the undermining of religion and traditional values.7 What was only implicit in the ancient Islamic sources had itself, ironically enough, to be ’modernised’ by appropriate borrowings from the armoury o f Western antisemitism t o demonstrate to Muslims that they were combating a Satanic evil in t h e form

of Zionism. A good example of this synthesis can be found in the writings of the leading Egyptian fundamentalist, Sayyid Qutb (executed by Nasser in 1966), especially his essay ’Our

Struggle With the Jews’, first published in the early 19505.8 In this essay, the Jews emerge as a metaphor a n d symbol for t h e danger o f Western d o m i n a t i o n a n d immorality, as w e l l as a continuing threat i n their own right to t h e integrity o f Islam w h i c h they compulsively seek to destroy. B y nature they h a d

always been resolved to sow confusion and corruption i n the hearts of believers, to undermine the Creed by encouraging 225

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sectarian rifts a n d by allying themselves with Islam’s e n e m i e s .

In the twentieth century they had deliberately encouraged secularism and modernity in Egypt, by means of which they successfully poisoned the Muslim Arab intelligentsia, alienating it from its own traditions. It was the Jews who had disseminated ’the doctrine of atheistic materialism’ (Marx), of ’animalistic sexuality’ (Freud), of rationalistic sociology (Durkheim), and who had encouraged the destruction of the

family and immutable religious truth.9 Their devilish, misanthropic and essentially subversive nature had led them to construct the modern Western ideologies which were sapping the authentic spirituality of Islam. The monstrous spectre of heresy had reached its apex with the Satanic evil of Zionism a n d Israel, which openly aimed at the subjugation of Allah’s Chosen, the righteous Muslims. It was the same diabolical J ewish—Zionist conspiracy that had created secular nationalist regimes in the Arab world, whose Westernising policies made them ’traitors’ to their people and destroyers of Islam from within.lo For Qutb’s fundamentalist followers i n Egypt, Syria and other parts of the Muslim world, the proof of his theses would come with President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem and the Egyptian Peace Treaty with Israel in 1979. This was a vividly dramatic demonstration that heretical, pseudo-Muslim rulers were truly ’agents’ of Israel, that their illusory peace would provide an open door to the Jews to smuggle into Egypt the products of a poisonous ’racist-imperialist’ Western culture. For the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt there was no greater danger than that of ’normalisation’ with Israel, invariably defined a s a fanatical, racist state and, through its Jewish—American connection, as a direct threat to the family life, morals and culture of Egyptian Muslims. Ever since t h e 19305 the Brotherhood, under the leadership of Hasan alBanna, had advocated a jihad (Holy War) in defence of Egypt, Arabism and Islam against the British and t h e J e w s . ” They had been the most militant fighters in Egypt during the 19405 on behalf of the Palestinian cause against the ’Jewish 226

Conspiracies a n d Holy Wars

crusaders’ (aI-salibiyya

al-yahudiyya)

w h o were seeking to

conquer Muslim lands a n d subvert Muslim society. After t h e Second World W a r t h e M u s l i m Brothers h a d attacked t h e

Jewish quarter in Cairo a n d led a n antisemitic campaign against Egyptian Jewry. Increasingly, they also d e n o u n c e d

America with its ’Zionist-dominated’ press, radio a n d films for u n d e r m i n i n g everything M u s l i m a n d ’Eastern’ a s part of a

sinister campaign to secure Palestine for the Jews.'2 Nor did they hesitate to depict President Nasser (after h e had allied himself with the Soviet Union) as t h e agent of a n international Jewish plot. How else could o n e explain t h e disasters h e had brought upon Egypt? Such Arab nationalist leaders, however a n t i - W e s t e r n o r anti-Israel t h e y m i g h t be i n t h e i r rhetoric,

were easy prey in their eyes for outside ’Jewish' influences, a n d fated to surrender to Zionism a n d the West. The seeds of Sadat’s ’betrayal’ were already there in Nasser’s misrule a n d h i s r u t h l e s s suppression of t h e B r o t h e r h o o d . ”

For the fundamentalists, t h e peace with Israel was and still remains nothing less than a poison threatening the life-blood of Islam, a symptom of its profound malaise, weakness a n d

decadence. In the articles of Umar al-Tilmisani (spiritual leader of t h e M u s l i m Brothers i n Egypt a n d chief e d i t o r of t h e i r

monthly al-Da’wa) this intensely hostile view found a most trenchant expression i n t h e early 19805. ’Normalisation of

relations with Israel,’ he wrote, ’is the most dangerous cancer

eating away at all the life-cells in our bodies.’'4 Israel, he further declared, was the snake-like head of the international a n t i - I s l a m i c forces, a n d its embassy i n Egypt was t h e command

centre for destroying t h e economy, the values a n d customs of the nation. The Jews would bring with them ’all manner of moral evils such as cabarets, drinking of liquor a n d white slavery’; they would ’exploit all the writers who will sell their faith a n d h o n o u r ’ , encourage economic e x p l o i t a t i o n a n d t h e

taking of interest, a n d ’institute ways of deceitful propaganda’. Their best weapon, according to al-Tilmisani, ’as they spread their poison among the youth’ was their spurious claim ’to be 227

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fighting backwardness which they allege is d u e to Islam; while

they also in fact fight all varieties of Islamic tradition/'5 In the anti-Jewish polemics of al-Da’wa (The Mission), o n e

can find, therefore, many of the stereotypes of European antisemitism in a n Islamic costume. Of all the myriad enemies of Islam (the crusading West, Communism, secularism), Jewry represents the ultimate abomination, evil in its purest ontological form. The French scholar Gilles Kepel, summarising al-Da’wa’s definition of the Jew, puts it thus: ’The race is corrupt a t the root, full of duplicity, a n d the Muslims have everything to lose in seeking to deal with them: they must b e exterminated.’l6 ’Israel’s behaviour is understood solely in terms of this negative essence, influenced by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, no less than by a selective interpretation of

Koranic verses.l7 Hence, Holy War must be remorselessly waged against the Jewish State until the Dome of the Rock a n d the Al-Aqsa Mosque i n Jerusalem, a n d the entire country i n

which it stands, is brought again under Islamic rule. Sadat’s visit in 1979 to a Jerusalem still occupied by the Jewish ’infidels’ was therefore the ultimate act of betrayal and his assassination by Muslim militants could only be welcomed. A similar synthesis of Islamic and Western antisemitism can b e found in the works of the former Rector of Cairo’s al-Azhar University (the major seat of Islamic learning in the Muslim world), Abd al-Halim Mahmoud, who died in 1978. His book al-Jihad wa an-Nasr (Holy War a n d Victory), published in Cairo four

years

earlier, connects

i n classical fashion

Jewish

treachery against Mohammed with the Jewish-Zionist conspiracy to u n d e r m i n e t h e Arab states a n d ultimately to control

the world. The struggle for Islamic Truth and Justice was presented here as nothing less than a struggle against a Satanic conspiracy.

Among Satan’s friends — indeed his best friends in our age — are the Jews. They have laid down a plan for undermining humanity, religiously and ethically. They 228

Conspiracies a n d Holy Wars

have begun t o work t o i m p l e m e n t t h i s p l a n w i t h t h e i r

money a n d their propaganda. They have falsified knowledge, exploited the pens of writers a n d bought minds in their quest for t h e ruination of humanity. Thus they proceed from t h i s t o seizing p o w e r . . . d o m i n a t i o n ,

mastery, and gaining full control. '3 This unrestrained a n t i s e m i t i c rhetoric recalls t h e venomous

diatribes against t h e Jews and Israel a t the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research, held in Cairo in 1968 at Nasser’s behest t o discuss the fundamentals of t h e Middle East conflict. Theologians and Muslim notables from all over the Arab world had on that occasion called for a jihad to destroy Israel as the culmination of the historical and cultural depravity of the Jews, their baseness viewed as being congenital a n d i m m u t a b l e i n nature. Contemporay Jewry was not

and had never constituted a true people o r nation but was merely a riff-raff which had always provoked the hatred and persecution of the peoples with which they came into contact. Their repugnant qualities, depicted in the Bible as well as the Holy Koran, had been transmitted unchanged down into

modern times through their own cultural inheritance.19 As Kamal Ahmad Own (Vice-Principal of the Tanta Institute) put it, what had happened in Palestine was t h e logical result of the ’scenes of bloodshed, sex perversion and the violation of t h e Prophets’ to be found in t h e Old Testament. The wickedness of the Jews was ’incurable' unless they were completely subdued by force, for it derived from their own Holy Book and t h e Talmud, which ’are full to the brim with such horrible deeds, evils and crimes that make us feel they deserved all the

disasters and the afflictions that befell them'.20 Modern civilisation h a d only ’increased t h e i r hypocrisy, t h e i r power,

their wealth a n d their penetration into the social life of nations from b e h i n d t h e s c e n e s ' . T h e S y r i a n delegate M u h a m m a d Azzah Darwaza a l s o emphasised t h e i n n a t e wickedness a n d evil of t h e Jews from 229

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t h e days of t h e Prophet to their ’merciless’ treatment of Arabs a n d Muslims in Palestine. ’The Jews followed the attitudes of their ancestors towards the Prophet a n d the Muslims. The Jews kept o n sticking t o their corrupt demoralised instinct a n d their

vicious

wicked

prejudice.

They

committed

their

treacherous oppressive atrocities in Palestine . . . atrocities so

terrific that they curdle one’s blood/2' Professor Abdul Sattar El Sayed, t h e Mufti of Tursos (Syria) was even more bellicose, comparing the Jews to ’germs of a malignant disease where only o n e germ is sufficient to eliminate a n entire nation’. The Arabs were n o different from o t h e r pe0ples in regarding t h e Jews as ’a pest which humanity had to tolerate a n d live with like other calamities of life a n d

other diseases’.22 As the Koran had revealed, they were ’a plague like Satan who was expelled by God’, but despite their apparent

support

from

Western

imperialism, they

were

weaker than the Devil a n d inferior to him ’in the face of t h e faithful who adhere to religion’. The Lebanese Sheikh Nadim al-Jisr was equally confident that Muslims would inevitably regain their ascendency over the illegitimate artificial a n d ’deformed’ Jewish state, quoting extensively from t h e hadz'ths in which t h e Pr0phet was said to

have predicted a final battle to annihilate the Jews.23 Mohammed, so it was reported o n t h e authority of Abu H u r a i r a , h a d s t a t e d : ’The H o u r [i.e. salvation] would n o t come,

until you fight against t h e Jews; a n d t h e stone would say, ” 0 Muslim! There is a Jew behind me: come and kill him”.’24 The Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Hassan Khaled, fully agreed with t h e consensus of opinion that ’the Jews were t h e most atrocious enemies to Islam a n d t h e Muslims’ in the Age of t h e Prophet, as they had once more become through the deeds of contemporary Zionism. Hence t h e need for a jihad to rescue a decadent a n d dissolute Islamic society which had ’become a n easy prey t o t h e dogs of h u m a n i t y ’ ( t h e J e w s ) , a n d t o restore

the usurped, desecrated Holy Land.25 The scholars of al-Azhar did in fact reluctantly change their 230

Conspiracies a n d Holy Wars

position in 1979 a t President Sadat’s strenuous bidding, c l a i m i n g t h a t t h e Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty was ’ f o u n d e d

o n Islamic rules, because it arises from a position of strength, after t h e holy w a r a n d victory Egypt achieved o n 1 0 t h R a m a d a n , 1393’ (October 1 9 7 3 ) . B u t M o h a m m e d ’ s truce with the Jews, w h i c h provided t h e i r precedent, was itself o n l y a

temporary expedient a n d even t h e subservient scholars of alAzhar were far from accepting either t h e Jewish c l a i m t o n a t i o n h o o d o r legitimate historical roots for a Jewish state i n

Palestine.26 Moreover, in the 19805, with the growing popularity of fundamentalist preachers, writers a n d militants in Egypt, even such modest accommodations as that of al-Azhar seemed to lack a n y deeper Muslim legitimacy. For radical Islam, ’palace ulema’ a p p o i n t e d by t h e government could o n l y

reflect t h e timidity, servility a n d pseudo-religiosity of a corrupt Establishment. Thus, even tactical a n d conditional acceptance of Israel was seen as a complete contradiction t o Islam a n d a negation of Egypt's Islamic Arab identity, a t least among

Muslim activists.27 In this aggressive stance, the Muslim Brotherhood felt strengthened by the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran whose intransigent hatred of t h e Jews a n d Zionism corresponded to their own. In the occupied West Bank a n d Gaza, too, Ayatollah Khomeini’s message of extirpating the ’cancer’ of Israel with a surgical knife a n d returning to Jerusalem under t h e banner of jihad enthused the radicalised Muslim youth.28 The reconq u e s t of Al K u d s ( t h e Arabic n a m e for J e r u s a l e m ) w a s i n d e e d a

powerful rallying-cry of t h e Islamic revolution, until it got bogged down in the marshlands of the Shatt al-Arab a n d a n i n t e r m i n a b l e Gulf W a r with I r a q . Like K h o m e i n i , t h e e r r a t i c

Libyan leader, Colonel Qaddafi, was n o less committed to the liberation of J e r u s a l e m i n t h e n a m e of h i s Islamic socialist a n d

Pan-Arab ideals, never losing a n opportunity to preach t h e destruction of Israel as the highest priority of Islam. It should, however,

b e n o t e d t h a t , except for t h e m e d i e v a l Islamic

struggle against t h e Crusaders a n d t h e post-1967 Muslim 231

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Moses a n d Mohammed

campaign against the ’Judaisation’ of Jerusalem of the Israelis, the city had never been spiritually unique o r historically pree m i n e n t i n Islam like Mecca a n d , secondarily, M e d i n a have b e e n . I n d e e d , d u r i n g t h e nineteen years between 1 9 4 8 a n d

1967, when its Muslim holy places were under Jordanian rule,

Jerusalem’s sanctity was not particularly emphasised.29 Of all t h e Muslim leaders who bitterly deplored the fall of Jerusalem to the ’infidels’ in 1967, pride of place must go to the Saudi monarch, King Feisal, the guardian of Islam’s holiest sites in the Arabian peninsula. In 1974 Feisal, speaking in the name of t h e Islamic world, had told the Vatican that u n d e r Islam ’Jews had never been allowed in Palestine a n d particularly in Jerusalem’ and that Jews had n o holy places in the

city.30 This was manifestly untrue but consistent with the Saudi rulers’ absolute exclusion of Jews from their own Kingdom. The Saudis had preceded a n y other Muslim or Arab country in their open promotion of a virulent antisemitism, even before t h e Second World War. A good example of this attitude can be found in t h e remarks by King Abd al Aziz ibn Sa’ud to a semi-official British visitor t o Riyadh, Colonel Dickson, in the a u t u m n of 1937. King Sa’ud deplored the ’strange hypnotic influence which the Jews, a race accursed by God according to His Holy Book, a n d destined t o final destruction a n d eternal damnation’, appeared to exercise over

the British government and people.3| The final fate of the Jews had been fixed by the unalterable words of God in the Koran, which h e recommended to t h e British government for perusal. Ibn Sa’ud also appealed to w h a t h e clearly believed to be t h e core of the antisemitism animating Christians: ’Our hatred for t h e Jews dates from God’s condemnation of t h e m for their persecution a n d rejection of Isa [ J e s u s Christ], a n d t h e i r s u b s e q u e n t rejection l a t e r of His c h o s e n Prophet.’32 It was

beyond his understanding h o w Britain, ’the first Christian power in t h e world’, could wish to reward ’these very same J e w s w h o maltreated y o u r Isa’: how, h e wondered, could t h e y

risk Arab friendship for ’an accursed a n d stiffnecked race 232

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which has always bitten t h e hand of everyone who has helped

it since the world began'.33 The Jews were unquestionably the enemies of Arabia a n d of England, they were determined to sow discord between them and then to seize ’the whole of Palestine, Transjordan and their old stronghold Medina - t h e land they went to when driven o u t of Palestine a n d dispersed after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem'. Hence King Sa’ud’s total opposition to any partition of Palestine, which would merely be t h e first step towards a vast expansion of Jewish

power. Quoting a well-known hadith, h e informed the British visitor to his court: ’Verily the word of God teaches us, a n d we implicitly believe it, that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew, ensures him a n immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty.’34 King Feisal was in t h e same tradition as his father, a n d also a firm believer t h a t Z i o n i s m a n d C o m m u n i s m were two aspects of t h e same international Jewish conspiracy. H e was known

for his custom of giving a free copy of The Protocols of The Elders of Zion (for which t h e Arab world is still the biggest market today) to visiting officials and delegations, including even the

former American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.35 The Saudis, the Iranians and Libyans (not to mention Pakistan, which is a leading centre for the publication of this scurrilous literature) have done everything to disseminate the notion of a world conspiracy to make Israel and the Jews appear in the most sinister light possible. The astonishing wealth and power of the Saudis, in particular after t h e 1973 oil crisis, has insured t h a t these antisemitic calumnies now carry more weight, given t h e priority which m a n y Western governments place o n good

relations with the oil-producing states.36 The Saudis have also surreptitiously helped to finance antisemitic Holocaust denial literature in t h e West, such as Anti-Zion (originally e n t i t l e d The Jews on Trial) a n d The Six

Million Reconsidered, written by a n American neo-Nazi, William Grimstad, registered as a Saudi agent with t h e US Department

of Justice since 1977.37 These publications were mailed to all 233

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members of the United States Senate a n d British Parliament by the World Muslim Congress in 1981 a n d early 1982. This latter organisation, with its headquarters in Pakistan, had been u n d e r the presidency of a notorious antisemite and collaborat o r with Nazi Germany, Haj Amin al-Husseini ( e x - M u f t i of J e r u s a l e m ) u n t i l 1 9 7 4 . Its officers a n d members had been

thoroughly inculcated in a Protocols-like vision of world Jewry a n d the ’Zionist scourge’ during the twenty-three years of Haj Amin’s stewardship.38 For example, the World Muslim Congress in August 1981 would declare that not only was a settlement with Israel ’treason against Muslims’ but that the Zionists aimed a t ’controlling the world and if not possible . . .

annihilating the entire human race’.39 In December 1984 the President of t h e World Muslim Congress, Dr Ma’ruf alDawalibi, provided another more archaic example of outspoken antisemitism in his ’learned’ exegesis of the Talmud. Speaking to the UN Centre for Human Rights’ Seminar on the Encouragement of Understanding, Tolerance and Respect in Matters Relating to Freedom of Religion and Belief (sicl), h e declared: ’The Talmud says that ”if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, then h e will be damned

for eternity”.’40 According to this Muslim authority, the Talmud maintains that ’the whole world is the property of Israel a n d t h e wealth, the blood, a n d the souls of non—Israelis

. . . are theirs’.41This demented belief, he claimed, was the real source of discrimination a n d oppression against t h e J e w s !

The constant use by Muslims of antisemitic motifs derived from the European Christian tradition like the blood libel, the Protocols and distorted caricatures of the Talmud is indeed striking. Canon August Rohling’s scurrilous Der Talmudjude first appeared in Arabic as early as 1899 (it had been published two decades e a r l i e r i n C e n t r a l E u r o p e ) . B u t i n more recent

years there have been many more works of purely Arab provenance alleging that the Talmud permits Jews to lie, cheat a n d steal from Gentiles, to violate their women with impunity, shed their blood a n d in general to treat them as if they were 234

Conspiracies and Holy Wars

animals in human form. The Arabist Norman Stillman has pointed to the ubiquity of the blood libel even in seemingly scholarly tomes by Muslim writers like ’Ali ’Abd al-Wahid wafi, Muhammad Sabri, Hasan Zéza, Mustafa al-Sa'dani and

the prominent Egyptian woman writer 'A’isha 'Abd alRahman (pen-name, Bint al-Shati’) — a literature that, inter alz'a, treats the draining of children’s blood at Passover as a recognised Jewish ritual.42 Another Egyptian author, Kamil

Sa’fan in his book al-Yahud Ta'rz'khan wa-q‘datan (Jews — History and Doctrine), published in 1 9 8 1 , also accepted the

accusations of ritual murder in the Damascus Affair of 1840 and maintained

that many other cases went unnoticed

through the manipulation of the Jews. At the same time an introduction to his book stressed in classic antisemitic language the danger of the invisible Jewish ‘penetration’ and ’infiltration’ of Western countries in order to pursue their

secret, conspiratorial designs.43 The adoption of blood-libel myths and notions of secret Jewish cabals controlling the world have been popular in the Arab world since the 19505 (Nasser's regime published and disseminated many such works) and gained wide exposure

through the Arab press, radio broadcasts and school textbooks as well as cartoons and caricatures. By the early 19605 this Muslim and Arab antisemitism had become throughly pervasive. It was at this time that great efforts were made by Arab states to dissuade the Vatican from exculpating the Jews from collective guilt for Jesus’s death. The landmark document of the Second Vatican Council (28 October 1965), Nostra Aetate,

which repudiated the charge of deicide against the Jewish people caused visible consternation in the Arab-Muslim world, although the accusation itself has no basis in Islamic tradition and is entirely Christian i n provenance. Yet not only

the Fathers of the Eastern Church (concerned about the fate of Catholics and other Christian minorities in the Middle East), but also Muslim

dignitaries and Arab diplomats insistently

sought to maintain the Christ-killer accusation intact.44 They 235

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even alleged that its removal was a result of ’Zionist’ influence over t h e Catholic Church and a political victory for Israel. The Council of t h e World Muslim League in Mecca charged that Vatican II was ’antagonistic toward Islam and the Arabs’; it was asserted that this was ’a purely political move aimed a t

securing t h e Christian world’s support for the Zionist concept and its devilish and wicked designs against Islam, the Arabs,

and the whole human race'.45 In short, Nostra Aetate was presented as a Jewish plot, a view echoed many years later by one of Egypt's leading journalists a n d authors, Anis Mansour, himself a Muslim. Mansour ( a t

o n e time a leading adviser of President Sadat) wrote in 1979 that it was Jewish money which had corruptly bought exoneration from the Crucifixion charge. For two thousand years Jews had been deservedly accursed by Christians, but, worried by the anger of American Jewry and fearful for their capital invested abroad, the Vatican had abjectly surrendered to a people ’who have killed tens of prophets, who butchered little children in Europe, and in Palestine as well, who poisoned Christian kings, who spread the plague’. Mansour's conclusion was that the Vatican ’has sold Christ once again to t h e Jews, b u t for a high price, the money and indignation of

the Arabs'.46 What is so remarkable in this antisemitic diatribe is the transparent way that a Muslim intellectual bases his views on Christian myths alien to his own tradition, in order to uphold traditional Christian vilification of the Jews. Nevertheless, it must b e emphasised that Muslim antisemitism does not make purely arbitrary borrowings from Christian and modern secular European varieties of Judeophobia. Furthermore, the perceptions of Jews as a treacherous, conspiratorial and potentially evil force have their autonomous roots in Islamic theological thought and have been greatly reinforced by the revival of radical Islam and of the notion of jihad in face of a powerful Jewish state in t h e Middle East. The very existence of Israel is a sign to many Muslims that ’the forces of darkness and immorality, of 236

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wickedness a n d apostasy’ have gained a temporary ascen-

dency in the world.47 This has been particularly true for radical fundamentalists who challenged t h e regimes of Sadat in Egypt

and of Assad in Syria during the early 19803.48 They felt that they alone sprang from t h e native soil of Islam and expressed t h e passions of t h e submerged p o p u l a r masses. U n l i k e the liberals, secularists, C o m m u n i s t s o r Arab nationalists ( w h o s e

ideologies were essentially European) they expressed some-

thing authentically Middle Eastern.49 The contemporary problems of internal decay, cultural Westernisation, imperialism a n d Zionism had only o n e solution — the Islamisation of t h e whole Middle East. Not for nothing did the killers of Sadat (members of a radical Jihad group) chant i n

unison a t their sentencing: ’Our state is Islamic, Islamic. Not Jewish, not Zionist. We are neither of the Eastern bloc, nor of t h e Western bloc, we a r e o n e hundred per cent Islamic.’

Some of these radical Muslims were undoubtedly more concerned about first purging their own countries of ’godlessness’ before turning to the Zionist enemy of Israel. Their outlook was a natural response to the persecution and repression they had suffered at the hands of secular nationalist regimes, who had miserably failed the trial by fire of the Six Day War. The trauma of defeat in that war had destroyed much of t h e magic of Pan-Arabism a n d left a n ideological vacuum quickly filled by the revival of Islam. For the post1967 generation this fact did not diminish but rather reinforced their hatred of Israel and Zionism. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982 further added to t h e traditional Islamic vituperation against Jews, the demonic dimension of powerful, ruthless a n d barbarian foes - who have been depicted as t h e ‘new Mongols’.50 For Sunni Arab radicals, as for t h e pro-Iranian Shi’ite factions in Lebanon (the Hizbollah, Islamic A m a l a n d Islamic J i h a d ) t h e h u m i l i a t i o n of a

Jewish army laying siege for t h e first time to a n Arab capital ( B e i r u t ) , was y e t a n o t h e r reason for radicalisation. This i n t u r n favoured a n e w b r a n d of Islamic a n t i s e m i t i s m , reiterating 237

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many of the traditional themes, yet harnessed to the cause of a K h o m e i n i - s t y l e revolution throughout t h e M i d d l e East.

The effects of this jihad have been felt all through the 19805 a n d right u p until t h e present day. Fundamentalist Islam, which has always distinguished between Dar al-Harb (the abode of war) a n d Dar al-Islam

( t h e abode of I s l a m ) , makes it

theoretically inconceivable in Muslim law that there should be silm (peace) between it and a territory in its midst governed by non-Muslims. I n t h e case of Jews, peace is even less conceiva b l e , a s l o n g a s t h e y h o l d Palestine a n d are seen to be

displacing o r dispossessing its Arab and Muslim population. The intzfada i n t h e occupied territories has strengthened this traditional M u s l i m view, especially i n t h e Gaza strip a n d to

s o m e extent in t h e West Bank, where the influence of Islamic fundamentalist radicalism has steadily grown. The opposition to Israel’s very existence is m u c h more intransigent i n Hamas ( t h e I s l a m i c Resistance) than it is today among secular

Palestinian nationalists. For the ideologues of the Islamic Resistance, Israel is the spearhead of ’satanic’ forces aiming to create a Zionist empire from the Nile to the Euphrates. For them there can be no compromise in any form with the ’illegal’ u s u r p a t i o n of Palestine, no negotiation, n o peaceful compro-

mise but only unswerving loyalty to the commandment of jihad. With this intransigent ideology goes a n equally unyielding a n t i s e m i t i s m t h a t reinforces t h e chilling calls for Israel’s

extinction. In the classic traditions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, ’world Zionism’ and t h e ’warmongering Jews’ are accused of having caused the First and Second World Wars, ’through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state.’ Both t h e capitalist West and the Communist East were willing accomplices i n this conspiracy against Islam a n d Palestine. The Jews, we are told, had been ’behind t h e French Revolution, the Communist Revolution a n d most of the revolutions we heard and hear about’, according to article 22 238

Conspiracies a n d Holy Wars

of t h e H a m a s C o v e n a n t of A u g u s t 1 9 8 8 . ’ W i t h t h e i r m o n e y

they formed secret societies,’ t h e Covenant adds, ’such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, t h e Lions a n d o t h e r s i n different

parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies a n d

achieving Zionist interests/5' This world-conspiracy idea has long served to compensate Muslims for t h e unpalatable reality of repeated defeats at Israel’s hands. It has sought to make Israel’s existence a n d its goals appear sinister in t h e eyes of Arabs, Muslims a n d sympathetic outsiders in the Third World. It perpetually links Zionism with E u r o p e a n , Western o r C o m m u n i s t imperialism

as a deceptively powerful, omnipotent force which would otherwise dissolve without sustenance from outside. Above all, the a n t i s e m i t i c conspiracy theory serves t o mobilise t h e

destructive passions in the Muslim a n d Arab population, in order t o reinforce t h e will to fight for Islam. I n t h e words of Hamas i n o n e of t h e Opening s e n t e n c e s i n its official C o v e n a n t :

’Israel will exist a n d continue to exist until Islam will obliterate

it, just as it obliterated others before it.’52

239

17 T h e Q u e s t i o n of Palestine The seeds of the modern Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine began to develop under Turkish rule in the closing decades before the First World War with the emergence of the first Zionist settlements. Already in 1891 some Arab notables had sent a petition to the Ottoman capital, Istanbul, demanding the prohibition of Jewish immigration and land purchase. In Haifa, Jaffa, Beirut and Damascus, anti-Zionist newspapers were published by Arabs between 1908 and 1914, though this opposition did not become really intense until after the Balfour Declaration of the British government in November 1917, promising to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine.l In the period before the First World War, Arab anti-Zionism was based on a mixture of Ottoman loyalism, local patriotism and Arab nationalism. Zionism was primarily viewed as a nationalist ’separatist’ movement within the Ottoman Empire which was also dangerous to local Palestinians. Some Arabs, mainly Christian merchants prominent in the commercial sphere, feared unwelcome economic competition. They rationalised their apprehensions by claiming that Jews were unscrupulous in business and used sharp practices which would undermine the position of local Palestinian merchants.2 Such economic antisemitism was reinforced, especially among French-speaking Catholics, by motifs which derived from the clerical and nationalist anti-Dreyfusard agitation in France, which found an echo in the Levant, including Palestine.3 Muslims, o n the other hand, were more concerned about preserving unchanged the 1,300-year-old historic tradition of 240

The Q u e s t i o n o f Palestine

Palestine as a Muslim land and t h e fundamental concept of I s l a m ' s superiority over o t h e r religions. Before t h e First World

War they had already become alarmed by t h e emergence of a new Jewish society in Palestine which challenged such assumptions by its activities, behaviour, life-style and attit u d e s . T h e Second Aliyah

(ascent) of Jewish settlers from

Russia, many of them imbued with secular, revolutionary a n d socialist ideals, clashed sharply w i t h t h e more t r a d i t i o n a l

Muslim society. They had rapidly broken o u t of t h e boundaries of t h e old yishuv ( s e t t l e m e n t ) a n d b e g u n to work t h e l a n d a s

part of their socialist ideology; they refused to be marginalised o r accept a subordinate status; they had created their own political organisations a n d self-defence units. The kz'bbutzim a n d t h e communal life-style which t h e y established seemed t o

many Muslims to be a mixture of communism, anarchy,

licence and sexual promiscuity.4 In the 19205 and 19305 this led logically enough to a n antisemitic a n d anti-Bolshevik discourse among Palestinian Muslims, facilitated by the radical ethos of the Third Aliyah from Russia a n d t h e founding of a Communist Party in Palestine, staffed overwhelmingly by Jews. In their appeals to the British Mandatory Government, Palestinian notables deplored the fact that the new immigrants were spreading ’Bolshevik’ principles which provoked disorder, bloodshed and ruin throughout the country. It was necessary 'to expel this deviant revolutionary group from Palestine so that this holy land, t h e cradle of religion a n d peace, need not become a fount of immorality a n d a source of that flame which could i g n i t e t h e e n t i r e East a n d cause t h e e n d of all civilisation

whether Eastern or Western’.5 The charge of ’immorality' was particularly instructive, for t h e sight of Jewish women dressed

in shorts, enjoying relative sexual a n d political freedom a n d n e a r e q u a l s t a t u s with m e n i n t h e n e w i m m i g r a n t society was

profoundly unsettling to t h e mores of a Muslim culture. It seemed to herald nothing less t h a n t h e overturning of family life, social order a n d religion. These a n d o t h e r differences i n 241

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culture

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values

undoubtedly

intensified

Palestinian resistance to Jewish immigration a s a source of

future disaster to their traditional way of life. The Arab identification of Zionism with Communism, while not wholly implausible in the 19205 (though the Comintern had already denounced Zionism a s a n agent of British imperialism), had assumed a manifestly antisemitic character from the outset. The Palestinian Arab leaders repeatedly asserted that anarchism a n d revolution were inherent in the Jewish ’character’, which was to sow dissension, subversion and ruin everywhere. The Jews were blamed for the Russian and German Revolutions and for seeking to overthrow established dynastic Empires, and accused of aiming to destroy both Christianity a n d Islam. Antisemitism in Eastern EurOpe after 1918, it was suggested, was a natural response to their activities a n d it would inevitably be provoked in Palestine by their mass immigration, as it had been in other countries.6 This argumentation was obviously borrowed from European Christian sources a n d from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which emphasised that Communism was part of a plot for Jewish world domination. Its use by Palestinian Arabs showed that Westernisation was making some inroads, not least through t h e adoption of European antisemitic ideologies a n d their translation into the language of Arab nationalism. But it was above all the anti-Zionist awakening among the Palestinians after the First World War which favoured this discourse, though it was not intrinsic to its central arguments. Palestinian arguments against Zionism focused above all on the need to preserve t h e Arab and Muslim character of Palestine. Initially, the Wilsonian principle of the right of all nations to self-determination, which in 1918 seemed sacrosanct, was particularly emphasised. It was pointed out that at the time of the Balfour Declaration 90 per cent of the population i n Palestine were Arabs, most of them M u s l i m s ;

that Palestine was a holy land to hundreds of millions of Muslims ( a n d Christians) who were far more numerous than 242

The Q u e s t i o n o f Palestine

t h e 1'5 million Jews throughout t h e world; that Jerusalem was

the third holiest city of Islam, containing the mosques of AlAqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Moreover, the Arabs had lived i n Palestine uninterruptedly since t h e Muslim conquest of t h e seventh century — a n argument o f historic continuity which Palestinian nationalists dubiously e x t e n d e d back even to t h e Canaanites, who were claimed a s ancestors o f t h e Arab

population. On the other hand, the Jews were deemed not to b e a nation at all, but merely a religious group whose rights a s a minority were already guaranteed i n their lands of residence.

They had never lived continuously in Palestine, they had left few traces of their presence, and their claim to ’historic rights’ was seen as an anachronistic attempt to turn the clock back.7 None of t h e s e standard arguments were anti-Jewish o r

required antisemitic motifs in order to make them appear persuasive. Indeed, initially the .Arab national movement distinguished clearly between the indigenous Jewish p0pulation, whom it regarded as ’brothers' and foreign Zionist immigrants, whom it rejected. The Palestine Arabs were aware that some of the native Sephardic Jews, and also the ultraorthodox from the Jerusalem Jewish community, were in fact anti-Zionist; that both groups resented the pre-eminence of secular Ashkenazi Zionists over the yishuv after 1918 and the threat which this posed to the traditional Jewish way of life. But the ’tolerance’ of Palestinian nationalism for these antiZionist Jews was predicated o n t h e assumption that they

would, at the very least, continue the low profile and selfeffacing attitude of dhimmis who sought no role in administrative or public life; that they would accept absorption as culturally Arabised Jews or even identify themselves with

Arab national aspirations in Palestine.8 This proved exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, given that t h e Arab masses m a d e no practical distinction between indigenous Jews a n d Zionists. 1n t h e Arab demonstrations of

February/March 1920 slogans like ’Palestine is our land and t h e Jews o u r dogs' abounded. In April 1 9 2 0 Arab mobs i n 243

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Jerusalem headed straight for t h e Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and it was the traditional Jews of the ’old yishuv’ who suffered most.9 This pattern was repeated, much more tragically, during the pogroms of 1929 in Hebron and Safed in which around 100 orthodox Jews of the old community were murdered. These massacres were a direct result of the deliberate religious inflammation of the Muslim masses in Palestine by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Since the early 19205 h e had sought to rouse the believers by claiming that the Jews intended to take over the Temple Mount area (a1 Haram al-Shan’f) in order to rebuild Solomon’s Temple on the ruins of the great mosques. He had called on Muslim leaders throughout the world to rally to the defence of the holy places of Islam against the ’perfidious’ Zionist designs. Undoubtedly this tactic to stir u p t h e national movement came to fruition in

the 1929 pogroms, which were presented as a n ’antiimperialist’ uprising and a glorious page in Palestinian Arab history. By showing that Zionism threatened the religious a s well as the national status quo in Palestine, he had created the basis for a more p0pular national movement in t h e 19305 and succeeded in bringing the Palestinian cause into the forefront of Pan-Islamic and Pan-Arab concerns.l0 By couching the struggle against Zionism in the idiom of populist Islam, both Haj Amin and the martyred leader of the 19305, Sheikh ’Izz al-Din al-Qassam, could reach o u t to the majority of the Palestinian population who were not yet receptive to the

slogans of secular Arab nationalism.ll The effects of this agitation were visible in the marked rise in national consciousness and in the sense of an emerging Palestinian identity during the 1936—9 Revolt against British Mandatory rule and expanding Zionist settlement. In the 19305, the latent antisemitic element in Palestinian anti-Zionism grew even stronger with the rise of German National Socialism. Hitler was widely admired in the Arab world for having reversed the Versailles Treaty a n d humiliated 244

The Q u e s t i o n o f P a l e s t i n e

both Britain and France, the two dominant imperialist powers who had carved up the Middle East after 1918.'2 He was seen a s a strong nationalist leader, who i n contrast to t h e Italian Fascists h a d n o obvious ambitions to expand i n t h e Mediter-

ranean area at the possible expense of the Arabs.13 The antisemitism of t h e Nazis strengthened this feeling of identifi-

cation among many Arabs, despite the fact that it was provoking a mass aliyah of German and Eastern European Jews to Palestine i n t h e 19305. This i n fl u x , o n e of t h e m a i n

causes of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, was of course detrimental to t h e Palestinians a n d should, rationally speaking,

have caused resentment towards Hitler and the Nazis. Moreover, Nazi doctrines of ’Aryan’ racial superiority and the fact that the Arabs were despised as ’Semites’ themselves, might

have provided cause for serious reflection.l4 Yet, almost immediately after Hitler’s accession to power, Haj Amin contacted the German consul in Jerusalem, proposing an alliance with t h e Nazis a n d a joint boycott against t h e Jews.

The Arabs clearly realised that German antisemitism was above all anti-Jewish and evidently rejoiced that a great European power was putting the Jews in their place. Although Nazi officials were more than lukewarm about the value of Arab support and considered the goodwill of the British Empire as far more important to them (at least until 1939), Haj

Amin persisted in courting them throughout the 19305.ls After escaping from Palestine to Syria, then to Iraq, from there to Italy and finally to Berlin, he became extremely active in pro-Axis propaganda, also organising Muslim 88 troops from Bosnia and collaborating with German Intelligence against the Allies. In his talks with Hitler o n 28 November 1941 h e thanked the Fiihrer of the Greater German Reich for the ’unequivocal support' h e h a d shown for t h e Palestinian Arabs

in public speeches. The Arabs, Haj Amin declared, were ’natural allies of Germany, as could be seen by their mutual e n e m i e s : t h e British, t h e Jews, a n d t h e communists’; they were ’deeply convinced that Germany would w i n t h e war’, 245

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and Mohammed

welcomed its sympathy for Arab liberation and its support for ’the elimination of the national Jewish homeland'; h e , the Mufti in the name of the Arabs, was ready to form an Arab legion, to engage in sabotage and to encourage political destabilisation in order to ensure a German victory. Although Hitler did not give Haj Amin the public commitment he had wanted, h e did promise that when the time was ripe he would do so and that ’thereafter, Germany’s only remaining objective would be limited to the annihilation of the Jews living under

British protection in Arab lands’. ‘6 Haj Amin did everything h e could to make sure that the Nazis would keep their promise and he also wrote in the summer of 1943 to the Foreign Ministers of the lesser Axis Powers (Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria) urging them not to permit Jews to leave for Palestine. His letter of 2 8 June 1943 to the Hungarian Foreign Minister warns him of ’the hope which the Jews have never relinquished, namely, the domination of the whole world through this important strategic

centre, Palestine’.‘7 Allowing them to escape from Hungary or the Balkans to Palestine would not solve the ’Jewish question’, would greatly strengthen their ’dangerous influence’ and damage the Arabs. It was indispensable, Haj Amin insisted, that they be sent to countries ’where they would find themselves under active control, for example, i n Poland, i n order thereby to protect oneself from their menace and avoid the consequent damage’. ‘8 It is reasonable to assume that Haj Amin, who was in contact with Himmler and Eichmann, knew precisely what ’active control’ meant in Poland in the summer

of 1943, namely the extermination of Jews.19 It is significant in this context that Palestinians and other Arabs have rarely if ever criticised the Mufti’s complicity in the Holocaust. After the war the main reaction in the Arab press,

belles-lettres and political propaganda was silence.20 The postwar struggle for Palestine was strictly divorced from the Jewish tragedy in Europe, though it had a decisive impact o n the Jews themselves and, to a lesser extent, o n world opinion. The 246

The Q u e s t i o n o f Palestine

standard response, when pressed, was t o m a i n t a i n that since t h e Arabs h a d no responsibility for European antisemitism

they should not be made to pay the price of accepting a Jewish state i n Palestine. Sometimes it was claimed t h a t t h e Jews

exaggerated the Holocaust o u t of all proportion for their own propaganda purposes; o t h e r Arabs suggested t h a t t h e Jews had simply received what they deserved a t t h e h a n d s of t h e Germans.

O n e must remember that in the 1950s and 19605 Hitler had remained a rather popular figure in the Arab world, not least among Palestinians, who, feeling embittered at their defeat by Israel, looked back with some sympathy a t a leader w h o h a d

inflicted such suffering on the Jews. Perverse responses i n the Arab world to the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (1961), which treated the Nazi mass murderer as a ’martyr’ and congratulated him for having ’conferred a real blessing o n humanity’ by

liquidating six million Jews, were not at all uncommon.21 The first leader of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation), Ahmad Shukeiry, who had declared o n the eve of the Six Day War with Israel that hardly a Jew would survive to b e repatriated to Europe, might well have identified with this

kind of thinking. It was also Shukeiry who first articulated the view, enshrined ever since i n article 22 of the Palestinian National Covenant, that Zionism is itself not only fanatical, racist and imperialist, but ’its methods are those of the Fascists and the Nazis’. The proposition that Zionism is a form of Nazism or even more dangerous than its supposed German ’model’ is o n e that has proved immensely popular ever since i n pro-Palestinian propaganda, deSpite its transparent hyperbole. The Palestinian National Covenant, first formulated over twenty years ago a n d never officially repudiated, provides a n

insight into mainstream Palestinian ideology as it finally emerged in t h e late 19605. Its basic premise is the total repudiation of Israel’s existence a s a n i n d e p e n d e n t Jewish

state — this demand that it cease to exist is implied in nearly half of its t h i r t y - t h r e e articles.22 T h e whole of Palestine 247

must be

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restored to t h e Palestinians because only thus can they recover their full self-determination. Jews may only reside in ’liberated’ Palestine if they actually lived there before the ’beginning of t h e Zionist invasion' (1917), which would effectively exclude nearly all Israelis.23 Armed struggle is deemed t h e only way of liberating Palestine — a view still held by t h e extremist radical factions of t h e PLO led by George Habash, Nayef Hawatmeh a n d Ahmad Jibril. The mainstream leader of t h e PLO, Yasser Arafat, has however sought for the past decade to combine diplomacy with armed struggle, a n d at t h e end of 1988 t h e Palestine National Council in Algiers finally appeared t o offer a conditional recognition of Israel. The resolutions were equivocal since they supported the Palestinian struggle for independence by means which included violence against Israeli civilians; they accepted the 1947 partition resolution calling for a n Arab Palestinian State, but ignored t h e part that laid t h e legal foundation for a Jewish State; they called for t h e West Bank and Gaza to be handed to t h e PLO without direct negotiation, without removing t h e ambiguity about whether pre-1967 Israel is still considered ’occupied Palestine’. Nevertheless, this was a great advance over previous Palestinian positions, including t h e favourite formula of t h e 19705 which had advocated a ’secular, democratic state' in all of Palestine after Israel had first been ’de-Zionised’ a n d .in effect, dismantled. Following much soul-searching, t h e PLO appeared to have accepted t h e principle of a two-state solution ( o n e Jewish, o n e Arab s t a t e alongside each o t h e r ) after over forty years of u n r e l e n t i n g opposition to t h e very existence of Israel. O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , there is n o sign t h a t t h e PLO or t h e

Palestinians have abandoned their basic view of Zionism as a n ’illegitimate’, racist, colonialist a n d imperialist movement. PLO propaganda still regularly refers to ’ u s u r p e d ' o r ’occupied'

Palestine, t o t h e racist ’Zionist entity’, to Zionist ’genocide’ against Palestinians a n d to t h e Nazi-like s t a t e of Israel. Yasser

Arafat, who ten years ago declared his solidarity with 248

The Q u e s t i o n o f P a l e s t i n e

Ayatollah Khomeini’s jihad to liberate Jerusalem,24 now stands at the right-hand of Saddam Hussein, whose bellicose threats to incinerate Israel have turned h i m i n t o a reincarnated

Saladin for countless Palestinians. Alongside him in Baghdad are all the bloodstained Palestinian terrorist leaders like Abul Abbas, Abu Nidal, George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh, who have shown many times i n t h e past their readiness t o attack Israeli a n d Jewish civilian targets a s part o f their unceasing war against Zionism. The radicalisation a m o n g t h e Palestinians a n d t h e PLO i n t h e

past two years is undoubtedly linked to internal developments in Israel itself. The influx of Soviet Jews, fleeing Russian antisemitism, is rapidly tilting t h e demographic balance inside

the Jewish state in Israel's favour. It is raising fears that the occupied territories will eventually be flooded with Soviet immigrants, thereby d o o m i n g any hope of a West Bank

Palestinian state. Once more, as in the 19305, Palestinian Arabs are alarmed that they may pay t h e price of European anti-

semitic intolerance and be displaced to make way for Jewish immigrants. Some of them even see in this mass influx a ’conspiracy' between t h e Soviet U n o n , t h e United States a n d Israel at their expense. M a n y Palestinians also regard Muslim autonomy o n t h e Temple M o u n t a s u n d e r threat from

nationalist and fundamentalist Jews. The Haram as-Sharz'f has always been viewed as a symbolic cornerstone of their independence, and since the days of the Grand Mufti it has been a powerful rallying-cry for the Palestinian national movement. This is more true than ever in the middle of the intzfada and at a time when the influence of Islamic fundamentalists i n t h e occupied territories h a s never b e e n greater.

Once more the mendacious slogans that Israel is planning to seize the Muslim holy places fill the air, as do calls for the ’slaughter of the Jews' issuing from the mosques and from fanatical fundamentalist preachers?”5 Antisemitism h a s returned w i t h a vengeance a s t h e inevitable corollary of this Islamic fundamentalism, w h i l e its mirror249

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image, a growing Israeli hatred a n d racist stereotyping of Palestinian Arabs, threatens to make mutual accommodation

impossible.26 Palestinian intellectuals will insist, of course, that there is n o anti-Jewish element in their nationalist position, a n d for the more enlightened a n d Westernised spokesmen among them, this is undoubtedly true. They see Palestinian reactions in purely political terms as a concrete response to a repressive Israeli state that is occupying Arab lands. For such Palestinians, the victims have become the victimisers, it is t h e Israeli Jews who are ‘racist' and they are t h e objects of racism, dehumanisation and ruthless oppression.27 Their struggle for Palestinian national identity a n d h u m a n rights u n d e r occupation h a s nothing i n common with

European traditions of antisemitism. It is not governed by hatred of Jews, though it does embrace a total repudiation of Zionism as a political ideology a n d practice which excludes a n d discriminates against them, has dispossessed their pe0ple a n d negates their very existence. Their anti-Zionism is the other side of their affirmation of Palestinian national identity, a rejection of Israelis not a s Jews b u t a s conquerors a n d settlers.

Some Palestinian intellectuals like Edward Said and Hisham Sharabi have even gone so far as to say that it is o n e of the great misfortunes of t h e Palestinian people that they have had the Jews as their adversaries, a people themselves so badly

wronged by others.28 However, the clear distinctions made between Zionists a n d Jews by some Palestinians during the past twenty years are by n o means universally shared o r even popular at a street level. For the ordinary Palestinian, Zionism is personified by t h e Jews whom h e encounters i n oppressive institutionalised roles

a n d a s the embodiment of a semi-colonial power structure. He does not necessarily differentiate between hawks a n d doves within this Israeli political system, between Judaism and Zionism, between Diaspora Jews and Israel. What h e has to confront are Jews who have come from all over the world to settle i n Palestine a n d who thereby seem to b e crowding h i m 250

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o u t from his o w n h o m e l a n d . It is easier to s e e t h e m a s

representatives of an international ’Zionist conspiracy’ than as settlers who merely happen to be Jews. Ethnocentrism a n d

religious arrogance o n both sides are now too strong to permit subtle distinctions between Zionists and Jews among the masses. The atavistic hatred between t h e sons of Isaac a n d of Ishmael, between t h e followers of Moses a n d Mohammed, threatens t o drown o u t t h e still, small voice of reason.

251

18 Arabism, Semitism and Antisemitism

The disarming claim is frequently m a d e i n t h e Arab world that,

since Arabs are ’Semites’, they cannot by definition be regarded as antisemites. Moreover, it is also suggested that before the advent of Zionism, Arab a n d Jewish ’Semites' cohabited together in idyllic harmony or, to use Yasser Arafat’s words, ’ w e lived together on o u r land without discrimination

a n d with love and peace’. The myth of the common ’racial' bond between Jews a n d Arabs (ironically enough, sometimes echoed i n early Zionist writings) is itself contradicted by other Arab claims, such a s those recently reiterated by President

Assad of Syria, that Jews are in fact descendants of Turkish Khazars and not ’Semites’ a t all. The concept of ’Semite' is in a n y case fictional if it is being applied to members of a so-called Semitic race. In its origins in the late eighteenth century it referred solely to a family of related languages which included Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic.l Developed by European writers like Christian Lassen, C o u n t Gobineau a n d Ernest R e n a n i n t h e m i d -

nineteenth century as a counterpoint to the equally spurious ’Aryan’ myth, ’Semitism’ was finally incorporated into the pseudo-scientific concept of anti-Semitism by the German j o u r n a l i s t Wilhelm Marr i n 1 8 7 9 . The concept was n e v e r a t

any time intended to refer to Arabs but simply to provide a racial and political euphemism to replace traditional Christian Jew-hatred i n E u r o p e , which i n t h e l a t e n i n e t e e n t h century

seemed unappealing to atheists o r anticlericals. European a n d Western a n t i s e m i t e s a l w a y s understood 252

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solely a n d exclusively anti-Jewish, w h i c h has never prevented some of t h e m from sympathising with t h e Arab branch o f the

’Semitic’ linguistic family. This was the case even with Hitler and the Nazis, who welcomed the Palestinian Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini to wartime Berlin as an honoured guest a n d ally, even as they were embarking o n t h e mass m u r d e r o f European Jewry. Nor is there m u c h basis i n t h e Arab news media, journals,

literature or everyday life for the distinction between Jews and Zionists that is often made by Arab intellectuals who deny the very premise of ’Semitic’ antisemitism. For as we have already seen, the term Jews (Yahfid) is often mixed up or used interchangeably with Zionists (Sahyfim’yyfin), Israelis or the Children o f Israel (Bani: 15rd'17).2 Moreover, t h e scale a n d

extent of the antisemitic literature i n the Middle East, much but not all of i t government-sponsored, is such as to swamp that minority of Arabs who make a genuine distinction between their attitudes to Jews and their rejection of Zionism. This literature can n o longer, after forty years or more of systematic defamation of Jews, be treated as a ’foreign import’ designed solely t o serve the political struggle against Israel. I t is

no less significant as a religious, cultural and national instrument for the affirmation of Arab-Islamic identity, whose resonance a m o n g both t h e intellectuals a n d t h e masses

suggests that i t speaks to deeper needs in the Arab psyche as well as reflecting an ongoing crisis in Arab society as a whole. This is n o t t o deny that t h e term ’antisemitism' has a European origin a n d a specific historical a n d cultural tradition

which is distinct from that of the Muslim Arabs. But when The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are published in repeated editions i n Arabic, throughout t h e Arab w o r l d , they cease t o be simply a European product a n d begin t o enter t h e mainstream o f Arab

thought.3 Their appeal is all the greater because the spectre of a powerful, satanic conspiracy helps to alleviate the trauma and h u m i l i a t i o n o f successive Arab defeats at the hands o f the Jews

and of the West.4 We have already noted the passion of the 2.53

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ultra-conservative Saudi monarch, King Feisal, for this Protocols forgery, but even a sophisticated Arab radical leader like President Nasser recommended it warmly in 1958 to a visiting I n d i a n j o u r n a l i s t : ’It is very important t h a t you s h o u l d

read it. I will give you a copy. It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that three hundred Zionists, each of whom knows all the others, govern the fate of the European Continent.’S The Protocols mythology, like the belief of so many Arabs in a n imaginary map on t h e walls of the Israeli Parliament (showing a Greater Israel from t h e Nile to the Euphrates) did not therefore begin with Israel's conquest of t h e West B a n k a n d Gaza ( 1 9 6 7 ) , with t h e invasion of Lebanon ( 1 9 8 2 ) o r w i t h t h e

present Palestinian revolt. Rather it was the pre-existent receptivity to such myths which turned them into selffulfilling prophecies whose ’truth’ about Jewish plans for world domination was allegedly being revealed o r confirmed by current events. The stereotypes a r e of course activated a n d given a more intense meaning for many Arabs precisely

because they have to confront in Israel a concrete and efficient enemy with t h e military, technological and political capacity to inflict punishment or damage upon them. Wherever Israel has exercised this capacity, as in the bombardment of Beirut in 1982 or t h e more recent killings of unarmed Palestinians i n the occupied territories, the feelings of hatred and enmity aroused will naturally favour the resort to stereotypical thinking. But if the policies and behaviour of Israeli Jews can and have become a n exacerbating factor in the equation, they do not explain t h e irrational beliefs h e l d by many Arabs a b o u t a

Jewish drive to global domination, about their ’control’ of t h e world economy, their corruption of morals and inherently evil character. These purely a n t i s e m i t i c notions a r e n o t a necessary

a n d ineluctable outcome of anti-Zionist thinking or of t h e war a g a i n s t Israel, yet t h e i r widespread popularity i n t h e Arab

world cannot b e denied. The denigration of Israel and Zionism continually slides over into a vilification of Jews a n d what one prominent Egyptian scholar defined as the ’arrogant, oppres254

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sive spirit’ of Judaism. The late President Sadat (who in t h e early 19505 had eulogised Hitler in t h e Egyptian press) could declare on Mohammed’s birthday anniversary (25 April 1972) that ’the most magnificent thing which the Prophet did was to drive t h e Jews from t h e entire Arabian p e n i n s u l a ' ; a n d

promise his people ’the removal of Israeli arrogance a n d lack of restraint s o t h a t they s h a l l a g a i n be a s described i n the Koran,

living as they are fated to live, in degradation a n d impoverishment’.6 Sadat made peace with Israel seven years later, but t h e Egyptian intelligentsia after t h e Peace Treaty appears to have scaled new heights of anti-Jewish invective. This is how Rivka Yadlin, who has made a close study of the subject, begins her book on anti-Zionism and anti-Judaism in present-day Egypt. Egyptian writing of the 19805 is- permeated with t h e evil spirit of antisemitism. Such would be the initial a n d spontaneous feeling of anyone leafing through the Egyptian press or glancing a t t h e titles of books offered for sale at Cairo’s pavement stalls. Israel, in political cartoons, is depicted by hooked-nosed and hunchbacked figures with wispy beards and skull caps o r black hats, reminiscent of Der Stiirmer caricatures. Headlines in monthly magazines call for the destruction of the Jewish state. Books a n d articles return time a n d time again t o t h e story of Mohammed’s betrayal by the

Jews.7 A random selection of quotes taken from Egyptian sources i n t h e past year ( w h i c h could be duplicated ad nauseam from all

over the Arab world) may give a n idea of the tenor of this increasingly rampant a n t i s e m i t i s m . Thus, i n February 1 9 8 9 , i n

the pro-government Egyptian weekly October, o n e reads: ’It has now become clear that perhaps Hitler did have justification for gassing t h e Jews. Because if t h e Jews were allowed freedom of action they would have eaten t h e others.’ In J u n e 255

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1989, Jamal E-Din Muhammad Musa, lecturer a t Bin-Shams University, wrote: ’Jews are deliberately flooding Egypt with drugs a n d have made contact with the International Mafia in order to bring down the Egyptian society.’ In the same month, Atef Amer, Councillor a t the Egyptian Ministry of Education, wrote a poem about Israel’s Prime Minister, Itzhak Shamir: ’The ugly son of a n ape . . . remember how you were tortured in the past by your hangman Hitler . . . son of hatred, your nation is hated because it sells dignity and its God. Your tail w a s c u t . . . remember that you are the snake a n d that once

your head is cut off, many will find peace.’8 In September 1989 a professor of Political Science at Cairo University, Dr Hamid Rabee, claimed in Al-Wafd that ’Jews are governed by three e n e m i e s : self-hatred, fear a n d provocative behaviour. Zionist

leaders have brought drugs, terror and sexual anarchy to

America and western Europe.’9 This theme was echoed at a Drugs symposium held in Jordan in October 1989, where Dr Majad Abu Rahiya quoted the Protocols as advising Jews to distribute drugs in order to blind other people. Such wildly irrational a n d bigoted views have become more common in Amman, where the Muslim Brotherhood, controlling onethird of the seats in the lower house of the Jordanian Parliament and with five members of the Cabinet, have emerged as t h e most powerful political organisation in the c o u n t r y . The rise of Islamic fundamentalism i n Jordan, t h e

growing ferment among its majority Palestinian population a n d their fervent support for Saddam Hussein’s bloodcurdling threats a n d missile strikes against Israel have all intensifed the c l i m a t e of hatred.

But o n e does well to remember that there is nothing new in Arab antisemitism, even in ’moderate’ Jordan. Ten years ago, o n 1 5 D e c e m b e r 1 9 8 0 , Hazem Nuseibah, Jordan’s Permanent Representative a t t h e U n i t e d Nations, told the General Assembly t h a t

the Zionists are t h e richest people in the world a n d . control much of its destiny. People like Lord Rothschild 256

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every day, in ironclad secrecy,decide a n d flash round t h e world how high t h e price of gold should be each particular day. And there is Mr Oppenheimer of South Africa, who holds 15 million blacks in bondage in order to exploit a n d monopolise t h e diamonds, t h e uranium, a n d other precious resources which rightfully belong to t h e

struggling African people of South Africa and Namibia. '0 O n e can see here just h o w discredited European a n t i s e m i t i c

theories about a ’Jewish cabal’ controlling a n d exploiting t h e rest of h u m a n i t y are being exported by t h e Arabs back t o t h e

West a n d also being beamed at t h e Third World in order to defame Zionism a n d the Jewish people. An even better illustration of recycling Western antisemitism for t h e sake of t h e Arab war against Israel was given by the Libyan representative a t t h e United Nations o n 8 December 1 9 8 3 :

It is high time for t h e United Nations and the United States, in particular, to realise that t h e Jewish Zionists here in the United States attempt to destroy Americans. Look around New York. Who are t h e owners of pornographic film operations and houses? Is it not the Jews who are exploiting the American people a n d trying to debase them? If we succeed in eliminating that e n t i t y , we shall b y the same token save t h e American

a n d European peoples.‘l Such antisemitic diatribes against Zionism i n a n i n t e r -

national forum, when used by Arabs, aim t o find common ground with a Western Christian audience. In a Middle Eastern context, it would be more common to vilify Jews a n d Israel as expressions of Western culture. Sexual permissiveness, ’ p r o m i s c u i t y ' , ’ i m m o r a l i t y ' a n d t h e position of women — all e x t r e m e l y sensitive issues i n Arab M u s l i m society — are often t a k e n by Arabs of a n a n t i s e m i t i c persuasion a s issues

which Jews a n d Westerners exploit to weaken t h e moral 257

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foundation of their society. They regard Israel as a prime example of a people leading a sexually free life-style which, if imitated, would lead to moral degeneration in t h e Muslim world. Not o n l y religious b u t even radical Egyptian writers

who justified t h e unprovoked killing by a n Egyptian soldier of Israeli tourists a t R a s Burqa i n t h e S i n a i i n 1 9 8 5 , referred to

bare-breasted Israeli women as having somehow ’provoked’ t h e murders. lsrael, Zionism a n d the Jews, it is constantly suggested, deliberately seek to destroy lslam as a religion, to achieve ’normalisation’ with Egypt through sex, to promote white slavery, pornography and American television series (Dallas, Love Boat, Dynasty) that corrupt morals, as part of their cultural a s s a u l t o n t h e Arabs.‘2 E v e n prominent writers i n

Egypt a n d other parts of the Arab world have o n occasion made allegations of the kind that Jews become obstetricians in order to perform abortions a n d thus wipe o u t the Gentile population; o r that they are deliberately trying to introduce Aids i n t o Arab countries like Egypt through drugs a n d s e x u a l

immorality.” None of these delirious notions are original they have their origins in Western and Christian fantasies about Jewish sexual licentiousness - but i n Arab societies they are liable to have a particularly heavy emotional charge. Undoubtedly, such falsehoods reinforce the overall image of the Jews as inhuman, evil, corrupt and intent on infiltrating a n d exploiting all t h e weaknesses of the society they are supposedly seeking to undermine. Such stereotypes, reminiscent of European antisemitic literature, had already begun t o penetrate t h e Arab world i n t h e 19205 a n d 19303, especially

as a result of Nazi propaganda a n d influence. After 1948 they were deliberately utilised by Arab governments a n d by all those many forces in t h e Arab world interested in mobilising t h e s e m i - l i t e r a t e masses a g a i n s t a common e n e m y , t h e Jewish

state. This goal was the more easily achieved since t h e very existence of Israel was perceived b y most Arabs a s a n aggression, a great injustice to t h e Palestinians a n d a t h r e a t to

their own security. The sense of tangible, concrete grievance 258

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was emotionally reinforced by t h e denigration of Jews in general a s representing s o m e t h i n g a l i e n , exclusive a n d inimical to t h e a m b i t i o n s a n d goals of Arab n a t i o n a l i s m . T h e Jewish s t a t e , i n particular, was depicted i n t h i s Arab n a t i o n a l discourse a s a n i m p l a n t a t i o n of Western colonialism i n t o t h e

Middle East, created in order to frustrate Arab unity. Both Nasserism a n d Syrian a s w e l l a s Iraqi Ba’athism were a n d a r e

still thoroughly imbued with this conspiratorial notion of Zionism as a n insidious ’imperialist' plot against the Arabs. The pan-Arab vision envisaged the eventual unity of t h e w h o l e Arab n a t i o n i n t o a single, large a n d powerful Arab s t a t e

stretching from Morocco on the Atlantic ocean to Iraq o n the

Persian Gulf.14 The presence of any non Arabic-speaking, non-Muslim sovereign state a t t h e very heart of t h e Arab lands would in a n y case have been anathema. That Jews, traditionally a despised a n d unmartial minority in t h e Arab midst, should have a t t a i n e d such elevated political s t a t u s turned s o m e t h i n g already unpalatable i n t o a pan-Arab disaster of

unprecedented magnitude. Already in 1943, t h e Arab nationalist thinker, Mahmoud Azat Darwaza, had warned that t h e Jews were ’concentrating i n t h e very place which l i n k s t h e

Arab countries of Asia with those of Africa. They are a racial a n d geographical obstruction between the Arab countries, a n d this forces t h e Arabs, who surround them on all sides, to continue to fight t h e m a n d t o tighten the siege around t h e m until this n e w phenomenon will be destroyed.'5 In t h e early 1 9 6 0 s , t h e heyday of Nasserism, Arab broadcasts a n d w r i t i n g s

would endlessly elaborate on this idea of Israel as a negation of Arab unity, t h e Arab homeland, Arab civilisation a n d t h e whole philosophy of life embraced by Arab nationalism.l6 Yehoshafat Harkabi, who made t h e first systematic study of

Arab attitudes to Israel during that period, considered that t h e antisemitism which invariably accompanied this nationalist w o r l d - v i e w w a s essentially ideological a n d political, directed primarily a g a i n s t Israel. Because of t h e i r hatred of Israel, most

Arab political a n d intellectual elites felt n o inhibitions about 2.59

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denigrating t h e culture a n d history of the Jews. Since they desired a n d openly called for the physical elimination of Israel, they felt that they had to portray it as uniquely despicable a n d radically depraved in order to justify their extremist goals. This led to a systematic dehumanisastion of t h e Zionist ’enemy’ a n d reinforced a n antisemitism which portrayed the baseness of the Jews a s deeply embedded in their religion, their history a n d culture. As Harkabi has put it: ’If the Jews are depraved, then their state, their creation, is also inherently debased; and conversely, the depravity of Israel is transferred to t h e Jews. Thus a cycle is formed: reinforced depravity from the Jews to

Israel and from Israel to the Jews.’17 Harkabi a n d others have pointed o u t that it is this nexus which constitutes the originality of Arab antisemitism, and today it has extended beyond the Middle East. A political antisemitism based on total opposition to Israel and undercutting its moral right to exist has spread from the Arab world to Europe, America, t h e Third World a n d t h e non-Arab Muslim world. It singles out Israel as a criminal state, based on violence, terror, racism a n d unending aggression, which are inherent i n its very n a t u r e . It is n o t t h e specific policies, details

o r failings of t h e Jewish state which are examined, but rather t h e negative essence a t the heart of Zionism which precludes t h e

existence of any positive and redeeming characteristics.18 Thus Zionism will rarely if ever be viewed by radical Arab nationalists as a n authentic a n d legitimate expression of Jewish nationalism. Instead it may a t best be regarded a s a narrow, particularistic, tribalist a n d racially exclusive form of Judaism which has become a malignant wound in t h e body of Arabism. No matter what it does, t h e fact that it exists constitutes a n infringement of t h e nationalist vision of P a n Arab a n d M u s l i m destiny, a judgement shared e q u a l l y by

Assad, Saddam Hussein a n d Qaddafi, like Nasser before them.

The existence of Israel constitutes, therefore, t h e negation of Arabism, t h e dismemberment of a n Arab a n d Islamic land, its 260

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usurpation by Jews. In Arab literature, the Zionist conquest of Palestine is presented as a catalogue of crimes and horrendous atrocities (sometimes invented, sometimes grotesquely magn i fi e d ) which e i t h e r explicitly or by implication demonstrate

the cruelty and callousness of Jews, their devilish cunning a n d ruthlessness. Against this background the destruction of the Jewish state and the ’liberation of Palestine' appear as sacred goals of Arab nationalism, the supreme legitimising cause for

any pretender seeking to unify the Arab nation. ‘9 It is no accident that a secular nationalist like Saddam Hussein, despite his call to jihad against Israel and the West, has revived the image of the pre-Islamic Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzer, who had liberated Palestine over 500 years before Christ a n d exiled the Jews in chains to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzer had a rather poor reputation i n early Islamic

literature but having been refurbished as a symbol of Iraqi imperial ambitions, Pan-Arabism and the destruction of Israel,

he could serve the needs of a modern dictator.20 It is true, however, that Arab nationalism after 1967, in its discourse for Western consumption, did try a n d modify the

tone of its demands. Following in the wake of the PLO and the Palestinians, it began to emphasise issues of human rights and the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories rather than

the final goal of liquidating the Jewish state. The maligning of Jews did not cease at any time but could now more easily be blamed on Israeli behaviour and actions. A greater awareness developed among some Arab leaders and intellectuals that open antisemitism and talk of ’throwing the Jews into the sea’ might be counter-productive to the Arab cause in the West. The new policy, adopted in the late 19705 primarily by Sadat’s Egypt, spoke of the containment rather than the destruction of Israel, a s a way of weakening it a n d gradually stripping it of its

Zionist identity, so that it could be absorbed into the region.21 Zionism, with its premise of Jewish statehood a n d its reminder of past colonial subjugation by t h e West, was still considered irreconcilable with Arab nationalism; b u t a de-Zionised Israel, 261

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’an Arabised Jewish nation among the united Arab states' (a formula p u t forward in 1975 by Butros Ghali, Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs), could conceivably be

integrated.22 This more ’moderate’ pan-Arab vision looked forward to the peaceful dissolution of Israel, its domestication in stages. Anti-Jewishness, which alienated the Western world, had to be explicitly rejected and the attack directed against Israeli expansionism a n d Zionist ’political thought'. As the Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Mustapha Khalil, phrased it in Tel Aviv in December 1 9 8 0 , Egypt was recognising the Jewish

religious and cultural community in Palestine, not its political sovereignty. ’When we speak of the Jews, we never regard them as constituting a national entity through their religion. A J e w can b e a n Egyptian Jew, a German Jew, or a French Jew

. . . we always regard the Jewish religion a s strictly a religion

and not the mark, the symbol of a national entity.’23 Full peace, it was implied both here and in moderate pan-Arab thinking in general, would eventually involve the selfdissolution of Israel as a nation—state, the ultimate dis— appearance of Zionism a n d the return of the Jews to their historic status a s a ’tolerated' religion in the Muslim Arab world. Although pan-Arabism, whether in its moderate or extremist forms, declined somewhat in the 19805, it never completely disappeared a s a focus of ideological identification. Its fundamental View of Zionism as an existential threat to the Arab n a t i o n a n d to its historical destiny continues to c o l o u r t h e

View of many intellectuals i n Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. Today, as in t h e past, Zionism is rejected because of its core-value, namely t h e right to a sovereign Jewish political existence i n Palestine. For Pan-Arab nationalists, a s m u c h a s

for Muslim fundamentalists o r for the PLO, t h e struggle with Z i o n i s m w a s traditionally seen a s a zero-sum g a m e , n a m e l y : W h o will destroy whom? I n t h i s total conflict, Zionism is n o t h e l d by m i l i t a n t pan-Arabists ( w h o oppose the present 262

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Egyptian regime a n d its policy) to be something separate from Judaism, b u t rather a s deriving from it. I n this ’secular’ literature, t h e continuity i n Jewish goals, strategy a n d tactics over thousands of years is particularly stressed, often i n a n

antisemitic way, as Rivka Yadlin has shown.24 The bottom line of these polemics is that contemporary Zionism is inherent in Judaism, which in turn is responsible for the ’abominable’ traits in the behaviour of Israel. The most disturbing aspect of such insistent anti—Judaism is that its main foothold should be amongst intellectuals

in Egypt, who after the Peace Treaty seem

to have taken the lead in disseminating unmistakeably antiJewish opinions. The situation is even worse under repressive, authoritarian

Arab regimes like Syria, Iraq or Libya, which nominally espouse some blend of Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism while permitting n o legal opposition a t all. I n such

countries, propaganda against Israel, Zionism a n d the Jews can expect to command quasi-automatic ideological support, as indeed it does in the more theocratic Islamic regimes. The resulting antisemitism is government—inspired and any voices raised against it would have great difficulty in making themselves heard. Even exiled Arab intellectuals in the democratic West do not find it easy to break ranks against the cumulative impact of this torrent of vituperation. The eminent Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, has noted in this connection: The volume of antisemitic books and articles published, the size and number of editions and impressions, t h e eminence and authority of those who write, publish and sponsor them, their place in school and college curricula, their role in the mass media, would all seem to suggest t h a t classical antisemitism is a n essential part

of Arab intellectual life at the present time — almost as much a s it w a s i n Nazi Germany, a n d considerably

more than in late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury France, where the clamour of t h e a n t i 263

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Dreyfusards was answered by a t least e q u a l l y powerful

voices in defense of reason and tolerance.25

Lewis nuances this sombre verdict with the point that deSpite the q u a n t i t y of this p u b l i s h e d a n d broadcast a n t i s e m i t i s m , t h e visceral, deep a n d i n t i m a t e hatred ’characteristic

of the classic antisemite in Central a n d Eastern Europe’ is comparatively rare in the Arab world. The antisemitism appears to be ideological and political, literary a n d intellectual more than it is truly a n expression of popular attitudes. Nor does its articulation necessarily preclude normal, a t times

friendly, relations with Jews, a n d sometimes even with Israelis. Thus, in spite of the vehemence or seeming ubiquity of Arab a n d Muslim antisemitism, it is ’still something that comes from above, from the leadership, rather than from below, from the society - a political and polemical weapon.’26 If this assumption is correct, a resolution of t h e Arab—Israeli conflict

and of the Palestinian question might yet prevent a n irreversible poisoning of Arab society and culture by European-style antisemitism.

But such a n Optimistic outcome, while devoutly to be wished, seems for t h e m o m e n t improbable a n d u n l i k e l y to

reduce Arab or Muslim susceptibility to antisemitism in the immediate future. The new antisemitism of the ’Semites’ has, after all, powerful local a n d Islamic roots which once activated are n o t easy to switch off. O n e may doubt t h a t t h e pattern of

prejudice which already exists is a n y less visceral than its European a n d Western counterparts;27 especially since it is grounded in a fundamental dogma of Islam a n d Arabism, that Jews are a minority whose inferior political status (and its accompanying h u m i l i a t i o n s ) is religiously a n d culturally pre-

destined. Moreover, while it is true that Arab antisemitism is historically newer ( a n d i n t h a t sense more superficial) than its C h r i s t i a n European antecedents, since 1 9 4 5 it h a s rapidly

made up the lost ground.28 Indeed its attitudes to Israel, Judaism a n d the Jews seem to have acquired precisely that 264

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deeply obsessional quality which arises whenever the 'Jewish Q u e s t i o n ’ is held to b e central to t h e religious, national a n d cultural i d e n t i t y of a particular h u m a n group.

This is not of course to deny that the origins of the Arab— Israeli conflict have their roots in a clash of two national movements over the same territory as much as in the history of prejudice and the persecution of minorities. Racial antisemitism, for example, has nothing directly to do with the Arab—Israeli conflict or with t h e Palestinian question, except i n so far a s it has inadvertently served to strengthen the Zionist

movement. Arab hostility to Israel can no doubt be explained or justified without recourse to antisemitic stereotypes, though, as we have seen, the temptation for Arabs to fall back on such simplistic devices is a constant and growing one. It is, however, undeniable that an anti-Jewish Arab ideology has crystallised and acquired its own mOmentum over t h e course of the last few decades, one that has distorted and blackened the image of the Jew i n ways that were historically u n -

precedented for the Islamic world.29 Inevitably, this ideology has been able to feed on feelings of anger and hostility towards Israel, intensified by its questionable treatment of the Palestinians. The anti-Jewish ideology has been constantly disseminated through books, newspapers, caricatures, radio and television media which have reached a mass audience. Among Palestinian children and adolescents, who have known nothing but Israeli occupation of the territories, daily events doubtless have the effect of seeming to confirm some of their fears and deeply ingrained stereotypes. The harsh reality of conflict thereby fans the flames of hatred and prejudice, leading to a dehumanisation of the ’enemy’ by both Arabs and Israelis.

Since the Lebanese war of 1982 this has led on the Arab side to t h e return of t h e idea that Israel embodies a powerful

demonic drive for domination which is explained in terms of O l d Testament savagery, cruelty a n d the unrestrained u s e of

force. Superimposed on this archaic image of Biblical chosen265

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ness a n d ’Jewish’ arrogance is t h e modern myth of a ‘Nazi-like'

Israel wreaking racist vengeance on the Arabs, torturing prisoners, raping women and imposing its colonialist will on t h e whole Middle East. This demonisation of Israel and of the Jews h a s admittedly been more prominent i n fundamentalist

Islamic than i n Arab nationalist propaganda, which even in the most rigidly anti-Zionist regimes is usually less permeated with anti-Jewish themes. The degree of commitment of the secular nationalist regimes to the Arab—Israeli conflict may indeed be questionable, whatever lip-service they have paid over t h e years to the Palestinian cause. For it must be increasingly apparent to the more sober, rational Arab leaders a n d intellectual élites that the core problems of Middle Eastern underdevelopment, political corruption and the societal failure to engage modernity on level terms have had little to do with Western colonial exploitation or with Israel. Neither t h e West nor the establishment of t h e Jewish state can indefinitely be made a scapegoat for t h e endemic violence of inter-Arab politics, its instability, irrationality, insecurity and constant relapse into terrorism. Neither Zionism nor imperialism can adequately explain t h e chronic inability of the Arab world to capitalise on its oil wealth and other resources to achieve economic development, pluralist democracy and social

stability.30 In the shadow of the bitter Gulf war it is, however, highly unlikely that reason or common sense will prevail in t h e Middle East. Popular myths about the Western betrayal of Palestine a n d a b o u t a sinister Jewish conspiracy to subvert Arabism a n d Islam will probably continue to flourish, w h a t ever t h e new international order that may emerge i n the

region. For a t the heart of the Middle Eastern problem for most Arabs is their emotional refusal to accept Israel and the right of the Jews to exercise any sovereignty in a Muslim domain. Neither in Arab nationalism nor in Islam can national independence and equality for Jews be tolerated." For Palestinians, too, who have eagerly hailed a cruel, brutal 266

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oppressor like Saddam Hussein as their hero and liberator, ’peace' and ’justice’ seem to mean little more than a demand for the complete Arabisation of the Jewish state. None o f these

propositions are in themselves anti-Jewish in a classical European sense of t h e term, b u t they echo a n anachronistic

’teaching of contempt’, which, if i t is not corrected, can only lead the Middle East further down the road to self-destruction.

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Notes

Chapter 1

.°°>l

l . S h a y e D. Cohen, ”’Anti-Semitism” i n Antiquity: The Problem of Definition', i n David Berger (ed.) History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 43—7 Salo W . Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Vol. 1 ( N e w York, I 9 5 2 ) , p. 194. The late M e n a h e m Stern's massive threev o l u m e collection of sources, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem, 1974—1984) is indispensable T he view of Jewish Sages, responding to antisemitism i n the Hellenistic-Roman world, was however more varied a n d c o m p l e x . S e e t h e remarks of Moshe David Herr i n S h m u e l A l m o g (ed.) Antisemitism Through the Ages (Oxford, 1988), pp. 27-32 H a n n a h Arendt, Antisemitism ( N e w York, 1968), p. 7 O n A p i o n , whose work provoked a n apologetic treatise by t h e Jewish historian Josephus, see J o h n Gager, The Origins of AntiSemitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (Oxford/New York, 1985), pp. 45-7 Louis H. F e l d m a n , ’ A n t i s e m i t i s m i n t h e Ancient Wor ld’, i n D. Berger ( e d . ) , p. 3 1 , Gager, op. cit. , p. 40. For t e x t s a n d discussion, see S t e r n , V o l . 1 , op. cit., pp. 181—4 F e l d m a n , op. cit., pp. 22—3 Gager, op. cit., pp. 39-66 M e n a h e m S t e r n o n t h e attitude of t h e R o m a n authorities to t h e Jews, i n A l m o g ( e d . ) , op. cit., pp. 1 3 - 2 5 10. Ibid., p. 2 2 l l . Gager, op. cit., pp. 56-7 12. Book 5 of Tacitus’s Histories. ‘ S e d adversus o m n e s alios hostile o d i u m . Separati epulis, discreti cubilibus, proiectissima ad libidinem gens; c o n c u b i t u a l i e n a r u m abstinent; inter so nihil illicitu m.’ M y t h a n k s t o m y colleague, Professor M o s h e David Herr of t h e Hebrew University, for this reference 269

Notes

13. H . Levy, ’Tacitus o n the Origin and Manners of the Jews’ ( i n Hebrew), Zion, 8 (1943), pp. 17—26 14. Quoted i n Gager, op. cit., pp. 85—6 15. Ibid., pp. 65—6 l 6 . M. A . Adler, ’The Emperor Julian and the Jews’, Jewish Quarterly

Review, 5 (1893), p p . 591—651 l 7 . Feldman, op. cit., pp. 30—6 l 8 . Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews (New York, 1985), pp. 15—19

19. Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The TheologicalRoots of AntiSemitism (New York, 1971), p . 181 emphasises the extent to w hi ch Christian self-affirmation, unlike its pagan forerunners, depended o n the negation of Judaism Chapter 2

5"

l . Moritz Giidemann to Kamilla Theimer, 19 December 1907, Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People (Jerusalem) A / W 731.5 H y m a n Maccoby, The Sacred Executioner: Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt (London, 1987), p . 134 I Thessalonians 2 : 15—16 O n Paul’s polemics against Jews, see Gager, op. cit., pp. 193—264 Rosemary Ruether, op. cit., p . 1 13 Ibid. Also Maccoby, op. cit., p. 146

9°

Homily 1, Against the Jews,in W. A. Meeks and R. L. Wilken Jews and Christians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries of the Common Era (Missoula, M o n t . , 1978), p . 97. Maccoby, op. cit., p . 19 Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews: TheMedieval Conception

of the Jew and its Relation toModern Antisemitism (New Haven, 1943) 10. Friedrich Heer, God's First Love (London, 1967) and Flannery, op. cit., p. 50 l l . For the doctrinal background, see Marcel Simon, Verus Israel. Etude sur les relations entre Chrétiens et Juifs dans I ’Empire Romain (Paris, 1948); F. Lovsky, Antisémitisme et Mystere d 'Israe'l (Paris, 195 5); Jules Isaac, Genese de l’Antisémitisme (Paris, 1956); and A . T. Davies (ed.) Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity (New York. 1979) 12. Maccoby, op. cit., p. 151 l 3 . Flannery, op. cit., pp. 56-7 14. Ibid., p . 75. Also Bernhard Blumenkranz, Juifls et Chrétiens dans le monde occidental (Paris, 1960) 15. Isaac, op. cit., p . 272 270

Notes

l 6 . Ibid. , p. 279. Flannery, op. cit. , p. 84 observed that in the intensity of his vituperation, ’Agobard has few equals in anti-Judaic literature' l 7 . S ee t h e remarks of Jeremy Cohen, in Berger (ed.), History and Hate, pp. 6 7 - 7 1 I8. Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1960), pp. 339-58 . Gavin Langmuir, History, Religion and Antisemitism (Berkeley/L05 Angeles 1990), p. 2 6 1 - 2 20. Interview with Professor Langmuir, Stanford University, May 1990. O n the p h e n o m e n o n of religious doubt in this context see Langmuir, op. cit., pp. 2 3 2 ff 2 1 . Text in S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (Philadelphia, 1933) 22. S ee Kenneth R. Stow, ’Hatred of t h e Jews or Love of t h e Church? Papal Policy toward t h e Jews in t h e Middle Ages', in Almog (ed. Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 7 1 - 8 9 23. Flannery, op. cit., pp. 104—6 2 4 . Robert Chazan, ’Medieval Anti-Semitism', in Berger (ed.) History and Hate, pp. 49 ff 2 5 . Archie Baron, ‘Hidden Exodus', The Listener, 1 November 1 9 9 0 26. Flannery, 0p. cit., p. 9 0 Chapter 3 1. Gavin I. Langmuir, ‘Medieval Antisemitism', in Henry Friedlander a n d Sybil Milton (eds.) The Holocaust: Ideology, Bureaucracy and Genocide ( N e w York, 1980), p. 32 . Robert B o n fi l , 'The D e v i l a n d t h e J e w s i n t h e C h r i s t i a n C o n s c i o u s -

ness of t h e Middle Ages', in Almog (ed.) Antisemitism through the Ages pp. 9 1 - 8 See Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarianism and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages ( N e w York, 1970), pp. 75—9. According t o t h e legend, Antichrist would be born in Babylon through t h e impregnation of a Jewish prostitute by Satan himself and would later proceed t o Palestine. See Maccoby, op. cit., pp. . 1 7 2 — 5 Gavin I. Langmuir, ’Historiographic Crucifixion', in Les Juifs au Regard de l'Histoire. Me’langes en l’honneur de Bernard Blumenkranz (Paris, 1985), pp. 1 0 9 - 2 7 provides a detailed analysis of this first medieval accusation of ritual murder against Jews Maccoby, op. cit., pp. IS4 if Ibid. 271

Notes

Langmuir, ’Medieval Antisemitism’, p. 33 S e e Marie Despina, ‘Les accusations d e profanation d’hosties portées contre les juifs’, Rencontre, 22/23 (1971), pp. 150—73, pp. 180—96

10. ll. 12. l3.

14.

Léon Poliakov, The History of Antisemitism, Vol. 1 ( L o n d o n , 1974), pp. 107—22 Mordechai Breuer, ’The ”Black Death” a n d A n t i s e m i t i s m ' , i n A l m o g ( e d . ) , Antisemitism through the Ages pp. 144—49 Ibid., p. 150 K e n n e t h R . Stow, op. cit., pp. 81—5 Heiko A . O b e r m a n , ‘The Stubborn Jews: Timing t h e Escalation of A n t i s e m i t i s m i n late Medieval Europe’, Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook (henceforth LBI YB), 1989, pp. XV ff Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, 1982) Flannery, op. cit., p. l 15

15. l 6 . Ibid., p p . 116—17 17. Y. Baer, History of the Jews in Christian Spain, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1961), pp. 95—9 a n d his Die Juden in christlichen Spanien: Urkunden und Regesten, Vol. 2 (Berlin, 1936), pp. 210—18, 231—2 18. Michael Glatzer, ’Pablo de Santa Maria o n t h e Events of 1391', in: A l m o g (ed.) Antisemitism through the Ages, p. 135 19. E. Vacandard, ’La question d u meurtre rituelle chez les Juifs', Etude de critique et d'histoire religieuse (Paris, 1912), pp. 341—2. Cecil Roth,

History of the Marranos (New York, 1959) 2 0 . Joseph Kaplan, ‘Jews a n d J u d a i s m i n t h e Political a n d Social Thought of Spain i n t h e 1 6 t h a n d 1 7 t h centuries’, i n Almog (ed.) Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 156—59 2 1 . Quoted by O b e r m a n , op. cit., p. XVI 2 2 . Ibid., p. XXI ff 2 3 . Ibid., p . XVII 2 4 . I. Brandt (ed.) Luther’s Works, Vol. XLV (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 200—1 2 5 . Martin Luther, ’ V o n den J u d e n u n d Ihren Liigen, Luthers Reformations-Schriften, Vol. XX (St Louis: Concordia, 1890), pp. 1861—2026. Karl H. Rengstorf/ Siegfried von Kortzfleisch (ed.) Kirche und Synagoge: Handbuch zur Geschichte von Christen und Juden, Darstellung mit Quellen, Vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1968), pp. 4 1 9 ff 2 6 . Heiko A . O b e r m a n , The Roots of A ntisemitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation (Philadelphia, 1984), p. 117 2 7 . Q u o t e d i n Salo Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Vol.

x111, p . 218 272

Notes

2 8 . Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, ’The Reformation i n C o n t e m p o r a r y Jewish Eyes’, i n Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, IV, 12 (Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 2 4 1 - 3 2 6 2 9 . For a comparison between Luther a n d Calvin's view of t h e Jews, see Alice L. Eckardt, ’The Reformation a n d t h e J e w s ' , Shofar, V o l . 7 , N o . 4 ( S u m m e r 1989), pp. 23—47 3 0 . Richard Gutteridge, Open Thy Mouth for the Dumb: The German Evangelical Church and the Jews, 1879—1959 (Oxford, 1976)

Chapter 4 1. S . Ettinger, ’The Secular Roots of Modern Antisemitism’, i n O . D. Kulka a n d P. Mendes-Flohr (eds), Judaism and Christianity under the Impact of National Socialism (Jerusalem, 1987), p. 4 3 . S . Ettinger, ’Jews a n d Judaism as seen by t h e English Deists of t h e 1 8 t h C e n t u r y ' , Zion, XXIX (1964), i n Hebrew A r t h u r Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews ( N e w York, 1968). p. 3 1 3 . V o l t a i r e , ’Lettres' ( 1 4 December 1773) a n d ’ S e r m o n des Cinquantes' i n Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire (Paris, 1785), V o l . LX11, p. 2 7 9 : XXXII, p. 381 Voltaire, ’Juifs’, Dictionnaire Philosophique, ibid., XLI, p. 1 5 2 Voltaire, ibid., XLI, pp. 136—82: Essai sur les Moeurs, ibid., XVII, pp. 530—4 0 . D. K u l k a , ’Critique of Judaism i n European T h o u g h t : O n t h e Historical M e a n i n g of Modern A n t i s e m i t i s m ' , The Jerusalem Quarterly (Fall 1989), No . 5 2 , pp. 126—44 Jules Michelet, La Bible de I'Humanite’ (Paris, 1864), pp. 3 7 4 ff. S e e also G . M o n o d , ’Michelet et les juifs’, Revue des Etudes Juives, 5 3 (1907), pp. 1—25 E. R e n a n , History of the People of Israel, V o l . I ( B o s t o n , 1905), p. 9 7 . E. R e n a n , Histoire ge’ne’rale et systeme compare’ des Iangues se’mitiques (Paris, 1855), pp. 468 ff l l . Ibid., pp. 1 6 - 1 8 12. Ibid., p. 4 l 3 . S . A l m o g , ‘The Racial Motif i n R e n a n ' s A t t i t u d e t o Jews a n d Judaism’, i n Zion, 32 (1967), pp. 175—200, i n Hebrew 14. Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre, 2 1 November 1880, 6 November 1881 15. Albert Regnard, Atyens et Se’mites: Le Bilan du Judaisme et du Christianisme (Paris, 1890) . G u s t a v e T r i d o n , Du Molochisme Jutf: Etudes critiques et philosophiques (Brussels, 1884), pp. 127—30 273

Notes

17. Edouard D r u m o n t , La Fin d ' u n Monde (Paris, 1889), p. 185 18. S e e A . Toussenel, Les Juzfs: Rois de l'Epoque: Histoire de la féodalite financiére (Paris, 1845); L. Poliakov, A . History of Antisemitism (Paris, 1975) V o l . 111, pp. 3 7 7 ff; Z . Sternhell, La Droite Révolutionnaire 1885-1914: Les Origines Frangaises du Fascisme (Paris, 1978), pp. 384-400 19. S. Ettinger, 'The Young Hegelians — A Source of Modern A n t i S e m i t i s m ' , The Jerusalem Quarterly, 2 8 , ( 1 9 8 3 ) , p. 8 2 a n d Robert S. Wistrich, ’ A n t i s e m i t i s m as a ”Radical" Ideology i n t h e 1 9 t h C e n t u r y ' , The Jerusalem Quarterly, 2 8 , ( 1 9 8 3 ) , pp. 8 8 ff 20. Ettinger, ’The Young Hegelians', p. 7 3 2 1 . N a t h a n Rotenstreich, ’For a n d Against Emancipation: the B r u n o Bauer Controversy', LBI YB (1959), IV, pp. 3 - 3 6 2 2 B r u n o Bauer, Die Judenfrage (Brunswick, 1843) 2 3 G . F. D a u m e r , Der Feuer-und Molochdienst der alten Hebrc'ier als urvaterlicher, legaler, orthodoxer Cultus der Nation (Brunswick, 1842) 24. ' O n the Jewish Question’, i n Karl Marx, Early Writings ( L o n d o n , 1975), pp. 23811 25. Ibid. 26. Robert S. Wistrich, Revolutionary Jews from Marx to Trotsky ( L o n d o n / New York, 1976) 2 7 . H a n n a h Arendt, Antisemitism, p. 2 7 2 8 . Karl Marx, ' O n t h e Jewish Question’, p. 2 3 7 29. Ibid. 3 0 . (bid. 3 1 . For Bauer's racial a n t i s e m i t i s m , see his Das Judentum in der Fremde (Berlin, 1863) 3 2 . Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism ( L o n d o n , 1965), p. 3 3 2 notes t h a t ’every significant ideology of th e nineteenth century had its ow n brand of antisemitism’ Chapter 5 l . Eleanore Sterling, Judenhass: Die Anfc’inge der politischen Antisemitismus in Deutschland (1815-1850), (Frankfurt a . M , 1969) 2. O. D. K u l k a , 'Richard Wagner u n d die Anfange des modernen A n t i s e m i t i s m u s ' , Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts, 4 , (1961), pp. 2 8 l— 3 0 0 o n t h e connection between Wagner’s political radicalism a n d racial a n t i s e m i t i s m . See also Hartmut Zelinski Richard Wagner- ein

deutsches Thema. Eine Dokumentation zur Wirkungsgeschichte Richard Wagners, 1876-1976 (Vienna/Berlin, 1983) 3 . R . Wagner, Das Judenthum in der Musik (Leipzig, 1869), pp. 1 0 - 1 2 274

Notes

. Ibid., pp. 31—2 . Letter t o Ludwig l l , 22.X1. 1881. Quoted i n J. Katz, The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner'sAntisemitism (London, 1986), p. l 15. Katz's book is useful b u t unfortunately fails t o grasp the passion and depth of Wagner's hostility t o Jews. O n this point, see Margaret Brearley, ’Hitler and Wagner: the Leader, the Masterand the Jews', Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1988), pp. 3—21 Paul W . Massing, Rehearsal for Destruction: A Study of Political Antisemitism in Imperial Germany (New York, 1949); P. G. J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Antisemitism in Germany and Austria (London. 1988, revised ed.)

See the informative but otherwise disappointing biography by Moshe Zimmermann, Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Antisemitism (New York, 1986) . Adolf Stoecker, Christlich-Sozial: Reden und Aufsc'itze (Berlin, 1890, 2 n d ed.) : Hans Engelmann, Kirche am Abgrund: Adolf Stoecker und seine antijiidische Bewegung (Berlin, 1984), pp. 120—72 U. Tal. Christians and Jews in Germany: Religion, Politics and Ideology in the SecondReich, 1870—1914 (Ithaca/London 1975); Birgitta Magge, Rhetorik des Hasses: Eugen Diih ring und die Genese seines antisemitischen Wortschatzes (Neuss, 1977) 10. Fritz Stern deals w i t h de Lagarde i n The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study of the Rise of German Ideology (Berkeley, 1961) l l . For Treitschke's articles and the response w h i c h they drew, see W . Boehlich (ed.) Der Berliner Antisemitismusstreit (Frankfurt a.M,

1965) 12. Werner Sombart, Die Zukunft der Juden (Leipzig, 1912), p. 52; Paul Mendes-Flohr, ’Werner Sombart's ”The Jews and Modern Capitali s m ” : A n Analysis of Its Ideological Premises’, LBIYB, XXI (1976), pp. 87—107. Also Geoffrey C. Field, Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston 5. Chamberlain (New York, 1981) l 3 . Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Translated and edited w i t h commentaries by Walter Kaufmann (1968), appendix, p. 798 14. Ibid., p. 594 15. Ibid., p . 377 l 6 . Ibid. Nietzsche does, of course, also criticise the Jews, whose historic legacy h e denounced as being responsible for ’the slave-revolt i n morals'. This aspect of Nietzsche's approach t o Judaism was as distorted as later efforts t o t u r n h i m i n t o a spiritual godfather of German Nazism l 7 . Robert S. Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews: The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary (London/Toronto, 1982) 275

Notes

l 8 . Hans Jiirgen Piihle, Agrarische Interessenpolitik und preussischer Konservatismus im wilhelminischen Reich (Hanover, 1966) l 9 . Werner J o c h m a n n , ’ S t r u k t u r u n d F u n k t i o n des d e u t s c h e n Antisemitismus’, i n W . E. Mosse a n d A . Paucker (eds.) Juden im Wilhelminischen Deutschland 1890-1 914 (Tiibingen, 1976), pp. 389— 477

2 0 . Robert S . Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph (London,l989) 2 1 . O n t h e Rohling affair, I. A . Hellwing, Der konfessionelle Anti-

semitismus im 19. Jahrhundert in Osterreich (Vienna, 1972) 2 2 . Robert S. W i s t r i c h , ’Karl Lueger a n d t h e Ambiguities of V i e n n e s e A n t i s e m i t i s m ' , Jewish Social Studies ( 1 9 8 3 ) , 4 5 , pp. 251—62 2 3 . Richard S . Geehr, Karl Lueger: Mayor of Fin de Siécle Vienna (Detroit,

1990), p . 293 2 4 . Ibid., p. 2 0 0 2 5 . Wistrich, op. cit., pp. 258—61 2 6 . Robert S. W i s t r i c h , ’Georg von Schoenerer a n d t h e Genesis of Modern Austrian A n t i s e m i t i s m ' , The Wiener Library Bulletin (1976). V o l . XXIX. New Series, Nos. 39/40, pp. 21—9 Chapter 6

1. W e r n e r Maser (ed.) Hitler’s Letters and Notes ( N e w York, 1974), p. 2 1 5 2 . ’ W a r u m sind w i r A n t i s e m i t e n ? Rede auf einer NSDAP V e r s a m m l u n g ' , i n Eberhard Jackel/Axel K u h n (eds.) Hitler: Sc'imtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905—1924 (Stuttgart, 1980), pp. 176—7. Also t h e speech of 6 April 1920, ibid., pp. 119—20 ( N e w York, 1977), p. 157 3 . J o h n T o l a n d , Adolitler 4. O n Nazism a s a ’political faith’, see t h e inaugural lecture of Uriel Tal, 7 J u n e 1978, at t h e dedication of t h e Jacob a n d S h o s h a n a Schreiber Chair of Contemporary Jewish History, Tel A v i v University 5. Robert Wistrich, Hitler's Apocalypse ( L o n d o n , 1985), p. 139 6 . Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf(Boston, 1943), p. 6 5 7 . Dietrich Eckart, Der Bolschevismus von Moses bis Lenin: Zwiegesprc’ich zwischen Adolf Hitler und mir ( M u n i c h , 1924), pp. 3 5 - 6 8 . H. R. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler's Table Talk, 1941—1944 ( L o n d o n ,

1973), p . 79 9. W i s t r i c h , Hitler's Apocalypse, pp. 145—6 10. H. R. Trevor-Roper (ed.), op. cit., p. 7 2 2 11. E. F a c k e n h e i m , The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem ( N e w Y o r k , 1978), p. 7 6 276

Notes

12. Jerry Z. M u l l e r , ’Communism, Anti-Semitism and the Jews', Commentary (August 1988), pp. 30—3 13. Speech of 28 July 1922, i n Norman H. Baynes (ed.) The Speeches of

Adolitler l4.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

26.

(London, 1942), Vol. 1, p. 29. Also ‘The Stock Exchange

Revolution of 1918', ibid., pp. 42 ff Andreas Hillgruber, ’Die “Endlésung” und das Deutsche Ostimperium als Kernstt’ick des Rassenideologischen Programms des Nationalsozialismus', Vierteljahrsheftefiir Zeitgeschichte, 20 (1972), pp. 133—55 Saul Friedléinder, ’Some Aspects of the Historical Significance of the Holocaust’, The Jerusalem Quarterly (Fall 1976), p. S I Yisrael Gutman, ‘ O n the Character of Nazi Antisemitism’, i n Almog (ed.) Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 349—80 See R. Bytwerk's article i n The Wiener Library Bulletin (1976), Vol. XXIX, new series, Nos. 39/40, pp. 4 1 - 6 'Memorandum by Adolf Hitler o n the Tasks of a Four-Year Plan' (Obersalzberg, August 1936), Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945, Series C. Vol. 5, No. 490, p. 855 ’The Kristallnacht as a Public Degradation Peter Loewenberg, Ritual', LBIYB (1987), pp. 309—23 Ibid., p . 315 Ibid., p . 317 Ibid., p . 319 Norman H. Baynes (ed.) The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, I, pp. 740—1 See Paul Hilberg, ’German Railroads, Jewish Souls', Transaction, Social Science and Modern Society ( [ 9 7 6 ) , pp. 60-74; Friedlander/ M i l t o n (eds.), The Holocaust I a n Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent: Bavaria 1933— 1945, (Oxford, 1983), p . 275 Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham (eds.) Documents on Nazism.

1919-1945 (London,1974), p . 493 27. Ibid., pp. 492-3 28. Ibid. 29. Alfred Baeumler, Alfred Rosenberg und der Mythos des 20 Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1943), pp. 19 ff 30. Uriel Tal, ’ O n the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide', Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XIII (Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 7—46 31. Robert Wistrich, Hitler's Apocalypse, p. 135

Chapter 7 D a v i d B a n k i e r , ‘The G e r m a n s a n d t h e H o l o c a u s t ' , The Jewish

Quarterly ( A u t u m n 1990), pp. 7—1I

277

Notes

. Elizabeth Noelle a n d Erich Peter N e u m a n n (eds.) The Germans: Public Opinion Polls 1947-1966 (Westport, C o n n . 1981). The surveys were carried o u t b y t h e Institut fiir Demoskopie, Allensbach . Ibid., p p . 185—92, 2 0 2 . 2 0 6 , 2 1 9 , 311—16, 3 3 3 . Tom Bower, The Pledge Betrayed: America, Britain and the DeNazification of Postwar Germany (New York, 1982), p p . 229—30 H a n n s W e r n e r Schwarze, The GDR Today (London, 1973). Also K u r t S o u t h e i m e r a n d W i l h e l m Bleek, The Government and Politics of East Germany ( N e w York, 1975) Gareth Winrow, ‘East Germany, Israel a n d t h e Reparations Issue', Soviet Jewish Aflairs, Vol. 2 0 , No. 1 (1990), p p . 31—44

Eleanore Sterling, ’Judenfreunde — Judenfeinde: Fragwiirdiger

10.

ll. 12.

Philosemitismus i n d e r Bundesrepublik’, Die Zeit, 1 0 December 1 9 6 5 . Also t h e article by Frank S t e r n , ‘From Overt Philosemitism to Discreet Antisemitism a n d B e y o n d ' , i n Almog (ed.), Antisemitism through the Ages, p p . 385—402 S e e t h e introduction b y Anson Rabinbach to th e v o l u m e h e edited with Jack Zipes, Germans and Jews since the Holocaust: The Changing Situation in West Germany ( N e w York/London, 1986), p p . 3—22 S e e m y chapter o n t h e Fassbinder Controversy, i n Robert S . Wistrich, Between Redemption and Perdition (London/ New York, 1990), p p . 121—32 Q u o t e d by Micha Brumlik, ’Fear of t h e Father Figure: Judeophobic Tendencies i n t h e New Social Movements i n West Germany’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 2 1 , No. 4 (1987), p . 3 4 ’Philosemiten sind Antisemiten’ (interview w i t h Fassbinder), Die Zeit, Hamburg, 9 April 1 9 7 6 W . R. Fassbinder, Der Miill, die Stadt und der Tod (Frankfurt a m M a i n , 1981), S c e n e 1 0 Q u o t e d i n Wistrich, Between Redemption and Perdition, p. 1 2 5

l3. 14. See Henryk M . Broder, Der ewige Antisemit (Frankfurt a.M., 1986), pp. 7—12. Also t h e article by Vera Ebels-Dolanova, ’ O n ”The Rich J e w " of Fassbinder: A n Essay on Literary Antisemitism', Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 2 3 , No. 4 (1989), pp. 3 - 1 6 15. S t e r n , op. cit., p. 3 8 5 l 6 . For a critical view of t h e apologetic tendencies i n current G e r m a n historiography, see Jiirgen Habermas, ’Eine Art Schadensabwickl u n g ' , Die Zeit, 11 J u l y 1 9 8 6 17. Wistrich, Between Redemption and Perdition, p. 1 2 6 18. Q u o t e d by S t e r n , op. cit., p. 3 8 7 19. Werner B e r g m a n n , ’Sind d i e D e u t s c h e n antisemitisch? M e i n u n g sumfragen von 1946—1987 i n der Bundesrepublik Deutschland', in 278

Notes

W . B e r g m a n n a n d Rainer Erb (eds.) Antisemitismus in der politischen Kultur nach I 945 (Opladen, 1990), pp. 108—30 2 0 . Bernd M a r i n , ’Ein historisch neuartiger “Antisemitismus o h n e Antisemiten”?’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, S, (1979), pp. 545—69: A l p h o n s Silbermann, Sind wir Antisemiten? Ausmass und Wirkung eines sozialen Vorurteils in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Cologne, 1982); W . B e r g m a n n , ’Public Beliefs about Anti~Jewish Attitudes i n West G e r m a n y ' , Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 2 2 , No. 3, (1983), p p . 15-21

2 1 . ’Mit Gestrigen i n d i e Z u k u n f t ? Umfrage iiber Hitler, die NS-Zeit u n d d i e Folgen', Der Spiegel, 1 5 / 1989, pp. 150—63 2 2 . Ibid. S e e also ’Le Nazisme a visage h u m a i n ’ , Passages, 15, (March

1989), p . 31 23. Uwe Backes, ’The West G e r m a n Republikaner: Profile of a Nationalist, Populist Party of Protest', Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 2 4 , No. l (1990), pp. 3 - 1 8 24. ’Les vieux e n n e m i s d e la liberté’, Le Nouvel Observateur ( 1 - 7 February 1990), p . 5 0 25. Newsweek, 7 M a y 1990, p. 2 4 26. Ibid., p. 2 1 , ’A Ne w Life o n Top of t h e R u i n s ' 27. Peter Pulzer, ‘Erasing t h e Past: G e r m a n Historians Debate t h e Holocaust', Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 2 1 , No. 3 (1987), pp. 4—13 Chapter 8 l . F. L. Carsten, Fascist Movements in Austria: From Schiinerer to Hitler (London, 1977), pp. 75-6 2. J o h n Haag, ’Blood o n t h e Ringstrasse: Vienna's s t u d e n t s 1918— 1 9 3 3 ' , The Wiener Library Bulletin, Vol. XXIX, new series, Nos. 3 9 / 40, (1976), p p . 29—33 Carsten, op. cit., p. 90 J . Moser, ’Von d e r antisemitischen Bewegung z u m Holocaust’, i n Klaus L o h r m a n n (ed.), 1,000 Jahre (isterreichisches Judentum (Eisenstadt, 1982), p. 2 6 5 . Bruce F. Pauley, 'Political Antisemitism i n i n t e r w a r Vienna', i n l. Oxaal et al. (eds.), Jews, Antisemitism and Culture in Vienna .°‘

(London/New

York, 1987), p. 159-60

lbid., p. 162 Gerhard Botz, Wien vom ’Anschluss’ zum Krieg ( V i e n n a / M u n i c h , 1978), pp. 406-8, 4 6 3 Quoted

in the catalogue of the Anschluss Exhibition under

the

auspices of t h e Yad Vashem C o m m i t t e e of t h e UK (London, 1988) 279

Notes

Quoted i n Gerhard Botz, ’From the Anschluss t o the Holocaust' i n Oxaal eta1., op. cit., p. 202—3 10. Ibid. l l . George E. Berkley, Vienna and its Jews: The Tragedy of Success [880519803 (Cambridge, Mass. 1989) 12. Robert Knight (ed.) ’Ich bin dafiir, die Sache in die La'nge zu ziehen Die Wortprotokolle der o'sterreichischen Bundesregierung von 1945 bis 1952 iiber die Entschadigung der Juden (Frankfurt a.M., 1988) l 3 . John Bunzl, ’Zur Geschichte des Antisemitismus i n Osterreich’, i n J. Bunzl and B . M a r i n (eds.), Antisemitismus in Osterreich (Innsbruck, I983) 14. A n t o n Pelinka, 'The Great Austrian Taboo: the Repression of the Civil War', New German Critique, No. 43 (Winter 1988), pp. 69—82 15. Bruce F. Pauley, Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis: A History of Austrian National Socialism (Chapel Hill, 1978), pp. 148—51, 219—21 l 6 . Heinz Fischer (ed.) Einer im Vordergrund: Taras Borodajkewycz: Eine Dokumentation (Vienna, 1966) 17. M a r t i n van Amerongen, Kreisky und seine unbewa'ltigte Vergangenheit (Graz, 1977), pp. 96—107 18. Robert Wistrich, ’The strange case o f B r u n o Kreisky’, Encounter (May, 1979), pp. 78—86 19. Richard M i t t e n , ’Die Kreisky-Peter-Wiesenthal "Affare, ” ’ i n Wir sind alle Unschuldige Ta'ter! Studien zum antisemitischen Diskurs im Nachkriegsosterreich (Wien, 1989), pp. 295—322 20. Hilde Weiss, ’Antisemitische Vorurteile in (")sterreich nach 1945. Ergebnisse empirischer Forschungen', i n Julius H . Schoeps and Alphons Silbermann (eds.) Antisemitismus nach dem Holocaust (Cologne, 1986), pp. 53—70 21. Neue Kronen-Zeitung, 8 March 1986 22. Wiener Zeitung, 6 March 1986, Salzburger Nachrichten, 8 March 1986 23. Wiener Zeitung, 29 March 1986 24. Kleine Zeitung, 27 March I 9 8 6 . Richard M i t t e n , ’Reflections o n the ”Waldheim Affair“, ms. t o be published i n Robert S. Wistrich. Austrians and Jews in the Twentieth Century, (London, 1992) 25. Interview of K u r t Waldheim w i t h Claire Trean, Le Monde, 3 M a y [986

26. Interviews w i t h R u t h Wodak i n Jerusalem and Vienna, 1990. Also R u t h Wodak, ’Turning the Tables: Antisemitic Discourse i n Postwar Austria' (1990), unpublished ms 27. ’Antisemitic Attitudes in Austrian Society, 1973—1989’, study published by the Institute for Conflict Research, Vienna, July 1989. 280

Notes

Chapter 9 l . Bernard Glassman, Anti-Semitic Stereotypes without Jews: Images of the Jews in England 1290—1700 (Detroit, 1973), pp. 1 4 - 5 0 2 . Ibid., pp. 56-8. S e e t h e article by Lucien Wolf, ’Jews i n Elizabethan England', Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, 1 l ( 1 9 2 8 ) , pp. 1—91 . G . K . H u n t e r , ’The Theology of Marlowe’s The J e w of Malta’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 2 7 , ( 1 9 6 9 ) , pp. 21 l— 40; Hyam Maccoby, ’The Figure of Shylock’, Midstream 16 (February,

. .

.

10.

ll.

12. 13.

1970), p p . 50-9

For t h e literary and cultural aspects, Harold Fisch, Jerusalem and Albion: The Hebraic Factor in Seventeenth-Century Literature ( N e w York, 1964) C h a i m B e r m a n t , The Cousinhood ( L o n d o n , 1971) W . D. Rubinstein, The Left, the Right and the Jews (London/Canberra, 1982), pp. 1 2 - 1 5 B . Gainer, The Alien Invasion ( L o n d o n , 1972); Lloyd Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England, 1870-1914 ( L o n d o n , 1960) W i l l i a m J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914 ( L o n d o n , 1975) O n antisemitism i n British socialist circles, see J o h n A . Garrard, The English and Immigration: A Comparative Study of the Jewish Influx, 1880—1910 ( L o n d o n , 1971) Justice ( L o n d o n ) , 21 January 1893, 2 5 April 1896, 7 October 1899. Justice was t h e organ of t h e Marxist Social-Democratic Federation i n Great Britain. During t h e late 18905 it carried o n a n antisemitic campaign against w h a t it called 'imperialist Judaism’ i n S o u t h Africa In a speech i n t h e House of C o m m o n s o n 6 February 1 9 0 0 Labour leader J o h n B u r n s declared t h a t wherever h e looked, ’there is t h e financial Jew, operating, directing, inspiring t h e agonies t h a t have led to t h i s war’. Q u o t e d i n t h e important article by Claire Hirshfield, ’The British Left a n d t h e ”Jewish Conspiracy": A Case S t u d y of Modern Anti-Semitism’, Jewish Social Studies (Spring 1981), p. 105 Ibid., pp. 106—7 Colin Holmes, Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876—1939 ( N e w Yor k , 1979) emphasises t h e strength of t h e indigenous tradition of British hostility t o Jews as aliens w h o were i n t e n t o n remaining separate and who represented values which were allegedly a threat to t h e British way of life

. ’T. S . Eliot a n d t h e J e w s : A R o w o v e r a n t i - S e m i t i s m

c e n t e n a r y ' , Newsweek, 2 2 August 1 9 8 8 281

mars his

Notes

15. Stephen Wilson, ’Prejudice i n Poetry’, Encounter (July/August 1989), pp. 46—50 16. Shmuel Almog, ’Antisemitism as a Dynamic Phenomenon: The ”Jewish Question” in England at the End of the First World War’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1987), pp. 3—18 17. The Protocols were compiled by Russian antisemites i n the Parisian office of the Tsarist Okhrana (secret police) at the end of the 19th century. They were printed o n a government press i n 1 9 0 5 — as part of a book by a Russian Orthodox mystic, Sergei Nilus, which claimed that they were extracts from the First Zionist Congress i n Basel of 1897. The Protocols contain lectures by so-called ‘Elders of Zion’ outlining a secret plan for subjugating the Gentiles and establishing a Jewish world state. In p r e - l 9 l 4 Russia they were used as a weapon against the liberal constitutional movement

without much effect, and then again by anti-Bolshevik Whites during the Russian Civil War w i t h m u c h more devastating results.

They spread to the West through German and other translations after 1919, achieving their greatest impact i n Germany. They were exposed i n 1 9 2 1 by a London Times correspondent w h o showed that they were plagiarised from a French satire of the 18605, a German novel o f the same period by Herrmann Goedsche and other sources. Despite these proofs and the m a n y absurdities i n the

Protocols, their influence has been enormous, demonstrating the deep irrationality in modern antisemitism and the need to believe i n a diabolical world conspiracy by occult forces (Jews, freemasons etc.) seeking global power. The best account is i n Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (London, 1967). For the impact of the Protocols i n Britain, see Gisela Lebzelter, Political Antisemitism in England

1918— 1 9 3 9 ( L o n d o n , 1 9 7 8 )

p. 14 18. Almog, ’Antisemitism as a Dynamic Phenomenon’, 19. Lord Sydenham, ‘The Jewish World Problem', Nineteenth Century, November 1921, ’Die-Hard Anti-Semites’, Jewish Guardian, 6 January 1 9 2 2 20. Gisela Lebzelter, ’Henry Hamilton Beamish and the Britons: Champions of Anti-Semitism', in K . Lunn and R. C. Thurlow (eds.) British Fascism: Essays on the Radical Right in Interwar Britain (New

York, 1980) 21. Robert M. Gorman, ’Racial Antisemitism i n England: the legacy of A r n o l d Leese', The Wiener Library Bulletin, 43—44 (1977), p. 68 22. Robert J. Benewick, The Fascist Movement in Britain (London, 1972): also Robert Skidelsky, Oswald Mosley (New York, 1975) 282

Notes

2 3 . Richard Thurlow, Fascism in Britain: A History 1918—1945 (Oxford,

1987) 2 4 . Tony K u s h n e r , The Persistence of Prejudice: Anti-Semitism in British Society during the Second World War (Manchester, 1989) 25. Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939-1945

1979),

(Oxford,

pp.

93—4,112—19

26. Ibid., pp. 345—57 2 7 . Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1939—45, e d . Nigel Nicolson

(New York, 1967),

p.

469

2 8 . W . D. Rubinstein, The Left, the Right and the Jews, pp. 152 if 2 9 . M . Billig, Fascists: A Social Psychological View of the National Front (London,l978) 3 0 . Bernard Levin, ‘ S o that’s what became of Europe’s missing Jews’, The Times, 14 M a y 1 9 9 0 31. ‘Jews divided over cemetery attacks', Guardian, 2 3 May 1990; ‘ A t i m e to cry o u t , or a t i m e to lie low?’, Independent, 2 8 May 1990; ‘Are t h e racists loose i n o u r streets again?’, Sunday Telegraph, 3 J u n e 1 9 9 0 ; ‘ C h i l d r e n targets of anti-semitism’, Independent, 10 December 1990; 'JFS goes public o n race attacks’, Jewish Chronicle, 14 December 1 9 9 0 32. Gill Seidel, The Holocaust Denial: Antisemitism, Racism and the New Right ( L o n d o n , 1986)

y—

Chapter 10 W . D. Rubinstein, op. cit., pp. 136 if J o n a t h a n Sarna, ’American Anti-Semitism’, i n D. Berger (ed.) History and Hate, pp. 1 15—26 . Ralph L. Kolodny, ‘Catholics and Father Coughlin: Misremembering t h e Past’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 19, No. 4 ( 1 9 8 5 ) , pp. 15—25

Ibid., p. 24 . Leo P. Ribuffo, The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War (Philadelphia, 1983) Lloyd P. Gartner, 'The Two Continuities of Antisemitism i n t h e United States’, i n Almog (ed.), Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 312—14

W . D. Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 2 2 Meyer Weinberg, Because They were Jews. A History of Anti-Semitism ( N e w York, 1986), pp. 214—15 Ernest S a m u e l s , Henry Adams: The Middle Years (Cambridge, Mass.

I958),

p.

168

. Leonard Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case ( A t h e n s , Georgia, 1966). 283

Notes

Frank was falsely charged w i t h strangling a teenage Christian girl, Mary Phagan, in an Atlanta factory which h e managed. His deathsentence was commuted to life imprisonment b u t several weeks later he was kidnapped from the state prison a n d lynched. See also L. Dinnerstein, Uneasy at Home: Antisemitism and the American Experience (New York, 1987) o n the prevalence of antisemitism i n the United States and the historical context of Southern prejudice l l . Weinberg, op. cit. , p . 2 14. The K l a n asserted native, white Protestant supremacy in America a n d was especially hostile t o the immigrant East European Jews i n the 19205 12. See Robert Singerman, ‘The American Career of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, American Jewish History (September 1981), pp. 48-78 l 3 . Albert Lee, Henry Ford and the Jews (New York, 1980), pp. 29—31, 46-51, 69

l 4 . Ibid., p . 4 6 [ 5 . New York Times, 7 April 1933 l 6 . Quoted in Melvin J. Urofsky, We are One! American Jewry and Israel (New York, 1978), p . 49 l 7 . David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust,

1941-1945 (New York, 1984), p. 8

[ 8 . Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 220 ff Efforts t o 19. Leonard Dinnerstein, ’American Jewish Organizational Combat Antisemitism in the United States since 1945' in Michael Curtis (ed.) Antisemitism in the Contemporary World (Boulder, Colorado, 1986), p . 303 20. Ibid., pp. 304 ff 21. Quoted by Earl Raab, ‘American Blacks and Israel’ in Robert S. Wistrich (ed.) Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World (London, 1990), p . 159 22. Ibid., p p . [59—60 23. New York Times, 17 April 1984, 29 June 1 9 8 4 24. Raab, op. cit., p . 166 Ideology, Support, 25. Dennis King, ’The Farrakhan Phenomenon: pp. 1 5 - 2 2 (1986), l No. 20, Vol. Prejudice, of Patterns Potential', 26. Jennifer L. Golub, What Do We Know About Black Anti-Semitism? (Working Papers o n Contemporary Antisemitism), The American Jewish Committee, 1990. M y thanks to David Singer, Director of this research project, for bringing these and other materials t o m y attention 27. Ibid., pp. 22—4 28. Ibid., p . 15 29. See the Resource Packet, ’The Politics and Background of State 284

Notes

Representative David Duke’ ( N e w Orleans, Louisiana, 1990). This very detailed exposure of Duke’s neo-Nazi a n d white suprematist o u t l o o k was p u t o u t by t h e Louisiana Coalition against Racism a n d Nazism 3 0 . Harold E. Q u i n l e y a n d Charles Y. Glock, Antisemitism in America ( N e w York, 1979), p . 1 8 3 concluded over a decade ago: ’AntiSemitic a t t i t u d e s are not nearly a s common now a s t h e y were i n t h e 19305 a n d 19405, a n d o th er groups, most notably blacks, have come to bear t h e m a i n b r u n t of extremist attacks. Nevertheless, t h e prevalence of anti-Semitic imagery i n th e c u l t u r e a t large m a k e s Jews vulnerable to extremist politics. T h e possibility of future political attacks u p o n Jews t h u s cannot be ruled out.’ The experience of t h e 19805 o n t h e whole co n fi rms this p r u d e n t assessment

Chapter 1 1 I . For t h e antisemitic politics of D r u m o n t see his follow-up works after La France Juive, w h i c h , t h o u g h less successful, provide a n important insight i n t o fin-de-siécle French society a n d its a t t i t u d e to Jews: La Fin d 'un monde (Paris, 1889), La Derniere Bataille (Paris, 1890) a n d Le Testament d'un Anti-se’mite (Paris, 1891). Also Michel Winock, Edouard Drumont et Cie, antise’mitisme et fascisme en France (Paris, 1982) Pierre Sorlin, ‘La Croix' et les Juzfs 1889-1899 (Paris, 1967) a n d S t e p h e n Wilson, Ideology and Experience: Antisemitism in France a t the Time of the Dreyfus Affair (Toronto, 1982), t h e most comprehensive single s t u d y of t h e subject A n outstanding exception to t h e r u l e was t h e liberal Catholic Dreyfusard, Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, w h o demonstrated in books like L’Antise’mitisme (Paris, 1897) a n d Les Doctrines de haine: I'antise’mitisme, l’antiprotestantisme, I’anticle’ricalisme (Paris, 1902) t h a t antisemitism was a profound danger to universalist, h u m a n i s t principles a n d to t h e h e a l t h of French society a s a w h o l e . O n e s h o u l d also a d d t h a t t h e French Catholic poet a n d essayist Charles Pe’guy (a militant Dreyfusard), i n his portrait of t h e Jewish anarchist Bernard Lazare, displayed a degree of e m p a t h y w i t h t h e fate of t h e Jews rarely achieved in modern E u r o p e a n litcature. Se e Charles Péguy, Notre Jeunesse (Paris, 1910) . Robert Byrnes, Antisemitism in Modern France ( N e w Brunswick, De Drumont a Jules 1950), Pierre Pierrard, Juifs et Catholiquesfrancais: Isaac, 1886-1945 (Paris, 1970) H a n n a h Arendt, Antisemitism, pp. 1 1 1 - 1 2 q u o t e s M a x Re’gis, calling 285

Notes

9‘

upon a cheering Parisian rabble t o ’ w a t e r t h e tree of freedom with t h e blood of t h e Jews’. S e e also S t e p h e n Wilson, ’The Antisemitic Riots of 1 8 9 8 i n France', The Historical Journal XVI, 4 , (1973), pp. 789-806 Byrnes, op. cit., p. 2 6 4 ; Wilson, Ideology and Experience, p. 3 1 9 Michael R. M a r r u s , The Politics of Assimilation: A Study of the French Jewish Community at the time of the Dreyfus Affair (Oxford, 1971). For t h e views of t h e first Jewish Dreyfusard a n d a radical critic of t h e ’assimilationist’ option, s e e Nelly Wilson's book, Bernard Lazare: Antisemitism and the Problem of Jewish Identity in late Nineteenth Century in France (Cambridge, 1978). For a more contemporary critique, s e e S h m u e l Trigano, La Re’publique et les Juifs (Paris, 1982) . Zeev Sternhell, Maurice Barres et Ie Nationalisme Francais (Paris,

1972)

10. ll.

12. 13. 14. 15. l6.

Henry H. Weinberg, ‘The Image of t h e Jew i n late N i n e t e e n t h C e n t u r y French Literature', Jewish Social Studies, Vol. XLV, Nos. 3-4 (Summer-Fall, 1983), pp. 2 4 1 - 5 0 Ibid. A ndré Gide, Journals 1889-1949 (London, 1967), p p . 194—6. Also C. Wardi, Le Juif dans le roman francais 1933-1948 (Paris, 1972), pp. 4 5 - 5 1 . S e e also Jeffrey M e h l m a n , Legacies of Antisemitism in France (Minneapolis, 1983) E u g e n Weber, Action Francaise (Stanford, 1962) a n d also his The Nationalist Revival in France 1905-1914 (Los Angeles, 1968) Henry H. Weinberg, The Myth of the Jew in France 1967-1982 ( N e w York/London, 1987), pp. 1 1 3 - 1 5 J e a n G i r a u d o u x , Pleins Pouvoirs, 3rd edition (Paris, 1939), pp. 59-76 Ibid. Michael R. Marrus a n d Robert O . Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews ( N e w York, 1981)

17. Ibid., p p . 271—9 18. D o m i n i q u e Schnapper, ’Perceptions of Antisemitism i n France’ i n Curtis (ed.), op. cit.,pp. 2 6 1 - 7 1 . In a discussion i n Paris in 1989, Schnapper told m e t h a t t h e Vichy racial laws marked t h e ’death of a certain type of “Israelite",' - of t h e classical ’assimilationist' Jew i n France 19. Paul Webster, ’ S h a d o w over France. The Legacy of Pétain', Weekend Guardian ( 1 9 - 2 0 M a y 1990), p p . 7-8 2 0 . Ibid., p p . 5-6 which includes a n inteview w i t h Le Pen 2 1 . O n t h e background to Holocaust denial literature i n France, from Paul Rassinier i n t h e 19505 t o t h e followers of Robert Faurisson in t h e 19805, see Gill Seidel. op. cit, p p . 9 3 - 1 1 1 . I n 1985 a doctoral 286

Notes

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

thesis by Henri Roques, which denied the existence of the gas chambers, was accepted at Nantes (it was later cancelled). See ’Les parrains d u révisionisme', L'Express (6 July 1990). Also interviews w i t h the French ‘revisionist' antisemite, Alain Guionnet, conducted i n Paris in the summer of 1 9 9 0 for Thames Television Alfred Fabre-Luce, Pour enfinir avecl 'antt'se’mitisme (Paris, 1979) and the comments of Henry Weinberg, The Myth of the Jew, pp. 68-9 Jean-Paul Sartre, Antisemite and Jew (New York, 1976), p . 7 1 Marrus and Paxton, op. cit., p. 180 Meyer Weinberg, Because They Were Jews, p. 78 Henry Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 31—4 Raymond Aron, De Gaulle, Israe'l et les Juifs (Paris, 1968), p. 18 Henry Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 4 5 - 5 6 Bernard-Henri Levy, L’Ide’ologie Frangaise (Paris, 1981); Annie Kriegel, Israe'l est-i1coupablé? (Paris, 1982); Alain Finkielkraut, La Re’probation d 'Israel (Paris, 1983) Daniel Lindenberg, ‘Dérapage de la gauche?’, Les Nouveaux Cahiers.

No. 71, p . 15 31. Robert S. Wistrich, ’The Anti-Zionist Masquerade', Midstream, Vol. XXIX, No. 7 (August/September 1983), pp. 8—18 32. Shmuel Trigano, La République et les Juifs, p. 33. Interview w i t h Michel Abitbol, Jerusalem, October 1 9 9 0 33. Henry Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 89—90 34. ‘Kristallnacht i n Carpentras’, WeekendGuardian ( 1 9 - 2 0 May 1990), pp. 4-8, ’Eruption of the Ancient, Ugly Fever', Time, 28 May 1 9 9 0 35. 'Mitterrand joins protest at Jewish grave desecration', Time, 28 M a y 1990. For French Jewry's disillusion w i t h President Mitterrand over his Palestinian policy, Maurice Szafran, ’Mitterrand et les Juifs’, L'Express, 9 November 1990, p . 9 cours de racisme de M m e Stirbois', L’Evenement du 36. ’L’Incroyable Jeudi, 17—23 May 1990. Also ’The Extreme Right and A n t i Immigrant Opinion i n France’, IJA ResearchReport, No. 1 (1990), pp. [-12

37. Henry Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 1 2 6 - 7 38. David Selbourne, ’French Jews begin to feel like aliens all over again', Sunday Times, 3 June 1990. ’In France, at any newspaper kiosk, y o u can learn . . . that ”world pornography is in the hands of the Jews”, that ”Judaeo-Masonry is u p to its old tricks", that "international Jewish capital is buying u p the media” and so o n ' 39. James G. Shields, ’Jean-Marie Le Pen and the n e w radical right i n France', Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1986; ’The French Front National and the downside of respectability’, ibid., Vol. 21, No. l , 287

Notes

40.

41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

1987; Maria Balinska, 'French politics a n d t h e 1 9 8 8 presidential elections', IJA Research Reports, No. 3 , 1 9 8 8 Maurice Szafran, ’Le dissoudre o u l e digérer?’, L’Evenement du Jeudi, 1 7 - 2 3 Ma y 1990, pp. 13—14. ’Le Pen, c'est la victoire de s instincts, e t face a cela, les intellectuels s o n t plutot désarmés' Jean-Francois K a h n , ‘ C o n t r e la lépre antisémite, la déchéance raciste, la h a i n e d e l ' a u t r e ' , L'Evenement du Jeudi, 17—23 May 1990, pp. 6—7; ’Pas antisémites? Voici ce qu'ils écrivent', ibid., p . 18; Michel W i n o c k , ’Pour u n e dictionnaire d e l’anti-haine', ibid., pp. 2 2 - 3 ; Jerome Garcin, ’Ce q u i peut s e dire peut s e faire', ibid., p. 2 3 Guardian Weekly, 1 7 September 1 9 8 9 The Times, 1 1 Ma y 1 9 9 0 Jewish Chronicle, 1 3 April 1 9 9 0 Interview w i t h Abbé Laguérie, Paris 1 9 9 0 ’France wakes u p to d e m o n of antisemitism', Independent on Sunday,

20 May 1990, p . 16 C hapter 1 2 l . Francois Schlosser, ’ L ' a v a n t - c o m m u n i s m e e n Europe centrale et d a n u b i e n n e ' , Le Nouvel Observateur, 1—7 February 1990, pp. 5 1 - 2 2. Carol I a n c u , Les Juzfs en Roumanie 1866—1919: De l’exclusion a l'e’mancipation (Provence, 1978). Also Meyer Weinberg, op. cit., pp. 172—3 for a list of t h e m a n y a n t i - J e w i s h laws passed i n R u m a n i a d u r i n g t h e 1 9 t h century. Between 1 9 0 0 a n d 1 9 0 6 a l o n e , over 7 0 , 0 0 0 Jews emigrated from R u m a n i a . Ezra M e n d e l s o h n , The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 1 8 6 , 188—9 S t e p h e n Fischer-Galati, ’Fascism, C o m m u n i s m a n d t h e Jewish Q u e s t i o n in R u m a n i a ' , i n Bela Vago a n d George L. Mosse (eds.) Jews and non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1918—1945 ( N e w York, 1974), pp. 157—76. Also M e n d e l s o h n , ibid., pp. 203—1 1 . Meyer Weinberg, op. cit. , p. 178. As of 1945, 4 3 0 , 0 0 0 Jews still lived i n R u m a n i a b u t m a n y h ad emigrated to Palestine by 1947. By 1970, there were o n l y about 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 Jews left i n R u m a n i a Newsweek, 7 May 1990, pp. 22—3 for t h e o p i n i o n s of t h e National Peasants Party, which accused B r u c a n , a l o n g w i t h other prominent Jewish C o m m u n i s t s of ’organizing t h e genocide of t h e R u m a n i a n people' d u r i n g t h e postwar years Glen Frankel, ’ “Saving J e w s ” : Ceaucescu's h i g h price’, International Herald Tribune, 2 2 February 1 9 9 0 Peter Hillmore, 'Nasty writing o n t h e wall for J e w s ' , Observer, l l 288

Notes

February 1990. Also Newsweek, 7 M a y 1990, p . 23 for the statement b y Rabbi Rosen that ’anti-Semitism isn't covert, i t is open n o w ’ . William O. McCagg, Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary (Boulder, Colorado, 1973). John Lukacs, Budapest I900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture (London, 1989), pp. 95 ff., 101—2 10. O n lstoczy, see Nathaniel Katzburg, Antishemiut B'Hungaria 1867—

1914 (Tel Aviv, 1969) and Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction:

ll.

12.

13. 14.

IS. l6. l7.

l8.

19. 20.

Anti-Semitism, 1700—1933 (Cambridge, Mass, 1980), pp. 237—42, 276—7. The Tisza-Eszlar case was sparked off by the disappearance of a 15-year-old Gentile girl shortly before Passover. Rumours that Jews were responsible were fed b y the local Catholic priest and given national prominence by antisemitic propagandists. The ensuing trial led to the acquittal of the Jewish defendants b u t i t provoked antisemitic riots, especially i n Bratislava (Pressburg) i n September 1 8 8 2 Nathaniel Katzburg, ’Hungarian Jewry i n Modern Times: Political and Social Aspects', in Randolph L. Braham (ed.) Hungarian-Jewish Studies (New York, 1966), p. 148. O n the ideology of the Catholic People’s Party, see John Lukacs, op. cit., pp. 132—3 Victor Karady-Istvan Kemeny, ’Antisémitisme Universitaire et Concurrence de Classe: La Loi d u numerus clausus en Hongrie entre les deux Guerres', Actes de la Recherche en sciences sociales, 34 (1980), p. 67 William O. McCagg, Jr., ’Jews i n Revolutions: the Hungarian Experience’, Journal of Social History, 6 (1972), pp. 78—105 Mendelsohn, op. cit., pp. 1 13—15. Nathaniel Katzburg, ’Hungarian Antisemitism: Ideology and Reality (1920—1943)’, i n : Almog (ed.), Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 339—47 Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, 1 (New York, 1981), p. 118 Paul Lendvai, Antisemitism without Jews: Communist Eastern Europe (New York, 1971) Ferenc Feher, “’The Jewish Question” Reconsidered: Notes o n lstvan Bibo’s Classic Essay', i n A. Rabinbach and J. Zipes (eds.) Germans and Jews since the Holocaust, pp. 333—6 o n the ambiguous ’philosemitic' attitudes of the Kéda’r regime i n Hungary towards the Jews Ibid., p. 334. See also A . Lowenheim, ’The Jewish Question: The View from Budapest, 1988’, Jews and Jewish Topics in Soviet and East European Publications (Summer, 1988), pp. 89-95 ’Alarm i n Hungary', Jewish Chronicle, 20 April 1990, p. 3 ’Hungarian politician warns of new racism', ibid., 28 September 289

Notes

1 9 9 0 : ’Central and East EurOpean Jewry: the impact of Liberalization a n d Revolution’, IJA Research Report, Nos. 2 6- 3 ( 1 9 9 0 ) , pp. 2—6 2 1 . Quoted i n Guido Kisch, In Search of Freedom: A History of American Jews from Czechoslovakia (London, 1 9 4 9 ) , pp. 36—7 2 2 . Michael Riff, ‘Czech Antisemitism a n d t h e Jewish Response before 1 9 1 4 ' , i n Robert S . Wistrich ( e d . ) , The Wiener Library Bulletin, 2 9 ( 1 9 7 6 ) , n o s . 3 9 / 4 0 , pp. 8 - 1 9 . Also Robert S . Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna, pp. 206—7 2 3 . Frantisek Cervinka, ’The Hilsner Affair', LBIYB, 13, (1968), p p . 1 4 2 - 5 7 . Leopold Hilsner was a Jewish shoemaker’s assistant who

had been condemned for the ’ritual murder’ of a young Christian girl at Polna in 1899. He was sentenced to death, then retried and

24. 25.

26. 27.

given life-imprisonment, eventually being amnestied by t h e Emperor Charles towards t h e end of the First World War. The case was exploited by Czech a n d German-Austrian antisemites to considerable effect a n d greatly disturbed Austrian Jews. The miscarriage of justice was seen by some observers as a mini-Dreyfus Affair, provoking many polemics i n t h e Austro-Hungarian press Thomas G . Masaryk, Die Notwendtgkeit der Revision des Polnaer Prozesses ( V i e n n a , 1899) Hillel Kieval, The Making of Czech Jewry ( N e w York, 1988). Also William O. McCagg, A History of Habsburg Jews 1670-1918 (Bloomington, 1989) Neue Freie Presse, 19 November 1920 Mendelsohn, op. cit., pp. 150—1 for t h e anti-Jewish views of t h e

Slovak leader, Vavro Srobar,in 1919 2 8 . (bid, pp. 163—8 for Slovak antisemitism i n the 19305 2 9 . Eugene Loebl, Sentenced and Tried: The Stalinist Purges in Czechoslovakia (London, 1 9 6 9 ) ; A r t u r London, L'Aveu (Paris, 1969) a n d Robert S . Wistrich, The Left against Zion: Communism, Israel and the Middle East (London, 1979), pp. 57-64, 72-85, 1 5 6 - 6 0 30. ’Czechoslovakia: Jewish Legacy and Jewish Present’, introduced a n d annotated by Peter Brod, Soviet Jewish Affairs, Vol. 2 0 , No. l (1990), pp.

58—68

Chapter 1 3 l . Celia S. Heller, 0n the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars ( N e w York, 1977), pp. 121—3; Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews of Poland 1919—1939 (Berlin, 1 9 8 3 ) , pp. 355-7

290

Notes

. Jerzy Tomaszewski, Zarjys Dziejo’w Zydo’w w Polsce w Latach 1918—1939 (Warsaw, 1990), pp. 57—61 . Pawcl Korzec, Jutfs en Pologne: La Question Juive pendant l 'entre-deuxguerres (Paris, 1980) and his article ’Anti-semitism i n Poland as a n Intellectual, Social and Political Movement', i n Joshua Fishman (ed.) Studies on Polish Jewry, 1919-1939 (New York, 1974), pp. 12—58 . Yeshaye Trunk, ’Dcr ekonomishcr antisemitizm i n polin tsvishn di tsvei velt-milhomes', Studies on Polish Jewry, pp. 3-98 . Mendelsohn, 0p. cit., pp. 72—3 . Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish—Jewish Relations during the Second World War (New York, 1976), p. 53. Yisrael Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt (Bloomington,

1932), p . 252

.

. 10. ll.

12. l3. l4.

See the passionate protest of the renowned Polish-Jewish poet Julian T u w i m , written i n 1 9 4 4 i n N e w York and republished i n Jewish Currents (February 1975), pp. 28-30. ' I know for a certainty, from the most reliable sources, that the Polish fascists are grateful t o Hitler for having made Poland judenrein. The spiritual leader of the world’s thugs saved them the dirty work. Otherwise, i f i n 1 9 4 0 they had come t o power, they themselves w o u l d have had t o d o this work' See the claims o f the British historian Norman Davies, who argues that the marked increase in antisemitism i n occupied Poland (1939-41) was linked t o Jewish ’collaboration' with the Bolsheviks and the Soviet security police in Eastern Poland. These and other assertions sparked a n acrimonious debate. ’Poles and Jews: A n Exchange’, New York Review of Books, 9 April 1987, pp. 40-4 Lucjan Dobroszycki, ’Restoring Jewish Life in Post-war Poland’, Soviet Jewish Affairs, 3 (1972), p. 66 Michael Chechinski, ’The Kielce Pogrom: Some Unanswered Questions, Soviet Jewish Affairs, 5 (1972), p. 57 Marcus, op. cit., p. 290 notes that more than a third of the membership of the small, illegal, pre-war Polish Communist Party had been Jewish, even though the Communists scarcely represented either the national o r the economic interests of Polish Jewry Anonymous, ’USSR and the Politics of Polish Antisemitism, 1956— 68', Soviet Jewish Affairs (June 1 9 7 ] ) , No. 1, pp. 19—38 Josef Banas, The Scapegoats (London, 1979), p. 73 Ibid. , p. 197 quotes the assessment of Professor Zygmunt Baumann, a sociologist living i n England, w h o was himself a victim of the I 9 6 8 witch-hunt. T he 1968 anti-Semitic campaign, as distinct from all the pre-war anti-Semitism, is a purely political phenomenon, i n 291

Notes

15. l6.

17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

w h i c h the Jews are playing the part of a scapegoat t o attract the w h o l e accumulated aggressiveness and frustration of the embittered and disillusioned mass’ Ibid., p . 8 7 Ibid., pp. 169—70. Jacek K u r o n , a non-Jewish radical and today Minister of Labour in the Polish government, was one of those p u t o n trial in 1969. He later recalled: ’During the investigation the interrogating officers tried very hard to fi n d some Jewish name among m y ancestors. When they failed t o make a Jew out of me, they wanted at least t o t u r n m e i n t o a Ukrainian, all i n order t o be able t o denounce m e as a n alien. D u r i n g the investigation there were days w h e n I wished t o admit I was Jewish, because there are circumstances w h e n every honest m a n w o u l d rather b e a Jew’ Andrzej Werblan, ’Przyczynek d o genezy k o n fl i k t u ' , Miesiecznik Literacki (June 1968). See also Adam Ciolkosz, ’Anti-Zionism i n Polish Communist Party Politics', i n Robert S. Wistrich (ed.) TheLeft against Zion, p. 145 Ciolkosz, op. cit., pp. 142, 146—7 ’Blaming t h e Jews — Again', Newsweek, 15 February 1 9 8 2 'Bez maski’, Gazeta Wyborcza (Warsaw), 22 September 1990, ’Premier Milczal’, ibid., 13 November 1990, for examples of the vocal populist antisemitism exploited by Walesa’s supporters d u r i n g t h e electoral campaign Bernard Lecomte, ’Walesa apres Walesa’, L'Express, 28 September 1990, pp. 49—55. I t should, however, be remembered that Walesa h a d earlier condemned t h e antisemitic statements of Cardinal Glemp (August 1989) and had personally p u t u p a plaque i n Kielce, honouring the victims of the 1 9 4 6 pogrom Alexandre Adler, 'La marche du temps’, L'Arche, October 1989, pp. 23—6. Marie-France Calle, ’Pologne: les faux-changements’, ibid., p. 27. Yves Cuau, ’Le retour des de’mons', L’Express, 1 June 1990, p . 13 Interview in Warsaw w i t h t h e Polish scholar Alina Cala (October 1990), who conducted a pioneering study of the image of the Jew i n Polish peasant culture. D r Cala emphasised t o m e that the mass of Polish peasantry still believes i n the blood libel. See also Abraham Brumberg, ’The Problem that W o n ' t Go Away: Anti-Semitism i n Poland (Again), Tikkun, January/February 1990, pp. 31—4 Interview w i t h David Warszawski (Konstanty Gebert) i n Warsaw, October 1990. See his article, ’The Convent a n d Solidarity', Tikkun,

Vol. 4, No.6 (1989), pp. 30 ff 25. Ibid., p. 31 292

Notes

2 6 . New York Times, 3 0 August 1989. Guardian, 3 ] August 1 9 8 9 2 7 . Warszawski, ’The C o n v e n t a n d Solidarity’, p. 9 3 , describes Giertych a s the ’self-avowed h e i r to t h e tradition of t h e nationalistic, a n t i Semitic prewar National Democratic party’ a n d his movement a s being ’overtly antisemitic’. I formed a similar impression from m y own interview with Professor Giertych 2 8 . Interview w i t h David Warszawski, Warsaw 2 9 . S ee t h e interview with Claude L a n z m a n n , ’Anti-Semitism without Jews’, The Jerusalem Post, 1 5 September 1 9 8 9 3 0 . [bid L a n z m a n n insists t h a t t h e Catholic C h u r c h h a s ’remained anti-Jewish to the core, i n spite of Vatican II’. H e points to t h e declarations of Pope J o h n Paul II o n t h e ‘unfaithfulness of t h e Jews towards God’ and to his Polish background a s a n explanation of his attitudes. According to L a n z m a n n , o n e could say t h a t ’ R o m e is not in Rome a n y more, b u t i n Poland, a n d t h a t the Vatican is i n Auschwitz’. This is undoubtedly a n exaggeration which ignores t h e positive results of t h e Polish—Jewish a n d th e Catholic-Jewish dialogue, b u t t h e grain of truth which it contains illustrates h o w m u c h still needs to be d o n e 3 1 . Karen Adler, ‘Controversy over t h e Carmelite C o n v e n t a t Auschwitz 1988-89’, IJA Research Report, No. 7 (1989) sums u p t h e Polish a n d international reactions to Cardinal Glemp’s anti-Jewish homily 32. The M o t h e r Superior’s remarks are quoted i n Monty Noam Penkower, ’Auschwitz, t h e Papacy a n d Poland’s ”Jewish Problem'”, Midstream (August/September 1990), pp. 17—18 3 3 . Ibid. , p . 17. Penkower notes t h e ambiguity of t h e P0pe himself, w h o canonized Father Maximilian Kolbe a n d Edith Stein, a German Jewess who converted to Catholicism a n d died i n Auschwitz. Father Kolbe also died a martyr’s death i n Auschwitz, b u t before the w ar h e was a typical representative of Polish Catholic antisemitism. The bishops whom I interrogated i n Poland i n October 1 9 9 0 simply evaded this fact 34. Patricia Clough, ’Anti-Semitism stalks Polish campaign', Independent, 24 M a y 1 9 9 0 35. S l a w o m i r M a j m a n , ’The Town I Live In’, The Warsaw Voice, 3 0 September 1990. Also t h e observations of Neal Ascherson, ’Breath of Foul Air’, Independent on Sunday, 11 November 1 9 9 0 Chapter 1 4

H a n s Rogger, ’The J e w i s h Policy of Late Tsarism: A Reappraisal’, 293

Notes

The Wiener Library Bulletin ( 1 9 7 1 ) , XXV, Nos. 1 a n d 2 , new series,

22/23, p p . 42—50 . Salo B a r o n , The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets (New York, 1964), R . F. Byrnes, Pobedonostsev ( B l o o m i n g t o n , 1968), pp. 208-9 argues that the Procurator of t h e Holy Synod opposed pogroms o u t of fear that they could u n l e a s h revolutionary forces . B a r o n , op. cit., p. 6 7 ; Norman C o h n , Warrant for Genocide, pp. 84, l 12

.

ll.

12. l3.

Rogger, op. cit., p. 5 0 Stephen Lukashevich, Ivan Aksakov (Cambridge, Mass., 1965) S . Ettinger, ’The Historical Roots of A n t i - S e m i t i s m i n the U S S R ’ , i n Theodore Freedman ( e d . ) , Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union: Its Roots and Consequences (New York, 1984) Robert Wistrich, Trotsky: Fate of a Revolutionary ( L o n d o n , 1979) For a n example of Lenin’s denunciation of Tsarist antisemitism, see his Collected Works, Vol. 17 ( L o n d o n , 1960—70), p. 3 3 7 L e n i n , ’Anti-Jewish Pogroms’ ( 1 9 1 9 ) , ibid., Vol. 2 9 , pp. 2 5 2 - 3 Zvi Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics (Princeton, 1972). Also t h e valuable older work by Solomon Schwarz, The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse, 1951) Zvi Gitelman, ’Soviet Antisemitism a n d its perception by Soviet Jews', i n Curtis ( e d . ) , op. cit., pp. 189—90, rightly observes that i n the late 19205 t h e Soviet regime h a d made a serious attempt to combat anti-Jewish prejudice. ’Never before i n Russian history — a n d never subsequently — h a s a government made such a n effort to uproot a n d stamp o u t antisemitism' Schwarz, op. cit., p. 298. William Korey, The Soviet Cage: AntiSemitism in Russia ( N e w York, 1973), pp. 3 0 , 6 7 S h i m o n Redlich, Propaganda and Nationalism in Wartime Russia: The Jewish Anti-fascist Committee in the USSR, 1941-1948 (Boulder,

Colorado, 1932), p p . 47—51

'

14. Robert S . Wistrich, ’From L e n i n to the Soviet Black Hundreds’ i n Wistrich ( e d . ) , The Left against Zion, pp. 272—300 15. Zvi G i t e l m a n , ’ S o v i e t Antisemitism’, pp. 192—3 l 6 . Yehoshua A . Gilboa, The Black Years of Soviet Jewry ( B o s t o n , 1971) l 7 . Arieh Tartakower, ‘The Jewish Problem i n t h e Soviet U n i o n ’ , Jewish Social Studies (October, 1971), pp. 290—1 l 8 . Ibid. S e e also Francois Fejto, Les Juifs et l’antise’mitisme dans les pays communistes (Paris, 1960) 19. Robert S . Wistrich, ’From L e n i n to the Soviet Black Hundreds’, pp. 2 7 2 ff 20. S h m u e l Ettinger, ’Soviet Antisemitism after the Six Day W a r ’ , Study Circle on World Jewry (Shazar Library, Jerusalem, 1985), pp. 9—22 294

Notes

2 1 . Q u o t e d b y William Korey, ’Soviet Antisemitism at t h e U N ' , i n Antisemitism: Threat to Western Civilisation (Jerusalem, 1988), p. 84 2 2 . V . B e g u n , Polzuchaya Kontrrevolutysiya (Minsk, 1974) 2 3 . Dmitri Zhukov, ’The ideology a n d Practice of Violence', Ogonyok, 12 October 1 9 8 4 2 4 . Y . Yevseyev, ‘Fashizm pod goluboy zvezdoy', Komsomolskaya Pravda, 17 May 1970; Ts. Solodar, Dikaya polyn (Moscow, 1977), p. 34; V. A . S e m e n y u k , Natsionalisticheskoe bezumie (Minsk, 1976), pp. 47, 94; D. I. Soyfer, Sionizm - orudie antikommunizma (Dnepropetrovsk, 1976), p. 5 0 2 5 . Komsomolskaya Pravda, 4 October 1 9 6 7 2 6 . S e e Y . Ivanov, Ostrozhno! Sionizm! (Moscow, 1969); L. Korneev, ’ S i o n i z m k a k o n yest’, Moskovskaya Pravda, 16 February 1977; ’ S a m y sionistskii bzyness', Ogonyok, 8 July 1978;’Otravlennoye oruzhiye sionizma', Krasnaya Zvezda, 16 November 1977. S e e also L. Dymerskaya-Tsigelman, ’L. Korneev as a Phenomenon of Soviet A n t i - S e m i t i s m i n t h e 19705—19805’, Jews and Jewish Topics in Soviet and East European Publications ( J u n e 1986), pp. 8—27. I a m grateful t o Mrs Dymerskaya-Tsigelman for valuable information o n c o n temporary Soviet antisemitism 2 7 . Howard Spier, ‘Zionists a n d Freemasons i n Soviet Propaganda'. Patterns ofPrejudice, Vol. 1 3 , No. 1 (January/February 1979), pp. 1— 5; O n Emelianov’s m u r d e r of his wife, see Reuben Ainsztein, ’The fall of a n anti-semite', New Statesman, l 1 July 1980, p. 45; S. L u k i n , ’ A New Variation on a n Old T h e m e ' , Soviet Jewish Affairs, Vol. 1 1, No. 3 (1981), pp. 58—61: Personal interview w i t h Emelianov i n his Moscow flat i n October 1 9 9 0 i n wh ich h e ranted o n obsessively about ’Jewish Nazis’ wh o have r u n t h e Soviet U n i o n since Lenin's t i m e with a brief interlude w h e n Stalin partly purged t h e m . E m e l i a n o v , whose background is t h a t of a n Arabist (his Russian book, De-Zionisation, was published i n Paris i n 1 9 8 0 w i t h t h e h e l p of t h e PLO), struck m e as a true paranoid personality, yet h e is a popular lecturer i n Russian nationalist, antisemitic circles 2 8 . O n R o m a n e n k o a n d t h e antisemitic Patriot group which h e chairs, see ’ W h a t is Patriot?’, Moscow News, 2 8 May 1989. Also ’Fighting t h e E n e m y W i t h i n ' , IJA Research Report, No. S (1989). Major General Kalugin, formerly a top KGB official, told m e i n a n i n t e r v i e w i n Moscow ( S e p t e m b e r 1990) that R o m a n e n k o ’ s antisemitic a n d anti-Zionist tract had been promoted t h r o u g h KGB channels 2 9 . Interview w i t h N . V . l u k h n e v a , a leading Soviet c t h n o g r a p h e r , w h o , t h o u g h not J e w i s h herself, has been a n active supporter of Jewish cultural activity i n t h e U S S R (Leningrad, S e p t e m b e r 1990). 295

Notes

S e e also t h e t e x t of h e r lecture, ’ O n t h e growth of aggressivechauvinistic a n d anti-Semitic attitudes i n contemporary Russian society’, printed i n Leningradskii evreiskii almanakh. Evreiskii samizdat, No. 2 6 (Jerusalem, 1988) 3 0 . Interview w i t h Sergei Lezov, a Russian classical philologist a n d scholar of Ne w Testament antisemitism, i n Moscow (September 1 9 9 0 ) . D r Lezov h a s been o n e of t h e most active non-Jewish Russians i n seeking t o combat chauvinist antisemitism i n t h e Soviet U n i o n . See also ’Antisemitism in t h e USSR a n d Reactions t o it', i n Jews and Jewish Topics (Spring 1 9 8 9 ) , p p . 5-44 31. For d o c u m e n t s relating t o t h e Pamyat association a n d criticism of it i n t h e Soviet press, s e e ibid. ( S u m m e r 1988), p p . 30-88. Also “’Pamyat”: A n Appeal t o t h e Russian People' introduced a n d a n n o t a t e d by Howard Spier, Soviet Jewish Aflairs, Vol. 18, No. l (1988), pp.

60—70

3 2 . The Increasing Danger of Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, a status report ( U n i o n of Council for Soviet Jews, February 1990). M y t h a n k s to Mrs Enid W u r t m a n n for providing m e w i t h this material 3 3 . J o s e p h i n e Woll, ’Russians a n d “Russophobes”: Antisemitism o n t h e Russian Literary Scene’, Soviet Jewish Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 3 ( 1 9 8 9 ) , p p . 3—21 ; Andrei Sinyavsky, ’Russophobia', Partisan Review ( 1 9 9 0 ) , 3 , p p . 339-44; Walter Laqueur, ’From Russia w i t h Hate’, The New Republic, 5 February 1990, p p . 21—5 34. J o h n B. D u n l o p , The New Russian Nationalism ( N e w York, 1985), pp. 3 9 ff; A l e x a n d e r Yanov, The Russian Challenge and the Year 2000 (New York, 1987)

35. Peter D u n c a n , ’The P h e n o m e n o n of Russian Nationalism Today', Nationalism in the USSR (Amsterdam, 1 9 8 9 ) , pp. 52—7 3 6 . Q u o t e d i n t h e International Herald Tribune, 1 3 April 1990. For a discussion of Shafarevich, see Laqueur, op. cit., a n d Sinyavsky, 0p. cit., p p . 3 4 0 ff 37. ’ N e w Soviet anti-Semitism sees Jews a s ”little People’”, The Jerusalem Post, 1 3 April 1 9 8 0 3 8 . For a n illuminating analysis of this literature, see Yitzhak M . B r u d n y , ’The Heralds of Opposition t o Perestroyka’, Soviet Economy (1989),

5, p p . 162-200

3 9 . J . Woll, op. cit., p . 6 4 0 . Ibid., pp. 10—19. See, for e x a m p l e , Stanislav Kunyayev, ’Two e n d s of a stick’, Nash Sovremennik, n o . 6 (1989), pp. 158—61 4 1 . Vladimir Bondarenko, ’Discovering Kinship’, V mire knig, n o . 7 (1989),

p.

12

4 2 . K u n y a y e v , op. cit., p. 161 296

Notes

4 3 . Brudny, op. cit., p. 170 44. Nina Andreyeva, ’I Cannot Give u p Principles’, Sovetskaya Rossiya, 13 March 1988. Andreyeva is a chemistry teacher at the Leningrad Technological Institute 4 5 . Brudny, op. cit., p. 184 46. Ibid. , pp. 179 ff. See also L. Dymerskaya-Tsigelman, ’Anti-Semitism and Opposition to i t at the Present Stage of the Ideological Struggle in the USSR’, Jews and Jewish Topics (Summer 1988), pp. 3—27. A. Kuz’min, ’To Which Temple are We seeking the Path?’, Nash Sovremennik, No. 3, 1988, p. 157, describes Leon Trotsky as preparing a ’Moloch to whom entire pe0ples were being sacrificed. A n d i n the first instance, the peoples of Russia’ 47. Laqueur, ’From Russia with Hate’ 48. See the account o f this incident b y Vitaly Vitalyev, ’Seeds of a racist disaster’, Guardian, 20 February 1 9 9 0 49. Interview with Smirnov-Ostashvili, Moscow, May I 9 9 0 50. Interview w i t h Oleg Kalugin, Moscow, September 1990 51. Interview with Mikhail Chlenov, Co-Chairman of VAAD (The Confederation of Jewish Organisations and Communities in the USSR), Moscow, September 1990 52. Ibid. 53. Independent, 13 March I 9 9 0 , p. 10; ’Survey in Moscow sees a high level of Anti-Jewish Feeling’, New York Times, 30 March I 9 9 0 ; ’ Wh e n Free Speech means talking pogroms’, Independent, 4 April 1990; ‘Terrorised Soviet Jews find German haven', Sunday Telegraph, 27 M ay 1990 54. Robert J. Brym, ’Perestoyka, Public Opinion and Pamyat’, Soviet Jewish Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1989), pp. 24—32 55. Interviews in Tashkent, November 1990 confirmed a disturbing rise in antisemitism in the Muslim Republics of the USSR 56. Interview w i t h Avram Dyomin, Leningrad, September 1 9 9 0 57. Interview with Sergei Lezov, Moscow, September 1990 Chapter 15 1. Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (London, 1984), pp. 1 - 6 6 for a i n the classical nuanced summary o f the position of non-Muslims Islamic order. Also Mark R. Cohen, ’Islam and the Jews: M y t h , Counter-Myth, History’, The Jewish Quarterly (1986), 33, pp. 125— 37 Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (London/ Toronto, I985)

297

Notes

. Eliyahu Ashtor, Qorot ha- Yehudim bi-Sfarad ha-Muslimit (The Jews of Muslim Spain), Jerusalem, 1966, i n Hebrew, pp. 1 1 6 - 1 7 . See also ’The Fall of the Jewish Vizier of Granada' (1066) i n Norman A . Stillman (ed.), The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), pp. 2 1 7 - 2 5 Through most of the tenth a n d eleventh centuries, the Jewish community of Kairouan was the major intellectual centre of Jewry outside of Iraq . Between 1147 and 1 1 6 0 the Almohads (fanatical Berbers from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco) conquered the Maghreb and m u c h of Muslim Spain, which resulted i n widespread massacres and the forced conversion of Jews. H. 2. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1 (Leiden, 1974), pp. 123—39

. Moses Maimonedes, Iggeret Teman (Epistle to Yemen), ed. Abraham S. Halkin (New York, 1952), p. 94. The text is also reproduced i n Stillman, op. cit. pp. 233—46. In this translation Maimonedes refers to ’the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and w h o devise ways to harm us and debase us', ibid., p. 241 . Lewis, The Jews of Islam, pp. 67—106; S. D . Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages, 3rd rev. ed. (New York, 1974), pp. 125—21 1

. Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam (New York, 1969); S. D . Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Genizah, 4 vols (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967—1983) . Avraham Grossman, ’The Economic and Social Background of Hostile Attitudes Towards the Jews i n the Ninth and Tenth Century Muslim Caliphate', i n Almog (ed.), Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 171-87

10. Ibid., p. 179. E. Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, V o l . 1 ’The 1973), pp. 181—2, 1 8 6 - 7 ; M. Pearlmann, (Philadelphia, Medieval Polemics between Islam and Judaism', i n S. D . Goitein (ed.), Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), pp. 103 ff l l . A b u Ishaq, a jurist and secretary to the qadi of Granada, made i t clear that the dhimma pact had been nullified b y virtue of Jews exercising power over Muslims:

D o n o t consider i t a breach of faith to k i l l them the breach of faith w o u l d be to let them carry on. They have violated our covenant w i t h t h e m so how can you be held guilty against the violators? How can they have any pact w h e n we are obscure and they are prominent? 298

Notes

12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

.

Q u o t e d from B. Lewis, ‘ A n Anti-Jewish Ode’, i n his Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle East ( L o n d o n , 1973), pp. 1 5 8 - 6 5 . Also reproduced i n Stillman, op. cit., pp. 214—16 Grossman, op. cit., pp. 1 8 0 - ] G. Vajda, ’Juifs et m u s u l m a n s selon le hadith’, Journal Historique. 2 2 9 (1937). pp. 57—129 Haggai B e n - S h a m m a i , ’Jew-hatred i n t h e Islamic Tradition a n d t h e Koranic Exegesis’, i n A l m o g ( e d . ) , op. cit., pp. 1 6 1 - 9 Ibid., pp. 164-6, S a m u e l Rosenblatt, ’The Jews a n d Islam’, i n Koppel S . Pinson (ed.), Essays on Antisemitism ( N e w York, 1942); J a n e S . Gerber, ’ A n t i - S e m i t i s m a n d t h e Muslim World’, i n Berger ( e d . ) , History and Hate, pp. 78—9 Ronald L. Nettler, ’Islamic Archetypes of the Jews: Then and Now’, i n Robert S . Wistrich (ed.), Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism, pp. 73—83 A . S . Tritton, The Caliphs and their Non-Muslim Subjects: A Critical

Study of the Covenant of 'Umar (London, 1930); Antoine Fattal, Le Statut legal des non-musulmans en pays d ’Islam (Beirut, 1958) 18. O n t h e jizya, Daniel C . D e n n e t t . Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam (Cambridge, M a s s , 1950) 19. S e e t h e pamphlet by Bat Ye’or, Oriental Jewry and the Dhimmi Image in Contemporary Arab Nationalism ( G e n e v a , 1979), p. 3 and t h e m a n y relevant t e x t s i n h e r book, The Dhimmi ( 1985). Also Lewis, The Jews of Islam, pp. 34ff 2 0 . Bernard Lewis, Semites and Antisemites: A n Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice ( N e w Yo rk , 1986) 2 1 . The treatise i n q u e s t i o n , Ifham al-Yahud (Silencing t h e Jews) was published b y M . Pearlmann i n a critical edition with a n English translation, i n t h e Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 3 2 (1964) 2 2 . Mark R . C o h e n , ’ l s l a m and t h e Jews’, p. 132 2 3 . Gerber, op. cit., p. 84 2 4 . Ibid. 2 5 . Q u o t e d i n S h a l o m Bar-Asher, ’ A n t i s e m i t i s m and Economic I n fl u e n c e : t h e Jews of Morocco (1672-1822)’, i n Almog ( e d . ) , Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 1 9 5 - 2 1 2 2 6 . Ibid. Also Norman Stillman, ‘ M u s l i m s and Jews i n Morocco: Perceptions, Images, Stereotypes', Proceedings of the Seminar on Muslim—Jewish Relations in North Africa (New York, 1975), pp. 1 3 - 2 7 and Stillman (ed.), The Jews of Arab Lands, pp. 303—4, 306—17, 367—73 2 7 . David L i t t m a n , ’Jews u n d e r M u s l i m Rule i n t h e late l 9 t h Century’, i n Robert S . Wistrich ( e d . ) , The Wiener Library Bulletin, 2 7 ( 1 9 7 5 ) , pp. 6 5 - 7 6 and ’Jews u n d e r M u s l i m Rule ll: Morocco l 9 0 3 — l 9 l 2 ’ , 299

Notes

28.

29.

30.

31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36.

37.

ibid. , 2 9 (1976), p p . 1—19 for extensive eye-witness accounts drawn from materials i n t h e archives of t h e Alliance lsraélite Universelle (AlU), relating to North Africa David Littman, ibid. (1975), p. 6 7 q u o t e s a letter from Solomon Garsin of t h e T u n i s Alliance C o m m i t t e e t o t h e President of t h e Paris Alliance ( 2 8 October 1864) describing t h e ’terryifying tale of atrocities i n all its horror, w h i c h t h e s e u n f o r t u n a t e people h a v e undergone’ Ibid., pp. 67—8. A n o t h e r letter from t h e T u n i s Alliance C o m m i t t e e to A d o l p h e Cre’mieux i n Paris ( 1 4 February 1869). Jacob Barnai, “’Blood Libels” i n t h e O t t o m a n E m p i r e of t h e Fifteenth t o t h e N i n e t e e n t h Centuries’, Almog (ed.), Antisemitism through the Ages, p p . 1 8 9 ff For d o c u m e n t a t i o n o n t h e D a m a s c u s Affair, see Stillman (ed.), The Jews of A rab Lands, p p . 393-402 Ibid. Jacob M . L a n d a u , ‘Ritual M u r d e r Accusations a n d Persecutions of Jews i n 1 9 t h C e n t u r y Egypt’, Sefunot S (1961), p p . 417—60, i n Hebrew. Also J a n e S . Gerber, op. cit., p . 8 7 Stillman (ed.), The Jews of Arab Lands, p . 107, observes: ‘The beginnings of anti-Semitism i n t h e Arab world may b e seen a s part of t h e struggle of o n e partially emancipated minority — t h e Christians — t o protect itself against t h e economic competition of a n o t h e r partially emancipated b u t less assimilated minority — t h e Jews.’ This is t r u e i n so far a s o n e is talking a bout modern antisemitism, b u t , a s we h a v e seen, anti-Jewish a t t i t u d e s i n t h e broader sense existed from t h e beginning of Islam — usually d o r m a n t b u t potentially i n fl a m m a b l e a t a n y t i m e ’Fu’ad al-Sayyid, ’al-Malik Faysal Yatahaddath ’an’, al-Musawwar, . No. 24, 4 A u g u s t 1972, p . 1 3 S e e t h e d o c u m e n t a t i o n i n t h e Paris newspaper, Le Matin, 1 9 August 1 9 8 6 , u n d e r t h e h e a d l i n e , ’Le Juif pourrait prendre t o n sang p o u r faire son p a i n sioniste’. Interview of Mustafa Tlas i n Der Spiegel, 2 2 S e p t e m b e r 1986. l a m also grateful to t h e S i m o n Wiesenthal C e n t e r i n Los Angeles a n d its director, Gerald Margolis, for access t o t h e i r files relating to t h i s affair S e e Response (Bulletin of t h e S i m o n Wiesenthal C e n t e r ) , August 1986

38. Ronald L. Nettler, Islam and the Minorities (Jerusalem, 1979). This booklet was produced b y t h e Israel Academic C o m m i t t e e o n t h e Middle East 3 9 . S ee G u d r u n Kramer, The Jews in Modern Egypt 1914—1952 (London,

1989) 300

Notes

40. A n d r é C h o u r a q u i , Between East and West: A History of the Jews of North

Africa ( P h i l a d e l p h i a , 1968) 4 1 . Ibid.. p. 153 4 2 . Terence Prittie a n d Bernard Dineen, The Double Exodus: A Study of Arab and Jewish Refugees in the Middle East ( L o n d o n , n.d.), pamphlet, p. 2 2 43. Albert M e m m i , Jews and Arabs (Chicago, 1975), pp. 30 ff 44. Maurice R o u m a n i , The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A

Neglected Issue (Jerusalem, 1975). O n the modern history of Libyan

45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53.

Jewry, see R e n z o d e Felice, Ebrei in un paese arabo: Gli ebrei nella Libia contemporanea tra colonialismo, nazionalismo arabo e Sionismo (1835—1970) (Bologna, 1978) Prittie, op. cit., pp. 2 2 - 3 New York Times, 7 November 1945. Also t h e account of B e n Segal, w h o was i n Tripoli i n 1945—6 i n charge of Arab education i n t h e British Military Administration and witnessed t h e pogrom. The Jewish Quarterly ( W i n t e r 1990—1), pp. 67-8 R o u m a n i , op. cit., p. 21; Prittie, op. cit., p. 2 3 New York Times, 2 2 J u l y 1970 Hayyim J. C o h e n , TheJews of theMiddle East ( 1860—1972) (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 48—9 G . Kramer, op. cit., pp. 141—2 Jam es P. Jankowski, ’Egyptian Responses t o t h e Palestine Problem i n t h e Inter-War Period', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 12 ( 1 9 8 0 ) , pp. 1—38. My t h a n k s t o Professor Jankowski for drawing m y attention t o relevant materials i n o u r discussions several years ago i n Jerusalem G . Kramer, op. cit., pp. 146—54 Y a h u d i y a Masriya, Les Juifs en Egypte (Geneva, 1971), pp. 45—65. I n t h e a n n e x e t o h e r book ( p p . 66-9) there is a list of former German Nazis w h o not o n l y found refuge i n Nasser’s Egypt b u t also found new employment i n t h e Arab struggle against Zionism a n d ‘International Jewry’. Also Hayyim C o h e n op. cit., pp. 49-52; Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab—Jewish Conflict over Palestine ( L o n d o n , 1984), pp. 48-50; a n d Kramer, op. cit., pp. 162, 205-21

5 4 . C o h e n , op. cit., pp. 45—6 5 5 . Ibid., p . 46 5 6 . New York Times. 7 August 1 9 4 9 5 7 . See J o a n Peters, op. cit., pp. 109—15, 1 1 9 - 2 7 for interviews w i t h Jewish refugees from Syria 5 8 . Nissim Rejwan, The Jews of Iraq: 3000 Years of History and Culture ( L o n d o n , 1985), pp. 217—30

301

Notes

5 9 . Harold P. L u k s , ’lraqi Jews during World W a r 11’, i n Robert S . W i s t r i c h ( e d . ) , The Wiener Library Bulletin ( 1 9 7 7 ) , Vol. X X X , new series, n o s . 39/40, pp. 30-8 6 0 . Elie Kedourie, Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies ( L o n d o n , 1974); C o h e n , op. cit., pp. 2 9 - 3 1 ; Rejwan, op. cit., pp. 220-3 6 1 . L u k s , op. cit., p. 38; Rejwan, op. cit., pp. 233—48 6 2 . Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam '5 Iraq

(New York, 1989), p p . 48—58 Ibid. C o h e n , op. cit., p. 5 8 Ibid., pp. 59—60 Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini ( B e r k e l e y , 1981), pp. 177—8 6 7 . E m m a n u e l S i v a n , ’Radical Islam a n d t h e Arab—Israeli Conflict’, i n Curtis ( e d . ) , op. cit., pp. 6 1 ff 6 8 . Islam and Revolution, pp. 195-7, 2 7 5 if, 301 ff 6 9 . Ibid., p. 127. ’Program for th e Establishment of a n Islamic Governm e n t ' ( I 9 7 0 lectures) 7 0 . Ibid., pp. 195-6. ’Messages to the Pilgrims', 6 February 1971 7 ] . T he Iranian regime h a s disseminated o p e n l y antisemitic writings 63. 64. 65. 66.

based on t h e Protocols. See t h e publication of the Iranian Embassy in London, Imam (February 1 9 8 4 ) , pp. 1 4 - 1 5 ; (April 1984), pp. 14—

15; ( M a y 1984), p p . 12, 21 Chapter 16 l . R. L. Nettler, ’Islamic Archetypes of t h e J e w s ' , pp. 63 ff 2. Emmanuel

Sivan, ‘Islamic Fundamentalism,

Antisemitism

and

A n t i - Z i o n i s m , i n Wistrich (ed.), Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism. p. 74 Interview w i t h E h u d Ya'ari, Arab affairs specialist of Israel Television, by R e x B l o o m s t e i n , i n Jerusalem (October 1990) . Gil Carl Alroy, Behind the Middle East Conflict: The Real Impasse between Arab and Jew ( N e w York, 1975), pp. [76—201, and Bernard Lewis, ‘The R e t u r n of Islam', Commentary (January 1976), pp. 3949

Farhang Rajaee, Islamic Values and World View: Khomeini on Man, the State and International Politics, Vol. XI]! ( 1 9 8 3 ) , pp. 26-31, 7 7 Ismail R . al Faruqi, ’Islam a n d Z i o n i s m ' , i n J o h n Esposito (ed.), Voices of Resurgent Islam ( N e w York, 1983), pp. 2 6 1 - 7 . E m m a n u e l S i v a n , Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics ( N e w H a v e n / L o n d o n , 1985), pp. 47 if T h e essay h a s been translated i n t o English w i t h a commentary a n d 302

Notes

notes by Ronald L. Nettler, Past Trials and Present Tribulations: A Muslim Fundamentalist’s View of the Jews (Oxford, 1987). I a m indebted t o Ronald Nettler for sharing w i t h m e i n many conversations i n Jerusalem and Oxford some of t h e fruits of his research i n t o M u s l i m fundamentalism . Q u t b , i n Nettler, Past Trials and Present Tribulations, p. 8 3 1 0 . Ibid., p p . 47—51 l 1 . Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( L o n d o n ,

1969), pp. 55—7, 63—4, 7 6 . Gabriel R. Warburg a n d Uri M . Kupferschmidt, Islam, Nationalism and Radicalism in Egypt and the Sudan ( N e w Yo rk , 1983); Kramer, op. cit., pp. 1 5 ] , l60—2 12. Mitchell, op. cit., p. 2 2 8 13. S i v a n , Radical Islam, pp. 16—20 14. Q u o t e d i n R . L. Nettler, ' l s l a m vs. lsrael', Commentary (December

1984), p . 27 15. Ibid., p. 2 8 16. Gilles Kepel, The Prophet and Pharaoh: Muslim Extremism in Egypt ( L o n d o n , 1985), p. [ 1 2 17. Ibid., pp. 110 ff 18. AlJihad wa an-Nasr (Cairo, 1974), pp. 150—3. S e e t h e c o m m e n t s of Ronald Nettler, ’ M u s l i m Scholars on t h e Peace w i t h lsrael’, Midstream, Vol. XXVI, No. 9 (November 1980), pp. 15—19 19. D. F. Gre e n ( e d .) , Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel: Extracts from the proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research ( G e n e v a , 1976), p. 9 2 0 . Ibid., p. 2 4 2 1 . Ibid., p. 36 2 2 . Ibid., p. 42 2 3 . Ibid., pp. 49—50 2 4 . Ibid., p. 51 2 5 . Ibid., p. 6 5 2 6 . Nettler, ’ M u s l i m Scholars', pp. 16, 19—20 2 7 . Israel A l t m a n , 'Islamic Movements i n Egypt', The Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 10 (Winter 1979), pp. 87—l05. Sivan, Radical Islam, pp. 52 if 28. W i l h e l m Dietl, Holy War ( N e w Y o r k, 1984), p. 264 q u o t e s K h o m e i n i , saying: ’ W e regard t h e existence of Israel i n t h e Near East as a cancer that c a n n o t b e cured by medication b u t m u s t be operated o n w i t h a surgical k n i f e . Israel is a n illegitimate child of t h e imperialist powers, a n American settlement’ 2 9 . Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, ’ T h e sanctity of Jerusalem i n Islam', i n J o h n Oesterreicher a n d M . Sinai (eds.), Jerusalem ( N e w Y o r k , 1974), pp. 222—3

303

Notes

3 0 . See Proche-Orient chrétien, Vol. 2 4 (1974), pp. 203—4 3 1 . Foreign Office File 371 /20822 E 7201/22/31. Thetext is reproduced a n d commented o n by Elie Kedourie, Islam and theModem World and Other Studies ( L o n d o n , 1 9 8 0 ) , p . 7 1 3 2 . Ibid. 3 3 . Ibid., p . 7 2 3 4 . Ibid. 3 5 . D u r i n g a visit of the French Foreign Minister to Jeddah i n January 1974, King Feisal presented a n anthology of antisemitic writings a s well a s copies of the Protocols to accompanying French journalists. S e e Ha-aretz (Tel Aviv), 2 9 January 1 9 7 4 3 6 . Daniel Pipes, 'The Politics of M u s l i m Anti-Semitism’, i n Commentary, Vol. 7 2 , No. 2 (August 1981), pp. 39—46 3 7 . O n Grimstad a n d t h e S a u d i connection, Gill Seidel, The Holocaust Denial, pp. 82—3 3 8 . Martin Kramer, ’Israel i n the Muslim—Christian Dialogue’, IJA Research Report (November 1 9 8 6 ) , Nos. 1 1 a n d 12, pp. 1 7 - 1 8 3 9 . Muslim World (Karachi), 2 2 August 1 9 8 1 4 0 . M . Kramer, op. cit., pp. 19—20 4 1 . Ibid. According to the New Republic (Washington), 4 February a n d 4 March 1 9 8 5 , Dawalibi appears to have been a German agent i n occupied Paris during the Second World War, where he headed a pro-Nazi u n i o n of Syrian students 4 2 . Stillman, ‘Antisemitism i n th e Contemporary Arab World’, i n Curtis (ed.), op. cit., pp. 70—85 4 3 . R. Yadlin, ’Arab Antisemitism i n Peacetime’, i n ibid,., p . 8 7 44. Y. Harkabi, Arab Attitudes to Israel (Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 288—92 4 5 . S t a t e m e n t of t h e Constituent Council of th e M u s l i m World League, Majallat Rabitat al-’Alam al-Islami (Mecca), Vol. 2 , No. 7 (January/ February 1965), pp. 14—16. Quoted i n M . Kramer, op. cit., p. 4 46. Anis M a n s o u r , al-Ha’it WaI-Dumu (Cairo, 1979), pp. 64, 9 9 4 7 . Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History (Albany, 1982), p. 3 4 4 8 . Ronald Nettler, ‘Les Freres M u s u l m a n s , L’Egypte et Israél’, Politique Internationale (Paris), No. 1 7 (Fall 1982), pp. 134—43 4 9 . Bernard Lewis, The Middle East and the West (London, 1963), p . 1 1 4 5 0 . Sivan, ’lslamic F u n d a m e n t a l i s m ' , p. 8 2 5 1 . Translated from the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), 1 8 August 1 9 8 8 5 2 . [bid S e e Robert S . Wistrich, Between Redemption and Perdition ( L o n d o n , 1990), pp. 257—8

304

Notes

Chapter 17 1. N . Mandel, ’Turks, Arabs a n d Jewish Immigration i n t o Palestine 1882—1914’, i n A . Hourani (ed.), St. Antony '5 Papers, No. I7-Midd1e Eastern Affairs, No. 4 ( L o n d o n , 1965), pp. 77—108 Y . Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian—Arab National Movement 1918—1929 ( L o n d o n , 1974), p. 56

Stillman, ’Antisemitism in the Arab World', in Curtis (ed.), op. cit., pp. 76—7 Porath, op. cit., pp. 57—9

Ibid., p . 57 Ibid., p. 5 9

9°

Yehoshua Porath, ’Anti-Zionist and Anti-Jewish Ideology in the

10. ll. 12.

13.

14.

15.

l6.

l7. l8. 19.

Arab Nationalist M o v e m e n t i n Palestine', i n A l m o g (ed.), Antisemitism through the Ages, pp. 221—2 J o a n Peters, From Time Immemorial, pp. 172—217 Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian—Arab National Movement, p. 62 Nels J o h n s o n , Islam and the Politics of Meaning in Palestinian Nationalism ( L o n d o n , 1982), pp. 16 ff Ibid., p. 3 2 Sylvia G . Haim, ’Arabic Anti-Semitic Literature’, Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1965), pp. 307—3 12. Also t h e anthology Arab Nationalism (Berkeley/L05 Angeles, 1976), pp. 67—8, edited by t h e same author Haim S h a m i r , ’The Middle East i n t h e Nazi C o n c e p t i o n ' , i n J e h u d a L. Wall a c h ( e d . ) , Germany and the Middle East (Tel Aviv, 1975), pp. 167-74 L. Hirszowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East ( L o n d o n , 1966), p. 263 Francis Nicosia, 'Arab Nationalism a n d National Socialist G e r m a n y , 1933—1939: Ideological a n d Strategic Incompatibility', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 12 (1980), pp. 351—72 Robert S. W i st ri c h , Hitler’s Apocalypse, pp. 166—70; Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution ( L o n d o n , 1985), pp. 101—5 a n d Joan Peters, op. cit., pp. 436—7, w h o reproduces t h e Mufti's ow n account of his m e e t i n g w i t h Hitler Peters, ibid., p. 3 7 2 for t h e full t e x t of t h e Mufti's letter t o t h e Hungarian Foreign Minister Ibid. Joseph S c h e c h t m a n , The Mufti and the Fuhrer: The Rise and Fall of Haj Amin el-Husseini ( N e w York, 1965), pp. 139—40, 147—52, 160 305

Notes

20. 21. 22. 23.

Y . Porath, ’Anti-Zionist and Anti-Jewish Ideology', p. 225

Y . Harkabi, op. cit., p. 2 7 9 Y . Harkabi, The Palestinian Covenant and Its Meaning (London, 1980) Jillian Becker, The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization (London, 1984), pp. 81—3 2 4 . O n 12 February 1979, Arafat sent the following message to t h e Ayatollah K h o m e i n i : ’I pray Allah to guide y o u r steps along the path of faith a n d jihad . . . until we arrive at t h e walls of Jerusalem.’ Bat Ye’or, ’Holy War o r Peace?’, Jewish Chronicle, 2 8 May 1 9 8 2 . Palestinian Nationalists appear to have t h e gift of always choosing the wrong ally. During the 19305 a n d early 19405 they tied themselves to German Nazis and Italian Fascists, i n the 19505 a n d

’605 to Nasser’s Pan-Arabism, i n the 19705 to t h e coattails Of the Soviet Union, t h e n to Khomeini a n d now to Saddam Hussein, until recently t h e arch-enemy of th e Islamic Revolution 2 5 . Jon I m m a n u e l , ’ A Clash of Perceptions’, The Jerusalem Post Inter-

national Edition, 27 October 1990 2 6 . ’1 0 , 0 0 0 gorges h u r l e n t l e u r h a i n e d u juif. O n lui promet l’expulsion d e la terre arabe, la mort, l’extermination.’ T h u s opens t h e description of recent Palestinian demonstrations i n A m m a n , ’Jordanie: Palestine d'abord’, L'Express, 2 5 January 1991. The rejoicing of West B a n k a n d Gaza Palestinians at Iraqi missiles raining down o n innocent Israeli civilians i n Tel Aviv has b e e n widely noted i n t h e world press 2 7 . David K . Shipler, Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (London, 1 9 8 7 ) , pp. 265—88 discusses Israeli stereotyping of Arabs a n d racist attitudes towards Palestinians w h i c h have undoubtedly grown i n recent years 2 8 . Transcripts of interviews by Rex Bloomstein i n 1 9 9 0 with Hisham Sharabi i n Washington DC, with Sadeq a l - A z m at Princeton, w i t h Faisal al-Husseini a n d Dr Hanan Ashrawi i n Jerusalem

Chapter 18 l . Bernard Lewis, ’ S e m i t e s a n d Anti-Semites: Race i n t h e Arab—Israeli Conflict’, Survey (Spring 1971), V o l . 17, No. 2 , pp. 1 7 0 - 8 4 2 . N . Stillman, ’Antisemitism i n t h e Arab World', pp. 70—1 3 . Y . Harkabi, Arab Attitudes, p. 5 1 8 lists n o less t h a n n i n e separate editions of t h e Protocols, published i n t h e Arab a n d M u s l i m world between 1 9 5 1 a n d 1 9 7 0 . T h e flow h a s c o n t i n u e d since t h e n Misbahul Islam Faruqi ( e d . ) , Jewish Conspiracy and the Muslim World (Karachi, February 1967). ’Ali Akbar, Israel and the Prophecies of the 306

Notes

.

10. ll. 12. l3.

Holy Qu’ran ( 5 t h rev. ed., Cardiff, 1971). Such works treat t h e Protocols a s a ’Zionist manifesto for world conquest’, depicting international Jewry a s a n o m n i p o t e n t , occult force which holds even t h e superpowers t o ransom M o s h e Ma’oz, ’The I m a g e of t h e Jew i n Official Arab Literature a n d C o m m u n i c a t i o n Media’, i n Moshe Davis (ed.), World Jewry and the State ofIsrael ( N e w York, 1977), pp. 33—51 Y. Harkabi, ’ O n Arab Antisemitism Once More’, i n Almog (ed.), Antisemitism through the Ages, p. 2 3 6 Rivka Yadlin, An Arrogant Oppressive Spirit: Anti-Zionism as AntiJudaism in Egypt (Oxford, 1989), p. 1 All q u o t a t i o n s from t h e S i m o n Wiesenthal Archives, Los Angeles, w hich I visited i n September 1990 O n Hamid Rabee, a n antisemitic Pan-Arabist a u t h o r , see Yadlin, op. cit., p p . 28—39 Q u o t e d by Daniel Pipes, 'The Politics of Muslim Anti-Semitism’, p. 39 United Nations General Assembly, Thirty-Ninth Session, No. A/38/PV.88, p p . 19—20 Yadlin, op. cit., p p . 94—5, 98—9, 1 1 8 Interview of Rex Bloomstein w i t h E h u d Ya’ari, J e r u s a l e m , October 1990

14. A l t h o u g h Arabism tried to identify w h a t constitutes Arab identity through history, language a n d culture, t h e o n l y social cohesion o n which it seems a b l e to build i n practice is t h a t which h a s b e e n instilled by Islam. S e e Elie K e d o u r i e ’Where Arabism a n d Zionism Differ’, Commentary, Vol. 8 1 , No. 6 ( J u n e 1986), p. 3 3 15. Quoted i n Shipler, op. cit., p . 2 5 7 l 6 . Ibid. 17. Y. Harkabi, ’ O n A r a b Antisemitism’, p. 2 2 9 18. Yadlin, op. cit., p p . 3—5 19. R. Israeli, ’Anti-Jewish Attitudes i n t h e Arabic Media, 1975—1981’, IJA Research Report, No. 1 5 (September 1983) 2 0 . Amatzia Baram, ’Mesopotamian Identity in Ba’athi Iraq’, Middle Eastern Studies (1983), Vol. 19, pp. 4 4 5 , 4 5 5 shows t h a t already i n t h e 19705 Nebuchadnezzar w as celebrated by t h e Iraqi Ba’athist regime for h a v i n g conquered Palestine from t h e Jews a n d b r o u g h t t h e m back i n c h a i n s from ‘ t h e land of t h e Arabs' 2 1 . Rivka Yadlin a n d Amatzia Baram, ’Egypt’s Changing Attitude Towards Israel', The Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 7 (Spring 1978), pp. 68-87

2 2 . Q u o t e d by Ronald Nettler, ’The Ambivalence of C a m p David

307

Notes

Rhetoric: The Arab Idea of ”Peace with Israel’”, Encounter ( J u n e / July 1982), p . 1 0 4 2 3 . News Views (Jerusalem), 1 February 1981, p. 19 2 4 . Yadlin, op. cit., pp. 9 5 - 6 2 5 . Bernard Lewis, ’The New Antisemitism', New York Review, 1 0 April l986,p.33 2 6 . Ibid., p . 3 4 2 7 . Ernest Gellner, ’Prejudicial Encounters’, Times Literary Supplement, 2 2 August 1986, p . 9 0 3 2 8 . Conor Cruise O’Brien, ’ K e e n pupils of o u r own prejudice', The Times, 8 September 1 9 9 0 2 9 . M o s h e Ma’oz, ’The Image of th e Jew i n Official Arab Literature' 3 0 . After t h e ’catastrophes’ of 1 9 4 8 a n d 1967, t h e 1 9 7 3 October w a r against Israel was interpreted by m u c h of t h e Arab world a s a ’victory’ a n d t h e apparent impact of t h e oil weapon strengthened dreams of beckoning glory a n d settling scores with t h e West. The illusions a n d disappointments behind this hubris a re sensitively analysed by Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice since 196 7 (Cambridge, 1981). They h e l p one to better understand t h e continued need of t h e Arab world to fi n d scapegoats for its divisions a n d failures today 3 1 . For a characteristic e x a m p l e of t h e either-or mentality towards t h e existence of a Jewish state (whatever its boundaries) i n the Middle East, see t h e interview w i t h t h e former President of t h e Algerian Republic, A h m e d Ben-Bella, ’Tous contre Israél’, Politique Internationale, No. 1 6 ( S u m m e r 1982), p p . 106—7. 'Je l e répéte: n o u s n’accepterons jamais ce corps étranger dans notre region. Israel est u n véritable cancer gréffe’ s u r l e mo n d e arabe.’ Ben-Bella, once t h e spokesman of Pan-Arabism a n d revolutionary Third World radi-

calism, is today a militant fundamentalist. For the millions in the Arab world who still t h i n k like h i m t h e mere existence of Israel m e a n s t h e d e m i s e of Arabism a n d of Islam

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aliyah: In Hebrew t h e term m e a n s ’immigration’ o r ’ascent'. It is

generally used to describe the five waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine between 1 8 8 2 a n d 1939. Today it denotes t h e act of emigration from t h e Diaspora (q.v.) to t h e s t a t e of Israel. I n Zionist

ideology it has the additional connotation of self-fulfilment and rising t o a higher p l a n e of aCtively participating in t h e rebuilding of t h e Jewish state. Antichrist: The e n e m y of Christ a n d of all Christians, a figure embodying absolute evil, whose coming is interpreted a s heralding t h e Last Days. Antichrist is a kind of counter-Messiah i n Christian popular legend, who would b e crowned i n Jerusalem a n d restore t h e Jewish Temple. H e w ould attract m a n y followers (especially a m o n g th e Jews) b u t was ultimately t o be defeated i n a terrible battle which was expected t o be t h e p r e l u d e to t h e Second C o m i n g of Christ a n d a future era of peace a n d glory. The legend of Antichrist h a u n t e d t h e theological a n d p o p u l a r imagination d u r i n g t h e Middle Ages a n d a t the t i m e of t h e Crusades contributed to t h e millennial fervour t h a t led t o t h e massacre of Jews. D u r i n g t h e Protestant Reformation t h e idea of t h e Antichrist w a s extended to th e Pope i n R o m e a n d t h e Muslim Turks w h o were t h r e a t e n i n g C h r i s t e n d o m from w i t h o u t . Ashkenazi: A t e r m originally used to designate t h e Jews of G e r m a n y (Ashkenaz i n Hebrew) a n d since t h e s i x t e e n t h c e n t u r y the Jews of Central a n d Eastern E u r o p e . It also generally includes most of t h e Jews i n t h e United States (descended i n t h e m a i n from Russian a n d East E u r o p e a n Jewry) a n d h a s today come to embrace all n o n Sephardic (q.v.) J e w s . The Ashkenazic Jews of Russia a n d Eastern E u r o p e developed a distinct civilisation, m o d e of thinking, customs, liturgy, ceremonials a n d a rich literature i n t h e Yiddish language. Before t h e modern era t h e y resisted secularism a n d assimilation more t h a n their Sephardic co-religionists, b u t this c h a n g e d in t h e n i n e t e e n t h a n d t w e n t i e t h centuries. Except for Israel a n d France, t h e 309

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Ashkenazim constitute by far the largest segment in the major communities of world Jewry today. Ba am: In Arabic the term means ’renaissance’ or ’resurrection'. Ba’athism is a quasi-secular form of Arab nationalism whose motto has always been ’one Arab nation with an eternal mission'. The Arab nation, according to Ba'athi ideologists, was characterised by unique and special virtues which were the result of its successive rebirths. Ba’athism sees itself as revolutionary, socialist pan-Arab and anti-

imperialist. The Ba’athparty was founded in Damascus by a Christian, Michel Aflaq, i n 1940. Since the 19605 it has held power i n both Syria and Iraq, two regimes which share a common ideology and also a bitter rivalry for the leadership of the Arab national cause. The ’liberation of Palestine’ has always been a central rallying-cry for Ba'athists in Syria and Iraq. Balfour Declaration: This Declaration, made by the British Government on 2 November 1917 at a crucial moment during the First World War, was the beginning of a formal British commitment to create i n Palestine ’a national home for the Jewish people’. His Majesty’s Government promised to use ’their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object’. The Declaration was issued in the name of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, and designed to win the support of world Jewry for the Allied cause. At the same time Balfour saw it as a compensation for the wrong which Christendom had inflicted upon the Jewish people for centuries. It gave the Zionist movement international legitimacy and paved the way for the British Mandate in Palestine, approved by the League of Nations, i n order to establish a Jewish national home. For the Arab world (and especially the Palestine Arabs) the Balfour Declaration has usually been seen as a disaster and the date of its declaration as a day of mourning, often sparking demonstrations, protests and even riots for the last seventy years. bloodlibel: A Christian antisemitic myth dating from the twelfth century which asserted that Jews are required by their religion to murder Christian children and use their blood to bake matzot (Passover bread). Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, blood libels have abounded i n the Christian world, frequently provoking persecutions and massacres of Jews. Even in the late nineteenth century there were notorious blood libel cases i n Tisza-Esla’r (Hungary), i n Polna (Czechoslovakia) and Poland. As late as 1 9 1 1 the Russian government sought to exploit popular antisemitism by putting on trial a poor Jewish artisan in Kiev, Mendel Beilis, who was eventually acquitted. German Nazi publications like Der Stiirmer also used the 310

Glossary

blood libel to whip u p antisemitism. In the Arab world, the blood libel was spread i n the nineteenth century largely by Greek Christians. In the last twenty years i t has been widely promoted b y Muslims and fully incorporated i n t o the antisemitic literature that is currently enjoying some popularity in the Arab world. Crusades: From the French world croix, meaning ‘Cross'. The Crusaders were Soldiers of the Cross, w h o went t o the Holy Land to wage a Holy War, beginning in 1095. Their aim was t o liberate the Church o f the

Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (the site where Christ was believed to have been crucified) from the ’infidel’ Muslims. O n their way t o Palestine the Crusader mobs indulged themselves in the mass

slaughter of Jews in the Rhineland cities of Mainz, Worms and Cologne, where entire Jewish communities were destroyed. The ecclesiastical authorities sought in vain t o protect the Jews, whom they had themselves denounced for centuries as ’infidels’ and Christkillers. The religious fervour of the Crusades, with their unprecedented violence against Jews, fi rml y embedded antisemitism at a popular level in the Western psyche. Damascus Affair: The most famous blood libel (q.v.) t o have occurred in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century and one which was t o have far-reaching international implications. It began with the disappearance of a Capuchin m o n k , Father Tomaso, and his servant in Damascus o n 5 February 1840. His fellow monks, encouraged by the French consul Ratti-Menton, declared that h e had been killed b y Jews for ritual purposes. M a n y Damascus Jews were arrested and tortured (one communal leader died under questioning, another Jew confessed under torture and one even converted t o Islam) while the French consul encouraged an antisemitic press campaign i n France against the Damascus Jews and international Jewry i n general. The affair provoked outrage in Europe and the vigorous intervention of several other European states, especially the British government. A delegation of Western Jewish notables led by Adolphe Cre’mieux was despatched to the Middle East and succeeded in persuading the Ottoman Sultan t o intervene and issue an edict (firman), denouncing the blood libel as a baseless fabrication. Nevertheless, there are still books published in Arabic today w h i c h treat the Damascus Affair as proof that Jewish ritual murder is a historical fact. Dar aI—Islam:In Arabic this means the ‘Abode’ o r ’House’ of Islam and refers t o all territory under M u s l i m rule. In Islamic l a w i t is usually juxtaposed w i t h Dar al-Harb (the ‘House of War’), the non-Muslim world beyond the frontiers of Islam. In Muslim legal theory there is a perpetual state of war between Dar al-Islam and Dar aI-Harb, u n t i l

311

Glossary

such t i m e as the non-Muslim world submits to the supremacy of Islam, the only ’true’ religion. This state of war may be temporarily suspended by truces, especially when the Muslim side is weaker. The implications of a literal interpretation of this legal theory for Islam's relations with the West and with Israel are obvious. dhimmi: From the Arabic dhimma, a pact between the dominant Muslim state and non-Muslim minorities (especially Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, etc.) which defines their legal status under Islamic law. The status of the dhimmi was that of a ’protected minority’, permitted to exercise their religion freely in return for payment of the poll-tax and provided they recognised the supremacy of Islam. The status of the dhimmi involved many humiliating restrictions and disabilities, of a social and symbolic as well as an economic character, including the kinds of clothes dhimmis might wear and the beasts they could ride. They were not allowed to bear arms; they were required to refrain from noise and display i n their ceremonies, and to show deference at all times to Muslims. Churches and synagogues were not to be higher than mosques and no new ones

were, in theory, to be built. This dhimmicondition is quaintly referred to as an example of Muslim ’tolerance’ and still advocated today by some fundamentalists as a desirable arrangement in an Islamic state. Diaspora: The dispersion of the Jews i n the lands outside Israel. Already

in pagan Antiquity the Jews suffered exile (in Hebrew:galut) but did not assimilate to the surrounding nations, retaining their sense of a special vocation and being a chosen people, covenanted with God. Five centuries before the Christian era they had been exiled to Babylon and by the first century they constituted more than 10 per cent of the p0pulation i n the Roman Empire. In the Diaspora they have clung to their separate religious beliefs, customs and laws for more than two thousand years, despite periods of cultural symbiosis or attempts at assimilation and integration. Undoubtedly this stubborn particularism has been a factor i n the persistence of antisemitism, though it would be simplistic to see it as a prime cause. I n the traditional Jewish self-understanding, diasporic existence is a form of ‘exile', of living under ’alien rule’, of being uprooted from one's homeland i n Zion and hence a state of alienation. In the postemancipation era, Diaspora acquired a much more positive connotation and was even validated as a Jewish 'Mission’ to the Gentiles by Liberal and Reform Judaism. firman: Edict. Goyim: In Hebrew, the term refers to all the nations of the world, except Israel, i.e. the ’Gentiles’. The word ’Goy', (singular of Goyim) that is to

312

Glossary

say any non-Jew, acquired a pejorative association for many Jews as a result of relentless persecution over the centuries at the hands of the Gentile nations. This was especially the case in Eastern Europe, where the gulf between Jews and non—Jews was more persistent and saddled w i t h bitterness. Thus a ‘Goy' was frequently assumed t o be an antisemite, unless proof to the contrary was available. hadith: A n Arabic term which refers to the oral tradition by means of w h i c h sayings o r deeds attributed t o the Prophet Mohammed have been handed down t o serve as a guide for M u s l i m believers. The sources were collected together i n the n i n t h century and provide a major source of Islamic law. Halacha: The legal system of Judaism based o n accumulated jurisprudence and decisions of the Sages. Halacha, which i n Hebrew means ’law', was n o t so m u c h ’created' by the rabbis as i t was a codification and clarification of legal teachings w h i c h had to be adapted to changing social conditions. This flexibility protected Rabbinic Halacha from degenerating i n t o the sterile fundamentalism advocated by some Orthodox Jewish halachists today. hijra: Arabic word for the 'migration' of Mohammed from Mecca t o Medina i n 622. Today, the term has assumed a special meaning for Muslim fundamentalists and radicals who seek t o overthrow the existing social order. They see ’hijra’ as opting out of a corrupt society in order t o live according t o the original teachings of the Prophet and as a central part of their efforts at reform and rebirth. Haram as-Sharif: In Arabic, the ’Noble Sanctuary’, the holiest site of Islam in Palestine, which includes the Dome of the Rock and the AlAqsa Mosque. Both mosques are situated on the place k n o w n t o Jews as the Temple M o u n t , the site of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The Noble Sanctuary adjoins the Wailing Wall, sacred t o Jews as a remnant of the last Temple of the Jewish nation - that w h i c h was built by Herod and destroyed by the Roman legions of Titus. jihad: A Holy War for Islam against the unbelievers. The primary meaning of the term i n Arabic is ’striving' or ’struggle' i n the cause of God. This is a religious duty prescribed b y the faith for every believing Muslim and is closely linked to the concepts of Dar aI-lslam (q.v.) and Dar al-Harb (q.v.) The Islamic jihad is potentially, at least, worldwide. From time to time there is a resurgence of the jihad i n the M u s l i m world, whether i t has been against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, against the ’infidel' West o r against Israel. jizya: Arabic for ’ransom’. A poll-tax levied by Muslim rulers against dhimmi (q.v.) peoples, mainly Christians o r Jews. Judenrein: German word w h i c h became part of the official Nazi jargon 313

Glossary

that was applied i n the so-called ’Final Solution o f the Jewish Question’. It means cleansed o r ’free' o f Jews. kibbutzim: Voluntary Jewish agricultural collectives i n Palestine where there is n o private wealth and all property is owned in common. The first Jewish kibbutz was established i n Deganiah i n 1909. Koran: In Arabic, ’recitation'. The Holy Book of Islam which, according to Muslims, was dictated to Mohammed b y God himself. The revelations given to the Pr0phet ( w h o could not himself write) were collected by his disciples in the middle o f the seventh century. marranos: A term of contempt employed by Spanish and Portuguese Catholics towards Spanish Jews who had adopted the Christian faith under pressure b u t were still believed to practise Judaism in secret. M a n y marrano families rose to positions of influence a n d enjoyed-high status in Spain before the expulsion (1492) which drove o u t more than 150,000 Jews from the country. The loss to Spanish life and

culture was incalculable. The marranos dispersed to Italy, North Africa, Turkey and even Poland. They founded the modern Jewish communities of Amsterdam a n d London, playing a n important role i n commerce and international trade. mellahs: Enclosed Jewish quarters in Moroccan towns, established as a royal protection for the Jewish communities i n the fifteenth century against a hostile populace. Though not originally intended as a punishment o r humiliation, the mellahs did, under later rulers, serve t o isolate and penalise the Jews. midrash: A form o f analysis, exposition and exegesis of the Holy Scriptures whic h reads complex ideas i n t o simple verses and esoteric meanings i n t o every passage of the sacred texts. The sermons o f the Rabbis i n the Diaspora (q.v.) from the fourth century onwards contain m u c h midrashic material — parables, allegories, stories and elaborate interpretation of Biblical texts. Mishnah: In Hebrew this means to ’repeat one's learning’ o r ‘review'. The Mz'shnah, one o f the two basic parts of the Talmud, is the codified core of the Oral Law and had its origin after the return of the Jews to editing and Judea from their Babylonian exile. The compilation, codification of this accumulated body of Oral Law was only completed around AD 200. Mufti: A n official Muslim expert i n Islamic jurisprudence. The title was usually granted to a learned Muslim scholar o f spotless reputation. This was certainly not the case with Haj A m i n al-Husseini, promoted to this position b y the British Mandatory Government i n Palestine, i n the mistaken belief that i t might moderate his attitudes. Muslim Brotherhood: (Ikhwan aI-Muslimim) A religious and political 314

Glossary

movement founded i n Egypt in 1929. Its ideology has been consistently fundamentalist, anti-Western and anti-Jewish, and its methods frequently terroristic. I t forms a powerful opposition movement in m a n y Muslim countries today. numerus clausus: Laws promulgated i n Tsarist Russia and Eastern Europe between the two world wars which sought t o limit the number of Jews in universities, i n the civil service, the army, the professions and parts of the economy, t o their proportion of the population. The call for a numerus clausus was the standard refrain of antisemites ever since Jewish emancipation had exposed them t o competition from Jews o n a n equal footing. Qadi: Muslim magistrate o r judge who administers the Islamic law. pogrom: Russian word meaning 'devastation'. I t was used to designate the spontaneous o r organised massacres of Jews i n late nineteenthand early twentieth-century Tsarist Russia. The worst pogroms occurred in I 8 8 1 , 1903 and 1905 and appeared at times to enjoy the tacit support o f the authorities. During the Russian Civil War ( 1 9 1 8 20), terrible pogroms were also carried o u t by the counterrevolutionary White armies under Petliura in the Ukraine - the worst massacres of Jews before the Nazi era. Purim: The Jewish Festival of Lots (the Hebrew word pur means ’lot’) w h i c h celebrates the rescue of the Jews of Persia from Haman's plot to exterminate them. The story is recounted i n the Biblical Book of Esther, though its historicity is a matter of conjecture. The figure of ’Haman’ has represented the archetypal antisemite, o r enemy of the Jewish pe0ple, ever since the Middle Ages. Sephardim: Spanish and Portuguese Jews (S 'pharad is Spain i n Hebrew) and their descendants. In modern times the term has been extended to include all non-Ashkenazi (q.v.) Jews, especially the Jews of the Middle East (’Oriental' Jews) living i n Israel. Sephardic Judaism dominated Jewish culture from around AD 600 t o the expulsion from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century. Some Sephardic Jews rose t o positions of eminence i n Spain, Portugal, North Africa and Turkey, as royal advisers, court physicians, financiers, philos0phers and poets. They were generally more open t o secular knowledge than their Ashkenazi brethren, more aristocratic and ostentatious i n their religious services and life-style. I n the Middle Ages they wrote mostly i n Arabic, b u t their vernacular has remained Ladino, especially i n the Mediterranean Sephardic communities. In the twentieth century the Sephardim came t o Zionism later than their Ashkenazi co-religionists, b u t after I 9 4 8 i t was Middle Eastern Jews who provided the largest waves o f immigration to Israel.

315

Glossary

shtetl: A small Jewish city, town or village in the Russian Empire or Eastern Europe with its own distinctive socio-cultural pattern and way of life. The shtetlach of Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Rumania,

Hungary, Bessarabia, etc. were the bulwarks of traditional Jewish values, piety and Ashkenazic culture before the Holocaust. Shi'a: The term refers i n Arabic to the ’partisans’ of Ali, cousin and sonin-law of the Pr0phet, who should have succeeded him instead of Abu Bakr, the first Caliph. Shi’ites, like Sunni Muslims, uphold the five pillars of Islam but have different devotional and religious practices. They believe, for example, i n the Hidden Imam, an Islamic Messiah who will return to inaugurate the Golden Age. They are far more concerned than Sunnis with matters of ritual purity, and contact with non-Muslims (especially Jews) is forbidden to them, nor can they use clothes, food or utensils handled by them. This obsessive concern with ritual pollution is especially evident in Shi’ite Iran, where Jews, as the most important non-Muslim minority, have long suffered from the hostility of the p0pulace. Sunnis: The Sunnis constitute the overwhelming majority of Muslim believers, except for Iran, Iraq and parts of the Lebanon. A Sunni is a Muslim who follows the Sunna (’the way’) laid down by the Pr0phet i n everything he said, did or caused to be enacted. In practice, Sunni Muslims were usually more tolerant than Shi’ites i n their attitudes to Jews, with expulsions, massacres and forced conversions being comparatively rare occurrences. On the other hand, Sunnis have proved to be receptive in the twentieth century to modern European doctrines of nationalism and Western-style antisemitism, as well as absorbing their own variety of Islamic radicalism. Talmud: A monumental compendium of sixty-three books containing the body of Jewish civil, ceremonial and traditional law which developed out of the Torah (q.v.) and the oral and written commentaries upon it by the leading rabbis. The name is derived from a Hebrew root meaning ’to study’ and ’to teach’. A reservoir of rabbinical thought, the Talmud has no dogmas but is a long, complex explication of the Torah which records all the commentaries, interpretations, disagreements and clashing views that evolved over centuries. For a dispersed people it provided an intellectual cement, a common language, code of law and ethics, indispensable for maintaining the cohesion of the Diaspora (q.v.). Christian antisemites since the Middle Ages have seized on the Talmud as an abomination, a

hereticalbook tobe burned, though one must assume that few, ifany, of the Jew-baiters have ever read a line of the work they execrate. The Christian myth of the ’Talmud Jew’ has gained increasing popularity 316

Glossary

in the M u s l i m world in recent years, where i t is equally divorced from reality. Torah: I n Hebrew the word means ‘teaching' o r ’doctrine’. The Torah is the text of the Pentateuch (the Five Books of Moses). The very essence of Judaism as a religion, philosophy and set of values is contained i n its pages. The 613 commandments set out in the Torah

are binding on observant Jews and regulate the conduct of everyday life i n m i n u t e detail. The Torah is seen as a priceless gift of God t o Israel, t o prepare i t for its religious vocation as a ’holy people’.

ulema: ’Learned men’ who devote themselves to the study of the Holy Law of Islam. Derived from the word alim (singular of ulema), the function of these learned m e n is in many ways analogous to that of rabbis in Judaism. Their status is derived from their knowledge and learning. They are in n o sense priests, having n o sacerdotal o r priestly mediating role between God and the faithful. Unlike the Shi’ite mullahs, the ulema i n the Sunni M u s l i m world have usually been subservient to the secular authorities. Yishuv: The Hebrew term for the Jewish community i n Palestine before 1948. The Old Yishuv denotes the traditional Jewish communities (Ashkenazi and Sephardi) living in the Holy Land before the First Aliyah (q.v.) of 1882 and the New Yishuv refers to the Zionist settlement o n the land that gathered pace i n the twentieth century.

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B l u m e n k r a n z , Bernhard, Juzfls et Chre’tiens dans le monde occidental 430— 1096 (Paris, 1960) Boehlich, W . ( e d . ) , Der Berliner Antisemitismusstreit (Frankfurt, 1965) Botz, Gerhard, Wien vom Anschluss zum Krieg ( V i e n n a / M u n i c h , 1978) B r a h a m , Randolph L., Hungarian Jewish Studies ( N e w York, 1966) Broder, Henryk M . , Der ewige Antisemit (Frankfurt, 1986) B u n z l , J o h n a n d Marin, Bernd (eds.), Antisemitismus in Osterreich ( I n n s b r u c k , 1983) Byrnes, Robert, Antisemitism in Modern France ( N e w Brunswick, 1950) , Pobedonostsev ( B l o o m i n g t o n , 1968) Carsten, F. L., Fascist Movements in Austria: From Scho'nerer to Hitler (London,l977) Cohen, Hayyim J., The Jews of the Middle East 1860—1972 (Jerusalem, 1973) Cohen, Jeremy, The Friars and the Jews: Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, 1982) C o h n , Norman, Pursuit of Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarianism and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages ( N e w York, 1970) — , Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion ( L o n d o n , 1967) Curtis, Michael ( e d . ) , Antisemitism in the Contemporary World (Boulder, Colorado, 1986) D a u m e r , G . F., Der Feuer und Molochdienst der alten Hebra'er als urvaterlicher, Iegaler orthodoxer Cultus der Nation (Brunswick, 1842) Davies, A . T. ( e d ) . , Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity (New York, 1979) Davis, Moshe ( e d . ) , World Jewry and the State of Israel (New York, 1977) Dietl, W i l h e l m , Holy War (New York, 1984) Dinnerstein, Leonard, The Leo Frank Case (Athens, G a , 1966) —, Uneasy at Home: Antisemitism and the American Experience (New York, 1987) D r u m o n t , Edouard, La France Juive (Paris, 1886) , La Fin d ’un monde (Paris, 1889) —-, La Derniére Bataille (Paris, 1890) —, Le Testament d ' u n antise’mite (Paris, 1891) D u n c a n , Peter, Nationalism in the USSR (Amsterdam, 1989) D u n l o p , J o h n B., The New Russian Nationalism (New York, 1985) E n g e l m a n n , Hans, Kirche am Abgrund: Adolf Stoecker und seine antiju'dische Bewegung (Berlin, 1984) Eckart, Dietrich, Der Bolschevismus von Moses bis Lenin: Zwiegespra'ch zwischen Adolf Hitler und mir ( M u n i c h , 1924) Esposito, J o h n ( e d . ) , Voices of Resurgent Islam ( N e w York, 1983) 319

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Ettinger, S h m u e l , Antisemitism in the Modern Age (Tel Aviv, 1978) ( i n Hebrew) Fabre-Luce, Alfred, Pour en finir avec l'antise’mitisme (Paris, 1979) Fackenheim, E., The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem ( N e w York, 1978) Fassbinder, W . R., Der Miill, die Stadt und der Tod (Frankfurt, 1981) Fattal, A n t o i n e , Le Statut le’gal des non-musulmans en pays d 'Islam ( B e i r u t , 1958) Fejto, Francois, Les Juifs et l'antisémitisme dans les pays communistes (Paris, 1 9 6 0 ) d e Felice, Renzo, Ebrei in un paese arabo: gli ebrei nella Libia contemporanea tra colonialismo, nazionalismo e sionismo 1835—1970 ( B o l o g n a , 1978) Field, Geoffrey C . , Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston S. Chamberlain ( N e w York, 1981) Finkielkraut, Alain, La Re’probation d 'Israe'l (Paris, 1983) Fischel, Walter J., The Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam ( N e w York, 1 9 6 9 ) Fischer, Heinz (ed.) Einer im Vordergrund: Taras Borodajkewicz: Eine Dokumentation ( V i e n n a , 1966) F i s h m a n , Joshua ( e d . ) , Studies on Polish Jewry 1919-1939 (New York,

1974) F i s h m a n , W i l l i a m J . , East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914 (London, 1975) Flannery, Edward H., The Anguish of the Jews ( N e w York, 1985) Fleming, Gerald, Hitler and the Final Solution ( L o n d o n , 1985) Freedman, Theodore ( e d . ) , Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, its Roots and Consequences ( N e w York, 1984) Friedlander, Henry a n d M i l t o n , Sybil (eds.), The Holocaust: Ideology. Bureaucracy and Genocide ( N e w York, 1980) Gager, J o h n , The Origins of Antisemitism: Attitudes towards Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (Oxford / New York, 1985) Gainer, B . , The Alien Invasion ( L o n d o n , 1972) Garrard, J o h n A . , The English and Immigration: A Comparative Study of the Jewish Influx 1880-1910 ( L o n d o n , 1971) Gartner, Lloyd, The Jewish Immigrant in England 1870—1914 ( L o n d o n , 1960) Geehr, R . 5 . , Karl Lueger: Mayor of Fin de Siecle Vienna (Detroit, 1990) G i d e , A n d r e , Journals 1889—1949 ( L o n d o n , 1967) Gilboa, Yehoshua A . , The Black Years of Soviet Jewry ( B o s t o n , 1971) G i r a u d o u x , J e a n , Pleins Pouvoirs (Paris, 1939) G i t e l m a n , Z v i , Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics (Princeton, 1972) G l a s s m a n , Bernard, Anti-Semitic Stereotypes without Jews: Images of Jews in England 1290—1700 (Detroit, 1973) 320

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Goitein, S . D., Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (Third revised e d . , New York, 1974) —, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Genizah ( 4 Vols.) (Berkeley / Los Angeles, 1983) (ed.), Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1974) Grayzel, Solomon, A History of the Jews (Philadelphia, [960) , The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1933) G r e e n , D. F. ( e d . ) , Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel: Extracts from the Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research ( G e n e v a , 1976) G u t m a n , Yisrael, The Jews of Warsaw 1939—1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt ( B l o o m i n g t o n , 1982) Gutteridge, Richard, Open Thy Mouth for the Dumb: The German Evangelical Church and the Jews 1879-1959 (Oxford, 1976) Haim, Sylvia ( e d . ) , Arab Nationalism (Berkeley / Los Angeles, 1976) Harkabi, Y . , Arab Attitudes to Israel (Jerusalem, 1971) , The Palestinian Covenant and its Meaning (London, 1980) Heer, Friedrich, God ’s First Love ( L o n d o n , 1967) Heller, Celia 8 . , On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars ( N e w York, 1977) Hellwing, I. A . , Der konfessionelle Antisemitismus im 19 Jahrhundert im

Osterreich (Vienna, 1972) Hertzberg, A rt h u r, The French Enlightenment and the Jews ( N e w York,

1968) Hirschberg, H. 2 . , A History of the Jews in North Africa, Vol. I (Leiden,

1974) Hirszowicz, L., The Third Reich and the Arab East (London, 1966) Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf ( B o s t o n , 1943) Holmes, Colin, Anti-Semitism in British Society 1876-1939 (New York, 1979) Isaac, Jules, Genése de l'antise’mitisme (Paris, 1956) Ivanov, Y . , 0storozhno! Sionizm! (Moscow, 1969) Jéickel, Eberhard a n d K u h n , A x e l (eds.), Hitler: Sdmtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924 (Stuttgart, 1980) J o h n s o n , Nels, Islam and the Politics of Meaning in Palestinian Nationalism (London,l982) Katz, J. , The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner 's Antisemitism ( L o n d o n ,

1986) Katzburg, Nathaniel, AntishemiutB'Hungaria I 86 7—1914 (Tel Aviv, 1969) Kedourie, Elie, Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies ( L o n d o n , 1974) Islam and the Modern World, and Other Studies ( L o n d o n , 1980) —,

321

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Kepel, Gilles, The Prophet and Pharoah: Muslim Extremism in Egypt (London,l985) Kershaw, Ian, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent: Bavaria 1933—1945 (Oxford, 1983) K h o m e i n i , Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini ( B e r k e l e y , 1981) Kieval, Hillel, The Making of Czech Jewry ( N e w York, 1988) Kisch, G u i d o , In Search of Freedom: A History of American Jews from Czechoslovakia ( L o n d o n , 1949) K n i g h t , R . ( e d . ) , ’Ich bin dafiir, die Sache in die La'nge zu ziehen’: Die Wortprotokolle der o'sterreichische Bundesregierung von 1945 bis 1952 iiber die Entscha'dzgung der Juden (Frankfurt, 1988) Korey, William, The Soviet Cage: Anti-Semitism in Russia ( N e w York, 1973) Korzec, Pawel, Juzfs en Pologne: La question juive pendant l'entre-deuxguerres (Paris, 1980) Kramer, G u d r u n , The Jews in Modern Egypt 1914-1952 (London, 1989) Kriegel, A n n i e , Israel est-i1 coupable? (Paris, 1982) K u l k a , O . D. a n d Mendes-Flohr, P. (eds.), Judaism and Christianity under the Impact of National Socialism (Jerusalem, 1987) K u s h n e r , Tony, The Persistence of Prejudice: Antisemitism in British Society during the Second World War (Manchester, 1989) La ngm uir , G a v i n , History, Religion and Antisemitism (Berkeley/L05 Angeles, 1990) Lebzelter, Gisela, Political Antisemitism in England 1918-1939 ( L o n d o n , 1978) Lee, Albert, Henry Ford and the Jews ( N e w York, 1980) Lendvai, Paul, Antisemitism without Jews: Communist Eastern Europe ( N e w York, 1971) L e n i n , Vladimir I., Collected Works ( L o n d o n , 1960—1970) Leroy-Beaulieu, Anatole, L'Antise’mitisme (Paris, 1897) , Les Doctrines de haine: l'antisémitisme, l'antiprotestantisme, I’anticle’ricalisme (Paris, 19 0 2 ) Levy, Bernard-Henri, L'Ide’ologie Francaise (Paris, 1981) Lewis, B., Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle East (London,l973) Semites and Antisemites: an Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice ( N e w —, York, 1986) The Middle East and The West ( L o n d o n , 1963) —,

Loebl, Eugen, Sentenced and Tried: The Stalinist Purges in Czechoslovakia (London,l969) Lohrmann, Klaus ( e d . ) , 1000 Jahre o'sterreichisches Judentum (Eisenstadt, 1982) 322

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L o n d o n , Artur, L’Aveu (Paris, 1969) Lovsky, F., Antise’mitisme et myste‘re d 'Israe'l (Paris, 1955) Lukacs, John, Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and its Culture (London,l989) Lukashevich, S t e p h e n , Ivan Aksakov (Cambridge, Mass., 1965) Maccoby, H y a m , The Sacred Executioner: Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt ( L o n d o n , 1987) Marcus, Joseph, Social and Political History of the Jews of Poland 1919—1939 (Berlin, 1983) Marrus, Michael, The Politics of Assimilation: A Study of the French Jewish Community at the Time of the Dreyfus Affair (Oxford, 1971) Marrus, Michael a n d Paxton, Robert, Vichy France and the Jews ( N e w

York, 1981) Masaryk, T h o m a s 6 . , Die Notwendtgkeit der Revision des Polnaer Prozesses ( V i e n n a , 1899) Masriya, Y a h u d i y a , Les Juzfs en Egypte ( G e n e v a , 1971) Maser, Werner ( e d . ) , Hitler’s Letters and Notes (New York, 1974) Massing, Paul W . , Rehearsal for Destruction: A Study of Political Antisemitism in Imperial Germany ( N e w York, 1949) McCagg, W i l l i a m , Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary ( B o u l d e r , Colorado, 1973) A History of Habsburg Jews 1670—1918 ( B l o o m i n g t o n , 1989) —, M e h l m a n , Jeffrey, Legacies of Antisemitism in France (Minneapolis, 1983) M e m m i , Albert, Jews and Arabs (Chicago, 1975) M e n d e l s o h n , Ezra, The Jews of Eastern Central Europe Between the World Wars ( B l o o m i n g t o n , 1987) Michelet, Jules, La Bible de l’humanité (Paris, 1864) Misbahul, Islam Farruqi ( e d . ) , The Jewish Conspiracy and the Muslim World (Karachi, 1967) Mitchell, R . P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( L o n d o n , 1969) Mosse, Werner E. a n d Paucker, Arnold (eds.), Juden in wilhelminischen Deutschland 1890—1914 (Tiibingen, 1976) Nettler, Ronald L., Past Trials and Present Tribulations: A Muslim Fundamentalist 's View of the Jews (Oxford, 1987) Noakes, Jeremy a n d Pridham Geoffrey (eds.), Documents on Nazism

1919-1945 (London, 1974) Nolte, Ernst, Three Faces of Fascism ( L o n d o n , 1965) O b e r m a n , Heiko A . , The Roots of Antisemitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation (Philadelphia, 1984) Oxaal, I. et al (eds.), Jews, Antisemitism and Culture in Vienna (London/ New Y o r k , 1987) Pauley, B. F., Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis: A History of A ustrian National Socialism (Chapel Hill, 1978)

323

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Peters, Joan, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of theArab—Jewish Conflict over Palestine ( L o n d o n , 1984) Pierrard, Pierre, Juifs et catholiques francais: de Drumont a Jules Isaac.

1886—1945 (Paris,1970) Pinson, Koppel S . ( e d . ) , Essays on Antisemitism ( N e w York, 1942) Poliakov, Lé o n , A History of Antisemitism ( L o n d o n , 1974) Porath, Y . The Emergence of the Palestine-Arab National Movement 1918— 1929 (London, 1974)

Piihle, Hans Jiirgen Agrarische Interessenpolitik und preussischer Konservatismus in wilhelminische Reich (Hanover, 1966) Pulzer, P. G . J. The Rise of Political Antisemitism in Germany and Austria ( L o n d o n , 1988, revised edition) Rabinbach, A n so n a n d Zipes, Jack (eds.), Germans and Jews since the Holocaust: The Changing Situation in West Germany ( N e w York/ London,

1986) Redlich, S h i m o n , Propaganda and Nationalism in Wartime Russia: The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR 1941-1948 (Boulder, Colorado, 1982) Regnard, Albert, Aryens et Se’mites: Le bilan du judaisme et du christianisme (Paris, 1890) Rejwan, Nissim, The Jews of Iraq: 3000 Years of History and Culture (London,l985) R e n a n , Ernst, Histoire générale et systéme compare’ des langues se’mitiques (Paris, 1855) , History of the People of Israel, V o l . 1, ( B o s t o n , 1905) R i n g e l b l u m , E m m a n u e l , Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War ( N e w York, 1976) Roth, Cecil, History of the Marranos ( N e w York, 1 9 5 9 ) R o u m a n i , Maurice, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue (Jerusalem, 1975) R u e t h e r , Rosemary, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Antisemitism ( N e w York, 1971)

Rubinstein, W.D., The Left, the Right, and the Jews (London/Canberra. 1982) Sartre, Jean-Paul, Antisemite and Jew ( N e w York, 1976) S c h e c h t m a n , Joseph, The Mufti and the Fuhrer: The Rise and Fall of Haj Amin el-Husseini ( N e w York, 1 9 6 5 ) Schoeps, Julius a n d S i l b e r m a n n , Alphons (eds.), Antisemitismus nach dem Holocaust (Cologne, 1986) Schwarz, Solomon, The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse, 1951) Seidel, Gill, The Holocaust Denial: Antisemitism, Racism, and the New Right

(London,l986) 324

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S e m e n y u k , V . A . , Natsionalisticheskoe bezumie (Minsk,‘1976) S i l b e r m a n n , A l p h o n s , Sind wir Antisemiten? Ausmass und Wirkung eines sozialen Vorurteils in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Cologne, 1982) Shipler, David K., Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (London,l987) Simon, Marcel, Verus Israel: e’tude sur Ies relations entre chrétiens etjuifs dans l'empire romain (Paris, 1948) S i v a n , E m m a n u e l , Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (New Haven/London, 1985) Skidelsky, Robert, Oswald Mosley ( N e w York, 1975) Solodar, Ts, Dikaya polyn (Moscow, 1977) Sombart, Werner, Die Zukunft der Juden (Leipzig, 1912) Sorlin, Pierre, ’La Croix' et lesjuifs 1889-1899 (Paris, 1967) Soyfer, D. 1., Sionizm — orudie anti-kommunizma (Dnepropetrovsk, 1976) Sterling, E., Judenhass: Die Anfa'nge der Politischen Antisemitismus in Deutschland 1815—1850 (Frankfurt, 1969) S t e r n , Fritz, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study of the Rise of German Ideology (Berkeley, 1 9 6 1 ) S t e r n , Menahem, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism 3 Vols. (Jerusalem, 1974-84) Sternhell, Zeev, La Droite révolutionnaire 1885-1914: Ies origines francaises du Fascisme (Paris, 1978) —, Maurice Barres et 1e nationalisme francais (Paris, 1972) Stillman, Norman A . , The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979) Stoecker, A . , Christlich-Sozial. Reden un Aufsa'tze (Berlin, 1890, second e d . ) Tal, U . , Christians and Jews in Germany: Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870-1914 (Ithaca/London, 1975) Thurlow, Richard, Fascism in Britain: A History 1918-1945 ( O x f o r d , 1987) Toland, J o h n , Adolf Hitler (New York, 1977) Tomaszewski, Jerzy, Zarys Dziejo’w Zydo’w w Polsce w Latach 1918-1939 (Warsaw, 1990) Toussenel, A . , Les Juifs: Rois de I'époque: Histoire de la féodalité financiere (Paris, 1845) Trachtenberg, J o s h u a , The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and its Relation to Modern Antisemitism ( N e w H a v e n , 1943) Trevor-Roper, H u g h ( e d . ) , Hitler’s Table Talk ( L o n d o n , 1973) Tridon, Gustave, Du Molochisme juif: Etudes critiques et philosophiques (Brussels, 1884) Trigano, S h m u e l , La Re’publique et les juifs (Paris, 1982) Tritton, A . S . , The Caliphs and their non-Muslim Subjects: A Critical Study of the Covenant of ’Umar ( L o n d o n , 1930) 325

Select Bibliography

Vago, Bela a n d Mosse, George (eds.), Jews and non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 4 5 ( N e w York, 1 9 7 4 )

Wagner, Richard, Das Judentum in der Musik (Leipzig, 1869) Wallach, Jehuda (ed.) Germany and the Middle East (Tel Aviv, 1975) Wardi, Charlotte, Le Juzfdans le roman frangais 1933-1948 (Paris, 1972) Wasserstein, Bernard, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939—1945 (Oxford,

1979) Weber, E u g e n , Action frangaise (Stanford, 1 9 6 2 ) —, The Nationalist Revival in France 1905-1914 (Los Angeles, 1968) Weinberg, Henry H., The Myth of the Jew in France 1967-1982 (New York/ London,l987) Weinberg, Meyer, Because They Were Jews: A History of Anti-Semitism ( N e w York, 1986) Wilson, Nelly, Bernard Lazare: Antisemitism and the Problem of Jewish Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 1978) Wilson, S t e p h e n , Ideology and Experience: Antisemitism in France at the Time of the Dreyfus Affair (Toronto, 1982) Winock, Michel, Edouard Drumont et Cie: Antisemitisme et Fascisme en France (Paris, 1982) Wistrich, Robert, Trotsky: Fate of a Revolutionary (London, 1979) — (ed.), The Left Against Zion: Communism, Israel and the Middle East (London,l979) —, The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph ( L o n d o n , 1989) — , Hitler's Apocalypse (London, 1985) — , Between Redemption and Perdition (London/New York, 1990) — , Revolutionary Jews from Marx to Trotsky (London/New York, 1976) —, Socialism and the Jews: Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary (London/Toronto, 1982) — (ed.), Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World (London,l990) Yadlin, Rivka, A n Arrogant Oppressive Spirit: Anti-Zionism as Anti-Judaism in Egypt (Oxford, 1989) Wyman, David S., The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 (New York, 1984)

Yanov, Alexander, The Russian Challenge and the Year 2000 (New York, 1987) Yazbek, Yvonne Haddad, Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History (Albion, 1982) Ye’or, Bat, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (London/ Toronto, 1985) Zelinski, H., Richard Wagner: Ein deutsches Thema: Eine Dokumentation zur Wirkungsgeschichte Richard Wagner 1876-1976 (Vienna/Berlin, 1983)

326

Select Bibliography

Zimmerman, M . , Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Antisemitism

1986)

327

(New York,

Index

Abbas, A b u l , 249 ’Abd A l l a h b . Saba, 2 0 0

'Abd al-Rahmén, ’A'isha (pen-name Bint al-Shati'), 23S A b u Huraira, 2 3 0

Abu lshaq, 198, 204, 298n A b u Nidal, 249 Academy of Islamic Research (Cairo), F o u r t h Conference ( 1968), 229—30 Action Francaise, 131 Adams, H e n r y , 1 l 7

'Adas, Shafiq, 216 Adenauer, Chancellor K o n r a d , 8 0 Adler, Alfred, 62 Adler, Victor, 6 3

Aelia Capitolina, Jerusalem,7 Aflaq, Michel, 3IO Agobard, St, Bishop of Lyons, 21-2 Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte), Germany, 6 | Agrippa 1, King, 6 Ahlwardt, Hermann, 6 1

Alsace, anti-Jewish riots i n (1848), 127 A m a l r i k , Andrei, 184 Ambrose. St, 17, 2 0 A m e r , Councillor, 256 American Joint Distribution Committee, 178 Ancona, 3 7 Andreyeva, Nina, 186 Anglicans, 101, 102

Antichrist myth, xviii, xix, 30, 38, 41, 174, 271m, 309 A n t i o c h , 16, 17, 2 0

Antiochus Epiphanes, 6 Antiochus Sidetes, 5-6 Antisemitic Leagues, 57, 89, 127, 129 Anti-Zion, 233—4 Antonescu, Marshal, 147 Apion, S, 7, 2 6 9 n Aquinas, St Thomas, 25, 2 8

Arab-Israeli conflict, 222, 223—67: intifada i n Occupied Territories, 238, 249, 254; Lebanon W a r (1982), 137, 237, 254, 265; October W a r (1973), 231, 308n:

Aissou, Abdel, 143 A j a m i , Fouad, TheArab Predicament, 3 0 8 n Akademischer Turnerbund, 6 1 Aksakov,1van, 173 A l b u brothers, 105 Aleppo, attacks on Jews i n ( 1947), 213 Alexander t h e Great, 10 Alexandria, x v i i , S, 6, 8, 10

Algeria, 205, 209—10 Algerian W a r , 209 Algiers: destruction o f Great Synagogue (1960), 209; Palestine National Council

( 1988),248 Aliens Act (1905), British, 105

Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Palestine/ Israel), 309: First (1882), 317: Second a n d Third, 2 4 1 Alliance lsraélite Universelle, 127 A l m o g , D r Shmuel, x i A l m o h a d persecutions, 204, 2 9 8 n

origins and development of, 240-51, 265; Six Day W a r (1967), 81, 136, 137, 1 6 2 , 1 7 9 , 209, 237, 211, 213, 216, 223,247, 254: see also Islam; Israel; Palestine Arab nationalism (pan-Arabism), 208, 209, 210, 240, 259, 261—3, 266; see also Islamic fundamentalism Arab Revolt i n Palestine (1936—9), 211, 244, 245 Arafat, Yasser, 248-9, 252, 3 0 6 n Armenians, 206, 208, 2 1 l A r o n , Raymond, 136 Aryans o r 1ndo-Europeans, x v i : vs. Semites, x v i , x x i v , 47-8, 245, 252 Ashkenazi Jews, 103, 132, 143, 243, 309—10, 315

Assad,Hafez, President of Syria, 214, 237, 252, 260 Assyrians, Christian, 208

328

Index

Astafev, Viktor, 185 Augustine, St, 17, 18—19, 24, 25; Contra Judaeos, I 9 Auschwitz, 74, 79, 83, 84, 96, I 12, 139. 141, 168, 293n: controversy over Carmelite n u n s of, 140, 165-6, 169 Austria, x v , 54, 56, 57, 58, 6 1 - 5 , 66, 69. 88—97, 116, 150, 153: Ansell/ass ( u n i o n

with Germany, 1938), 88, 89-92: First Republic of, 88: post-I945: 92-7: Waldheim affair, 94-7 Autant-Lara, Claude, I 4 1 'Aziz, Tariq, 217 Ba'ath party/regime, 310: Iraqi, 2 1 6 - I 7 , 259,310;Synan,259,310

Babel, Isaac, 184 Badinter, Robert, 139 Baeumler, Alfred, 7 6

Baghdad, 215, 249: pogrom (1941), 215: show-trials a n d hangings ( I 9 6 9 ) , 216— 17 Balfour, Lord, 105, 310 Balfour Declaration (1917), 108, 211. 240, 242, 310 Bamberger, Ludwig, 6 0 al-Banna, Hasan, 226 Bannister, Joseph, 106 baptism, 15, 21, 33, 35, 6 4 Bar-Kochba rising (132-135), 7 Barnato family, 105 Barabbas, 14 Barres, Maurice, 126, 129, I 4 0 , I 4 4

Bernardinus o f Feltre, St, 34 Bessarabia, I 4 6 , 147 Bethlen, Count, 151 Bevin, Ernest, I 10

Bialik, Hayyim Nahman, 184 Biez, Jacques de, 128 Bitburg cemetery affair, 84 Black Death, 29, 32, 33 Black Hundreds, Russian, 173, 189 Black Panther Party, 121 Blanquists, 47—8 Bleichroder, Gerson, 6 0 'blood libel' m y t h , 31, 36, 50, 206-8, 223. 234, 235, 310—11: see also r i t u a l m u r d e r Bloomstein, Rex, x , xii—xiii B l u m , Léon, 130, 131, I 3 5 Boeckel, Otto, 58, 6 1 Boer W a r (1899-1902), 1 0 5 - 6 Boerne, Ludwig, 56 Bohemia, 153, 154 Bolshevism, x i x , 68, 7 0 , 7 2 , 107, 131, 157, 173—4, 186, 241; see also Communism Bonald, Louis, Vicomte de, 140 Bondarenko, Vladimir, I 8 5

Borodajkewycz, Taras, 93 Bormann, M a r t i n , 6 8 Botz, Gerhard, 9 1

Bouillon, Godfrey, 24

al-Bassam, Sadiq, 216

Bourget, Paul, 129, I 3 0 Bourguiba, Habib, 210 Bousquet, René, 134 Brasillach, Robert, 131, I 4 4 Brezhnev, Leonid, 180, 181

Bat Ye’or, 2 0 1 - 2

Britain/England, 44, 101-13, 211, 226, 232; Balfour Declaration (1917), 108, 2 1 I , 240, 242, 310: Boer W a r , 105—6: East E n d Jews, 104-5, 109, 113; a n d

Bauer, Bruno, xxi, 52, 55; Die Judenfrage, 49-50, 51 Baumann, Zygmunt, 74-5,

291—2n

Iraq, 214, 215; Jewish 'Cousinhood',

Beamish, Captain Henry Hamilton, 108

103; medieval, x x , 27, 38, 101:

Beer-Hoffmann, Richard, 62 Begin, Menachem, 9 4

Begun, Vladimir, Creeping Counter-

Mosley's Fascists,108-9: Palestine Mandate and policy, 108, 109—10, 240.

Revolution, 180—1 Beilis ritual-murder trial, K i e v (191 1),

2 4 1 , 2 4 4 , 310:post-1945: 110—13; Second World War, 109-10; Suez W a r

U956L212

173, 310 Beirut, 240; Israeli siege o f (1982), 237,

254

British Brothers League, 105 British Union o f Fascists (BUF), 108—9

Beit family, 105 Belloc, Hilaire, 106 Belov, Vasily, 183, I 8 5

Britons' Publishing Society, 108

Ben-Bella, Ahmed, 308n

Brodsky, Joseph, 184, 185 Brucan, Silviu, 148 Bucharest, antisemitism i n , 147, I 4 8 Budapest, 151, 152, 153 Bukharin, Nikolai, 187 Bukovina, I 4 6 , 147

Benghazi, 21 I

Bergelsen, Dovid, 177 Bergman, Werner, 85 Berlin, 54, 57-8, 59, 69, 7 7 Berman, Jakob, I 6 1

Brittan, Sir Leon, I I I

Broder, Henryk, 96

329

Index

Bulgaria, 177, 246

242, 252, 257, 264: Armenian. 206. 208. 211: i n Britain. 44. 101, 102: Coptic, 2 1 1: Crusades, x i x , 18, 22, 2 3 5. 30, 196, 231. 311; dhimmi status,

B u n d (Jewish Workers' M o v e m e n t ) , 175 Burns, John, 105 Butz. A r t h u r , 112

201-2, 203, 204—5, 207-8, 312, 313:

Buylov, Anatoly, 185

early, 13—28; German a n d Austrian,

49-60 passim, 66, 67, 68, 69; Greek Orthodox, 206, 211: i n Islamic lands, 198, 199, 200—2. 203, 204—5, 206.

Caeserea, Jewish revenge o n Christians at

(556), 20 Cain. 18—19 Cairo, 223, 227; Academy o f Islamic Research Conference (1968), 2 2 9 - 3 0 : al-Azhar University, 228, 230—1

207-8, 2 1 I , 213, 235; Maronite, 206: medieval, x i x . 3, 29—42: Russian

Orthodox, 115, 171-2, 175; Spanish

Cala, Alina, 292n Caligula, Emperor, 6

conversos/marranos, 3 5 - 6 , 314: US, 1 15.

1I 6 , 122; see also Catholics; Protestants

Calvinism, 38. 116

Chrysostom, St John,

Carnegie family, 117 Carol, King of Rumania, I47

Church Fathers, 16—17,18, 21 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 189

Carpentras grave-desecration (1990), I 3 8 Carto, Willis, 124 Casablanca, 205 Casimir I V , K i n g of Poland, 3 4

cicero, Pro Flacco. 8 circumcision, I I , 15, 3 1 Clemenceau, Georges, 129 Clore, Charles, 11 I

Cassel, Sir Ernst, 106 Catholic Conservative Party (OVP),

Codreanu, Corneliu, I 4 6

16-17

Codex Theodosianus,19-20

Cohen family, 103, 111

Austria, 9 2 Catholic People's Party, Hungary, 150 Catholics, x x , 28, 39, 67, 80, 101, 115, 116, 122, 235—6, 2 9 3 n : Anglo-, 106-7: Austrian, 62, 63, 64, 6 6 , 89, 9 6 : Czech,

Cold War, x x i i , I 7 7

Comintern, Zionism denounced by, 242 Communism/Communis t parties, x x i i i ,

xxv, 233, 238, 242: British, 110; Czech,

155; French. 44, 45, 46, 48, 126, 127. 128, I33, 134, I37, I40, 142, 144: Hungarian, 150; medieval, 33—8: Near

1 5 5 - 6 : French, 137, 140; Hungarian, 151—2, 153: i n Islamic countries, 212;

Palestine, 241; Polish, 158, 159, 160, 161—4,165,167, 168, 170, 291n:

Eastern, 206: Nostra Aetate, 166, 2 3 5 - 6 ;

Polish, 115, 158, 160, 164-5, I66—7,

Rumanian, I 4 7 , I 4 8 : Soviet, x x i i , x x i v , 173, 174—91 passim concentration-death camps, 73, 91, 92,

168-9, 171; Spanish, 3 5 - 7 : see also Christianity: Protestantism Ceaucescu, Nicolae, 147, 148, 149 Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, 129, I 3 0 , 134, I44

95,112,133,159,168 ,177, 210: Auschwitz, 74, 79, 83, 84, 96, I 12, 139, I 4 1 , 168, 2 9 3 n : see also Gulag labour

camps

Chabauty, Abbé, 127

Conservative Party, British, 110, 1 11 Conservative Party, German, Tivoli Programme (1892), 6 1 Constantine (Algeria), 209

Chaeromon, Egyptian priest, 7

Chamberlain, Houston 8.. xxiv, 56, 60. 69, 118 Chamberlain, Joseph, 105 Charlemagne, Emperor, 21, 2 2 Chesterton, C. E., 106

Constantinople (now Istanbul) pogrom

Chesterton, G. K., 106

conversos or marranos (converted Jews i n

Chlenov, Mikhail, 190 Christian Democratic Y o u t h U n i o n , Germany, 84 Christian Front, USA, 115 Christian Party, USA, 1 15 Christian-Social Party, Austria, 63, 64, 8 9 Christian-Social Party, Germany, 5 8

Spain), 35—6, 314 Coptic Christians, 2 1 1

(I894),206

Cordoba, killing of Jews in (1010—13), I96

Corpus Christi, feast of, 32

Christian Social Union, Germany, 84 Christianity, Christians, xviii—xxii, x x v , 7 , IO, “ — 1 2 , 43, 54, 115, 232, 234, 235-6.

Coston, Henri, 131 Coughlin, Charles E., 115 Counter-Reformation, 37 Cre’mieux, Adolphe, 206. 31 1 Crimea affair, 178

.330

Index

Cromwell, Oliver, 101, 102

Cross and the Flag, newspaper, I 16 Crusades, x i x , 18, 2 3 - 5 , 30, 231, 31 1: First (1096), 22, 23—4, 196: Second

Ul46L24 Cuza, Professor Alexandru, 146 Czechoslovakia, 145, 152, 1 5 3 - 6 , 177; Communist regime, 155—6: German occupation o f (1939), 155; Prague Spring (1968), 156: Slansky show-trial (1952),155,177

Dominican order, 34, 35 Domitian, Emperor, 9 D o n i n , Nicholas, 2 6 Dreyfus Affair, 126-7, 128-9, 137, 142 D r u m o n t , Edouard, x x i v , 48, 126, 128, 130, 140, 144, 285n: La France Jut've. 127-8 Druze revolt (1925), 213 Diihring, Eugen, x x i , 58 Durafour, Michel, 141 D u r k h e i m , Emile, 226 Dyomin, Avram, 190-1

Dagobert, King, 2 | Damascus (Syria), 213, 214, 2 4 0 Damascus Affair (1840), 206, 207, 235, 31 1

Dante Alighieri, 28 Dar aI-Harb, 3 1 1 - 1 2 , 313 Dar aI-Islam, 3 1 1 - 1 2 , 313 Darwaza, M a h m o u d Azat, 259 Darwaza, M u h a m m a d Azzah, 2 2 9 - 3 0 Daudet, Alphonse, 130 Daumer, George Friedrich, 5 0 Davies, N o r m a n , 2 9 1 n al-Da'wa ('The Mission'), 227-8 al-Dawalibi, D r M a ' r u f , 234, 304n The Dearbom Independent, 1 18 Deckert, Father Joseph, 62, 63 Declaration o f t h e Rights o f M a n (1789). 43-4, 126 Defender, 115 Demnat (Morocco), 205 Democratic F o r u m Party, H u n g r y , 1 5 2 - 3 Deutschnationaler

Handlungsgehilfenverband, 61 Deutscher Turnerbund, 8 9 dhimmis (Jews a n d Christians i n Islam), status of, 201—2, 203, 204—5, 207-8, 217, 221, 224, 243, 298n, 3 1 2 , 3 1 3 Diaspora, Jewish, xvii, x v i i i , 3-4, 1 14, 312: revolt (AD 115-17), 7 Dickson, Colonel, 232 Diderot, Denis, 45

dietary laws, Jewish, 11, 31 al-Dimashqi, ‘ A b d al-Rahim, 198 Disraeli, Benjamin, 103 Djerada (Morocco), anti-Jewish riots i n

(1948),209

East Germany (GDR), 80, 86, 177 Eastern Europe, xvii, 117, 145-70, 177, 242, 245; see also Czechoslovakia; Hungary: Poland; Rumania

Eckart, Dietrich, 67 Edessa, 2 0 Edward 1, K i n g o f England,

27, 101

Edward VII, King of England, 106 Egypt, 5, 6, 7 , 197, 204, 206, 2 1 1 - 1 3 ; antisemitism i n , 226-7, 2 5 5 - 6 , 258. 262, 263: Exodus from, 5 : Israeli Peace Treaty w i t h (1979), 213, 226, 231, 255, 263; moderate government lsraeli policy (19705), 2 6 1 - 2 , 263: M u s l i m

Brotherhood, 212, 226-7, 231, 314—15: Nazi refugees i n , 301n: Suez W a r (1956), 212; see also Cairo Eichmann, Adolf, 9 1 - 2 , 246; trial in Jerusalem (1961), 247

Ein-Shams University, Egypt, 256 Einstein, Albert, 5 4 Eisner, K u r t , 69 Eliot, T. S.: 'Burbank w i t h a Baedeker .. 107; 'Gerontion', 107

Elizabeth 1, Queen, 101 Emelianov, Valery, 181, 183, 295n Encyclopaedists, French, 44 Endeks see National Democrats England see Britain Enlightenment, x v i i , x x i , 38, 43, 44—5, 48, 49 Erasmus, x x Erwig, K i n g of Spain, 2 0 Exodus from Egypt, 5 L’Express, newspaper, 134

Djerba (Tunisia), anti-Jewish violence i n

(1864),205

Fabre-Luce, Alfred, 134

D m o w s k i , Roman, 166

Farkas, Miha’ly, 152

Dobroszycki, Lucjan, 160

Farrakhan, Louis, 122, 124

Doctors' Plot (1953), Soviet U n i o n , x x i v , 178 D o h m , Christian W i l h e l m , 4 3 Dollfuss, Engelbert, Nazi m u r d e r of, 8 9

Fassbinder,Rainer Werner, Garbage, the City and Death, 83—4 Faurisson, Robert, 286n Feffer, l t z i k , 177k

331

Index

Feisal, King of Saudi Arabia, 207, 232,

Front National, France, 126, 134, 139—42, 143

233, 254, 3 0 4 n

Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen

Gabirol, Solomon lbn, 197 al-Gailani, Rashid Ali, 215

o f Spain, 36 Fellner, H e r m a n n , 8 4 Ferrer, St Vincente, 35

Feuerbach, Ludwig, 50 Fez (Morocco) massacre o f Jews in, 196, 205 'Final Solution’ (Nazi extermination o f Jews), x x i i , 30, 66—77, 78, 79, 9 1 , 133, 159, 314 First World W a r , 61, 69, 88, 89, 104, 106, 118, 126, 150, 154, 242

Flaccus,Roman governor, 6 Flannery, Edward, 2 8 Flavia, 9 Flavius Clemens, 9 Forain, Jean, 130 Ford, H e n r y , 118—19: The International Jew, 181, 222 Fourier, Charles, 4 8 , 137 Fourth Lateran Council (1215), 25—6, 32,

Galdich, Aleksandr, 184, 185 Gaon, Saadya, 197 Gaulle, President Charles de, 136

Gavrielscu, Valentin, 148 Gaza, Israeli occupation of, 231, 238, 248, 254

Gebert, Konstanty, 168 Germany, x v , 18, 2 3 , 37, 43, 48—53, 5 5 61, 66-87, 101, 116: Allied deNazification of, 79—80: Austrian Anschluss (1938), 88, 89—90: East (GDR), 80: Eichmann Trial (1961), 247: fall of France t o (1940), 132;

Final Solution, xxii, 30, 66-77, 78, 133, 159, 314; 'Hep! Hep!’ riots (1819), 55:

al-Husseini's collaboration with Hitler, 245-6, 253: invasion of Soviet Union (1941), 7 2 , 75, 94, 176; Kristallnacht

pogrom, 71, 73, 74; medieval, 32-3; Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia (1939), 155; Nazi occupation of Poland

33 France, x v , 23, 38, 4 3 - 8 , 101, 116, 126-

44, 211, 213; Algerian War, 209: antisemitic bombings and outrages,

(1939), 157, 158—9, 160, 168: NaziSoviet Pact (1939—41), 176: neo-Nazis

138: Damascus Affair (1840), 206, 207, 235, 311: Dreyfus Affair, 126—7, 1 2 8 - 9 , 137, 142; Druze revolt against (1925),

and Right-wing, 84, 85—6, 87; New Left, 8 1 - 3 , 8 7 : occupation o f Libya, 2 1 l : occupation of Tunisia, 210; post-

213; grave-desecrations in, 138—9; Libyan independence from (1951),

1945 Federal Republic, 78, 79, 80-6; Reformation, 38—42; Third Reich (Nazi regime), x i x , x x i i , 30, 52, 53, 66-77, 78,79, 81, 84,109,110,118,120,131. 134, 137, 146, 158, 176, 187, 190, 214. 244—6: u n i fi c a t i o n of (1990), 79, 86—7,

2 1 1 ; N e w Right, 127, 134, 139—42,

143; North African Arab and Jewish immigrants, 138, 139, 143, 209—10; Popular Front government (1936), 131; post-1945: 134—44: Syrian independence from (1945), 213;

Tunisian independence from (1956), 210; Vichy goverment (1940—44), 131, 132—4, 142 Francis of Assisi, St, 2 8 Franciscan order, 3 4

Frank, Leo, lynching of (1916), 118,

142: Weimar Republic xvii, 54, 69, 81, 187 Gero, E r n o , 152 Ghali, Butros, 262

'

ghettos, ghettoisation, 28, 35, 37, 54, 55, 7 1 , 132, 196 Gide, Andre’, 130 Gieremek, Bronislaw, 164 Giertych, Professor Maciej, 166-7,

283—4n Frankish K i n g d o m , 2 1 - 2 Franklin family, 103 Franz Joseph, Emperor, 63-4 Free Democrats movement, Hungary, 153

Glagau, Duo. 57 glasnost, 183, 190

Freedom Party, Austria, 93, 97

Glemp, Cardinal Jozef, 140, 166-7, 169,

French Revolution (1789), x x i , 43—4, 55,

292n Globke, Hans, 8 0 Globocnik, Odilo, 9 1 Gobineau, A r t u r , Compte de, 47, 57, 126, 130, 252

126,127,131,133 Freud, Sigmund, 54, 62, 184, 226 Fries, Jakob, 55 Fritsch, Theodor, 58

293n

Giraudoux, Jean, 129, 132 Giscard d'Estaing, Valéry, 138

332

Index

Goebbels, Joseph, 7 3

Hawatmeh, Nayef, 248, 249

Goering, FieldoMarshal Hermann, 73

Hebron pogrom (1929), 244 Hegel, Georg Friedrich, 49 H e i m w e h r movement, 8 9 Heine, Heinrich, 55, 184 Heinrich, Brigitte, 8 2 Hellenistic world (Greeks), xvii—xviii, 3—4, 5, 6—7, 8,10—11 Henry 11, K i n g , 2 8 Henry VI, K i n g , 2 8 ‘Hep! Hep!’ riots, Germany (1819), 55 Hertzberg, A r t h u r , 44—5 hijra (Mohammed's migration from Mecca t o Medina: 622), 199, 313 Hilberg, Raul, 74—5 Hilsner ritual-murder case, 154, 290n H i m m l e r , Heinrich, 75—6, 246 Hitler, Adolf, x x i i , x x i v , 54, 56, 6 2 , 63,

Goldschmid family, 103 Gombos, Gyula, 151 Gomulka, Wladyslaw, 161, 162, 164 Goncourt, Edmond de, 130 Gorbachev, M i k h a i l , 183, 186, 188, 189 Gould family, 117 Goyim (Gentiles), 312—13 Grade brothers, 11 1 graffiti, antisemitic, 112, 147, 148, 188 Granada, 36; massacre o f Jews i n (1066), 196

Grant, Madison, The Passing of the Great Race, 117—18

grave desecrations,112, 138 Greek Orthodox Christians i n Islamic countries, 206, 2 1 1

Grégoire, Abbe’, 43

65, 79, 91, 97,115,118,119,122,132,

Gregorig,

133, 159, 244-6, 247, 255: Austrian Anschluss, 89-90: Final Solution of, 66-77, 7 8 ; al-Husseini's collaboration w i t h , 2 4 5 - 6 , 253: Mein Kampf, x x i i i , 67,

62, 63

Gregory 1 the Great, Pope, 22 Gregory V11, Pope, 2 8 Gregory o f Nyssa, 16 Grimstad, W i l l i a m , The Six Million Reconsidered, 23 3—4 Grobba, D r Fritz, 2 1 4 Grossdeutsche Volkspartei, 8 9 Grossman, V., 184 Gulf War, 2 6 6 G r u n w a l d Patriotic Association, 164 Giidemann, Mortiz, Chief Rabbi o f Vienna, 13

119, 222; Reichstag speech (Jan. 1939), 73-4: Table Talk, 6 8 Hizbollah, 237 Hobson, John, 105 d'Holbach, Baron, 45 Holland, 38, 103 Holmes, Colin, 2 8 1 n Holocaust, x x i i , 53, 7 7 , 82, 84, 85, 9 2 , 106, 109, 110, 134, 147, 157, 159, 246.

Guérin, Jules, 128 Guionnet, Alain, 2 8 7 n Gulag labour camp system, 182, 186, 187

Habash, George, 248, 249 Habsburg Empire, 149, 154 hadith,

313

247: denial of/revisionists, I 1 1 - 1 2 , 1 3 9 , 1 4 1 , 1 8 8 , 2 4 7 , 286—7n

Holocaust News, 1123 Hl'ond, Cardinal, 158

Horthy, Admiral,151 host-desecration, x i x , 28, 29, 3 1 - 2 , 34, 36 Hudal, Bishop, 8 9

Hadrian, Emperor, 7 Haganah (Israeli secret army), 21 1 al-Hakim, Caliph, 204 Halevi, Judah, 197

Hugh of Lincoln, St, 30—1

Haman, 4 Hamas (Islamic Resistance), 223, 238 Hamas Covenant (1988), 2 3 8 - 9

Husayn, Ahmad, 212

Ha-Nagid, Jehoseph ben Samuel, 198 Ha-Nagid, Samuel, 197, 198 Haram as-Shan‘f ('Noble Sanctuary').

Jerusalem, 215, 234, 244, 314: collaboration w i t h Nazis, 245—6, 253 H y n d m a n , Henry, 105—6

Jerusalem, 244, 249, 313 Hardie, K e i r , 106 Harkabi, Yehoshafat, 259, 260 Harlem riots (1935), 124 Hasdai 1bn Shaprut, 198

1bn Sa'ud, Abd al Aziz, King of Saudi

Havel, Vaclav, 156 Havlt’cek-Borovsky, Karel, 153

Innocent 11], Pope, 25, 2 8 Inquisition, Spanish, 36, 50

Hungary, x v , 63, 65, 132, 145, 149—53. 177, 246: Communist rule, 1 5 1 - 2 ; 1956 uprising, 152 Hussein, Saddam see Saddam

Husseini, Haj Amin, a1, Mufti of

1bn Ezra, Abraham, 197 Arabia, 2 3 2 - 3

Imperial Fascist League, 108

333

Index

by (1982), 237, 254; Six Day War (1967), 81, 136, I37. I62, 179, 209. 210. 211. 213. 216, 223, 237, 247;

The International Jew, I I 8 intifada i n Occupied Territories, 238, 249.

254

Soviet Jewry's emigration to, xxv, 249: Soviet policy towards, 179—80:

I r a n , 195, 205, 2 1 7 - 2 0 . 222, 223, 302n:

Iraqi war. 231: Islamic Revolution (1979), 217, 218—20, 231. 306n: Riza Shah's military dictatorship (1925), 218 Iraq, 204, 214—17, 245. 263; Ba'ath régime, 2 1 6 - 1 7 . 259, 310: Independence (1932), 214; I r a q i war. 231; Jewish emigration t o Israel from. 216; Saddam Hussein's regime. 217,

treatment of Palestinians by, 82, 121; US black militants' opposition to, 121—2: see also Arab-Israeli conflict: Palestine: Zionism

Istanbul, 240 Istoczy, Victor von. 150

Italy. Italians, 37. 211. 245, 246 l u k h n e v a , N. V., 2 9 5 - 6 n 1vanov,Anatoly, 181, 187

249; show trials and hangings (1969), 216—17 Iron Guard M o v e m e n t , Rumania, 146-7

Irving, David. 112 I s l a m / M u s l i m , x i x , x x i i i , x x i v , 3, 20, 23,

24, 137-8. 139. 190, 195-221, 222—67: blood libels, 206—8, 223, 234. 235, 31 l : Dar al-lslam and Dar aI-Harb. 311-12: emergence i n 7th century of, 195, I99; forced conversion o f Jews t o , 204:

Jackson, Rev. Jesse, 121—2 Jaures, Jean, 129 Jeanne d ' A r c . cult of, 139 Jerome, St. 17—18 Jerusalem. 7, 20, 2 3 , 2 3 1 - 2 , 243: Aelia Capitolina, 7; A l Aqsa Mosque, 228, 243, 313; Arab attack o n Jewish Quarter (1920), 243—4; Crusaders b u r n

jihad. 226, 228. 229, 230. 231. 236.

synagogue (1099), 23—4; Dome of the

238, 249, 261, 313; K o r a n . 199-200; Kurds, 208; pan-Arab m o d i fi e d policy o f containment, 2 6 1 - 2 : sexual permissiveness issue. 257—8: status o f

Rock, 228, 243. 313: Eichmann trial ( I 9 6 1 ) , 247; Haram as-Shan'f, 244, 249,

313; Islamic call for reconquest of, 231: Jewish Temple, 10. 14, 30: Muslim campaign against Judaisation of, 231-

dhimmis. 201-2, 203, 204—5, 207-8. 221, 224, 243, 298n, 312; 'world Jewish conspiracy’ theories, 222—3. 228—9, 233, 235, 238—9, 254: see also Arabs; Palestinian Arabs Islamic A m a l , 237 Islamic fundamentalism, 137—8, 142, I 8 8 ,

208, 222, 223-8, 231. 236-9, 249, 256. 262, 266, 308n Islamic Jihad, 223, 2 3 7 Islamic Revolution i n I r a n (1979), 217,

218—20, 231. 306n Israel, x x i i i , x x v , 80, 82, 84, 94. 110, 120. 1 2 1 , 1 2 4 , 1 4 8 . l 5 6 , l 7 9 , 1 8 2 . l 8 8 . 219. 220, 224, 226, 254; creation o f (1948). 224; Egyptian Peace Treaty w i t h

(1979). 213, 226, 231, 255; French hostility to, 136—7, 141: intifada i n Occupied Territories, 238, 249, 254;

invasion of Lebanon by (1982), I37. 237, 254, 265; I r a q i Jews' emigration to, 216; Jewish-American lobbying o n

behalf of, 120, 124: North African Jews' emigration to, 209, 2 1 I : Occupied Territories, 223, 231. 238. 248, 249, 254, 261; October W a r (1973), 231, 308n; PLO conditional recognition of, 248; RAS Burqa k i l l i n g o f tourists ( I 9 8 5 ) , 258; siege o f Beirut

2 : Sadat's visit t o (1979), 226, 228

Jessel family, 103 Jesus Christ, 1 3 - 1 6 . 18. 23, 30, 31, 33. 50. 232, 235 Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Moscow. I 7 6 , 177 Jewish Free School. I 12 Jewish National Home i n Palestine, 108, 109. 240 Jewish State Theatre, Moscow, I 7 6 Jibril, A h m a d , 248 jihad (Islamic H o l y W a r ) , 226, 228. 229. 230, 231. 236, 238. 249, 261, 313 al-Jisr, Sheikh Nadim, 230

jizya (poll-tax levied against dhimmi). 313 John, Gospel of St, 16, 17 John of Capistrano, St, 34 John Paul 11, Pope, 2 9 3 n Johnson Act (1924), U S A . 119 Jordan, 223, 256—7 Joseph 11,Habsburg Emperor, 4 3 Joseph, Sir K e i t h , I I I Josephus, 9 Judenrein, 162, 3 1 3 - 1 4 Julian, Emperor, 9—10 Julius Caesar, 7—8 Justice, Journal, 281n Justinian Code, 2 0

334

Index

League of National Christian Defence,

Juvenal, 5, 8, 9

Rumania, 146 Lebanon, Israeli invasion o f (1982), 137,

Kada'r, Janos, 152 Kafka, Franz, 54, 184

237, 254, 265 Leese, Arnold, 108

Kaganovich, Lazar, 186

Lenin, V. 1., 174 Leroy-Beaulieu, Anatole, 2 8 5 n Lessing, Gotthold, Nathan the Wise, 4 3 Levi, Solomon (Pablo de Santa Maria), 35

Kairouan (Tunisia), 196 Kaltenbrunner, Ernst, 9 1

Kalugin, General Oleg, 188 Kamishliye, anti-Jewish riots in, 2 | 3 Katzburg, Nathaniel, ISO

Leviné, Eugen, 69 Lewis, Bernard, 263-4 Lezov, Sergei, 296n

Kepel, Gilles, 2 2 8 Kershaw, Ian, 7 5 K G B , Soviet, 182, 188-9

Liberty Lobby, 124

Khaled, Hassan, Mufti ol the Lebanese

La Libre Parole, daily, 1 2 7 - 8

Republic, 230 K h a l i d , D r Mustapha, 262

Libya, 206, 210-11, 223, 231, 233, 263:

Khomeini, Ayatollah, xxiv, 218-19, 231, 238, 249, 303n, 306n: ‘Program for the

Lilienblum, M., xvii

Establishment o f a n Islamic Government’ (1970), 219 Khrushchev, Nikita, 161, 178 kibbutzt'm, 241, 314 Kichko, T r o fi m , 178, 181 Kielce pogrom (1946), 160 Kishinev pogrom (1903), 172 Kissinger, Henry, 233

Lipski, Jan Josef, 164 Literaturnaya Rossia, 185

Locke, John, 103 Long, Breckinridge, Jr, 1 19 Lopez, D r Rodrigo, 101 Louis V11, K i n g o f France, 2 4 Louis t h e Pious, Emperor, 21 Lublin concentration camp, 135

Knight, Robert, 92 K o h l , Chancellor H e l m u t , 84 Kolbe, Father M a x i m i l i a n , 2 9 3 n KOR, Poland, 164 K o r a n , 199-200, 202, 208, 224, 225, 228, 229, 230, 232, 255, 314 Kozhinov, Vadim, 187

Kreisky, Chancellor Bruno, 93-4 Kristallnacht pogrom (1938), 7 | , 73, 74, 90 K u K l u x K l a n , 1 18, 124 K u n , Bela, 151 Kunyayev, Stanislav, 185, 186-7

Kurds, 208 K u r o n , Jacek, 164, 2 9 2 n

Kuzmin, Apollon, I86 Kuznetsov, lury, 185

Labour Party, British, 110 Lagarde, Paul de, 59, 6 9

Laguérie, Abbe',142 Landauer, Gustav, 69 Langmuir, Gavin, 24—5 Lapouge, Vacher de, 130 Lasker, Edward, 59 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 6 0 Lassen, Christian, 47, 252 Lawson, Nigel, 111 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 126, 134, 139, 140-1, 144

Independence (1951), 211 Liebenlels, Lanz v o n , 56, 6 9 Ligachev, Yegor, 186

Ludwig 11of Bavaria, 57 Lueger, Dr Karl, 62, 63—5, 88, 150 Lustiger, M g r , Archbishop o f Paris, 139,

142 Luther, M a r t i n , xx—xxi, 38—42, 67: Concerning the Jews and their Lies, 39— 4 1 : Jesus Christ was born a Jew, 39 Luxemburg, Rosa, 60, 6 9 Lysimachus, 7 Maccoby, H y a m , 14

al-Magribi, Samau'al, 203 Mahler, Gustav, 54, 62 Mahmoud, Abd al-Halim, 228; aI-Jihad wa an-Nasr, 228-9 Maimonedes: Epistle to Yemen, 196—7, 298n: Guide of the Perplexed, 197: Mishneh Torah, 197 Maistre, Joseph M a r i e , Comte de, 140 Malaysia, 222 M a l c o l m X, 121 M a l i k , Yakov, 1 7 9 - 8 0 M a l o n , Benoit, 48 A l - M a ’ m u n , Caliph, 197 M a n e t h o , Egyptian priest, 5 M a n n , Golo, 7 8 Mansour, Anis, 2 3 6 M a r c o n i a n d I n d i a n Silver financial scandals, 106

335

Index

M a r k i s h , Perez, 177 M a r k s , Simon, 111

Marlowe, Christopher, The Jew of Malta, 102 M a r o n i t e Christians, 2 0 6 M a r r , W i l h e l m , x v , x x i v , 57, 252; The Victory of Judaism over Germam'sm, 57 Marrakesh, massacre o f Jews i n (1232), I96 marranos (Spanish-Jewish conversos), 35-6, 314 Martinez, Fernando, Archdeacon o f Seville, 35 M a r x , Karl, 49, 50—3, 54, 55, 56, 60, 68. 181, 226 M a r x i s m , 54, 60, 65, 70, 7 2 , 7 6 , 89, 105, 137, 162, 174 Masaryk, Thomas, 154, 155, 156

Montefiore, Moses, 206 M o r a v i a , 153, 154 Mordechai, (Book o f Esther), 4 Mores, M a r q u i s de, 128 M o r g a n family, 117 Morocco: anti-Jewish violence in, 196,

205, 209; emigration to Israel from, 209; mellahs, 314 Moscow Writers' Club, 188 Moses lbn Ezra, 197

Mosley, Sir Oswald, 108—9 Mousseaux, Henri Gougenot des, 126, 127 M o v e m e n t for the Restoration o f M o n u m e n t s o f Russian Culture, 183

Mufti, 314: of Jerusalem (Haj Amin alHusseini, 215, 234, 244, 245-6, 253, 314

Maupassant, Guy de, 130

Muhammad, Elijah, 122

Maurras, Charles, 126, 131, 140, 144 M a x w e l l , Robert, 111 Mazowiecki, Tadeusz, 165 Mecca, 199, 232, 2 3 6 M e d i n a , 1 9 9 , 2 0 0 , 232, 233 Meknes (Morocco), 205 mellahs (enclosed Jewish quarters i n Morocco), 314 Memmi, Albert, 2 1 0 Mendelsohn, Moses, 4 3 Mendelssohn, Felix, 5 6 Mendes-France, Pierre, 135 Mesopotamia, 2 0 Metzger, Tom, 124

Miihsam, Erich, 6 9 M u r e r , Franz, 9 3 Musa, Jamal E - D i n M u h a m m a d , 256

Nasser, President Gamal Abdel, 178, 213, 225, 227, 229, 235, 254, 2 6 0 Nasserism, 2 5 9 Nation o f Islam, USA, 122

Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 56

National Democrats (Endeks), Poland,

Michelet, Jules, 4 6 midrash, 314 Mikhoels, Solomon,

157, 166 National Front, British, 1 1 1 - 1 2 National Front, French (Front National), 126, 134, 139—42, 143

aI-Musawwar (Arabic weekly), 207 M u s l i m Brotherhood, 212, 226-7, 256, 314—15

N a r o d n i k i (Russian revolutionaries), 172 Nash Sovremenik ( ' O u r Contemporary’).

journal, 183, 185

176

Mikolajczyk, deputy premier of Poland,

National Front, Polish, 167 ' National Peasants' Party, Rumania, 147—8

160 M i n c , Hilary, 161 Mirabeau, C o u n t , 43 M i s h n a h , 20, 314

Misr al-Fatat (Young Egypt), 212; Green Shirts, 212

Mitterrand, President Francois, 139, 143 M o c k , Alois, 9 5 Moczar, General, 162, 163-4 Modzelewski, Karol, 164

Mohammed the Prophet, 195, 199-200, 204, 224, 228, 230, 231, 232, 255, 314:

hijra of, 199, 313 Molodaya Gvardiya (Komsomol monthly), 183, 185, 187 moneylending/usury, x i x , 24, 26-7, 32, 39, 101, 202 Montefiore family, 103

231,

29,

National Salvation Front, Rumania, 148 National Socialism (Nazism): Austrian, 8 8 , 8 9 , 92—4; German, x i x , x x i i , 30, 53, 66-77, 78, 7 9 , 82, 84, 108, 109, 1 10. 118,120,131,134,137,146,158,176, 187, 190, 214, 244—6 Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939), 176 Nebuchadnezzer, 261, 307n Nedelya (Soviet weekly), 183 neo-Nazis, 86, 111, 124, 233; Austrian, 92—4 Nero, Emperor, 7 N e w Economic Policy, Soviet, 174 New Left, German, 81—3 N e w Right, French, 127, 134, 139—42

New Right, Soviet, 183-7

336

Index

Palestine National Council, Algiers, 248

N e w Testament, 14, 15, 16—17, 18, 30. 4 4 , 5 8 , 1 0 2 , I 9 9 : Gospel

of St John, 16,

17: St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 15: Thessalonians, 15 New York Times, 120 Nicholas II, Tsar, 173 Nicolson, Harold, 110 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 60, 27Sn N o r t h Africa, 20, 208, 2 0 9 - 1 1: Almohad persecutions, 204: Arab a n d Jewish

immigrants i n France from, 138, 139,

Palestine Arabs, 8 2 , 86, I 12, 208, 215, 223, 240, 2 4 2 - 5 , 261, 265: black Americans' support for, 121—2: French Lelt's support for, 137; intifada i n Occupied Territories, 238, 249, 250, 254; PLO, 122, 247, 248-9; Rue C0pernic bombing (Paris, 1980), 138; see also Islamic Fundamentalism Palestinian National Covenant, 247—8 Pamyat (Soviet organisation), 181, 183,

188, 189

143, 209—10; emigration t o Israel from

Panama Scandal, 127 Pan-Germanic League (Alldeutscher Verband), 6 1 Papon, Maurice, I 3 4 Pattai, Robert, 6 2 Patriot Society, Soviet Union, 183

209, 2| 1

Norwich, ' r i t u a l m u r d e r ' i n , 30 Nostra Aetate (Vatican declaration o n Judaism, 1965), 166, 2 3 5 - 6 Notre Dame Cathedral, 2 8 numerus clausus laws, I 7 9 , 315 Nuremberg Race Laws (1935), 7 1 Nuseibah, Hazem, 256-7

Pauker, Anna, 148—9 Paul, St, 15-16, 17, 18, 68; Epistle to the

Occupied

Paul IV, Pope, 34, 37; Cum nimis absurdum

Romans, 15: Thessalonians, 15 Territories (by Israel), 223, 231,

248, 249, 265; intifada (Palestinian

decree, 37 Pax M o v e m e n t , Poland,

uprising) i n , 238, 249, 254: Israeli k i l l i n g o f unarmed Palestinians, 2 5 4

October (Egyptian weekly), 255 Old Testament, 14, 15-16, 18, 19, 44,45, 48, 58, 97, 102, I99, 229, 265 Operation Barbarossa (Nazi invasion of

Soviet Union: 1941), 72, 75, 94, 176

Pact o l 'Umar, 204, 205 Pakistan, 222, 233, 2 3 4 Pale o f Settlement (Russia), 104, I 7 1 , 174 Palestine, 23, 108, 176,210, 212, 213, 215, 230, 233, 240—7; Arab demonstrations (1920), 243; Arab Revolt ( 1 9 3 6 - 9 ) , 2 1 I , 244, 245: Balfour Declaration (1917), 108, 211, 240, 242, 310: British Mandate a n d policy, 108, 109—10, 240, 241, 310: first-century R o m a n r u l e i n , 13—14: Jewish National Home, 108, 109, 240: kibbutzim, 241. 314; Partition, 216: pogroms ( I 9 2 9 ) , 244: post-1918 2 0 8 , 2 | 1 , 243—4; Second a n d T h i r d

Aliyah o f Russian Jews to, 241: yishuv (Jewish settlements), 240, 241, 243, 244, 254, 317: see also Arab-Israeli conllict; Israel

Pellepoix, Darquier de, 1 3 1 - 2 , 134 Pelley, William, 115 perestroika, 186, 190 Persian Empire, 4 , 10, 20: see also I r a n Pétain, Marshal Henri Philippe, 132,

133—4,139

O r a n (Algeria), 209 Otchestvo (Fatherland), Novobirsk, 1983 O t t o m a n Empire, 195, 206, 240, 31 l Oued Zem (Morocco), 209 O w n , K a m a l Ahmad, 229

struggle between Zionists and Arabs,

163, I 6 7

Péguy, Charles, 129, 285n

Peter, Friedrich, 93—4 Peter, Major-General Gabor, 1'52 Peter, t h e Venerable, Abbot o f C l u n y , 24 Pharaoh, King, 5 Phillips, Lionel, 105 Piasecki, Buleslaw, 163

Piquart, Colonel, 129 Pikul, Valentin, I 8 3 Pinsker, Leo, x v i i Pius XII, Pope, I 3 1 Pleve, Count v o n , I 7 2

PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation), 122, 247, 248—9, 261, 262 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin, 172 pogroms, 315: i n Austria, 9 0 : i n Hungary, 151: i n Islamic countries, 206, 209. 211, 215; Kielce (1946), 160; Kishinev (1903), 172: Kristallnacht ( I 9 3 8 ) , 71, 73, 74, 90: i n Palestine, 244: i n Rumania, 147; i n Russia, 172, 173, I 7 4 , I 9 0 , 315: i n Turkey, 206 Poiré, Emmanuel, 130 Poland, Poles, 34, 91, I 3 2 , I 4 5 , 152, 153, 157-70, 177, 246; antisemitic campaign ( 1 9 6 7 - 8 ) , 162; Carmelite

337

Index

Renan, Ernest, 46-7,

n u n s o f Auschwitz controversy, 140, 165—6, 169: c i v i l w a r (1944—7), 160: Communist r u l e (post-war), 161-4;

Jewish emigration from 160, 162, 163, 164; Jewish ’Muscovites', 157, 159, 161; Kielce pogrom (1946), 160; Lech Walesa elected President (1990), 164— 5 ; Nazi occupation, 157, 158—9, 160, 168, 176; Solidarity, 164—5, 168: Soviet invasion (1920), 157: see also Auschwitz Polish Catholic-Social Union, 167 Pontius Pilate, 1 4

Poujade, Pierre, 135—6 Prague, 153, 154 Prague Spring (1968), 156 Protestants, x x - x x i , 37, 38—42, 67, 101, 1 0 2 , 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 , 122, l33:see also Christianity The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, x x i i i , x x i v , 107, 108, 118, 140, 173, 174. 180, 181, 222, 228, 233, 234, 238, 242, 253—4, 356, 282n, 3 0 2 n Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 48, 137

Proust, Marcel, 129 Prussia, 4 9 , 50, 51, 52, 57, 5 9 P u r i m , Jewish Festival o f Lots, 4, 50, 315 Puritans, 101, 102

21 l, 231, 260

al-Qassam, Sheikh ‘lzz al-Din, 244 Quintillian, 8

Qurayza tribe, 199 Qutb, Sayyid, 225: 'Our Struggle with the Raab, Chancellor Julius, 93 Rabee, D r Hamid,

256

Rahiya, Dr Majad, 256 Ra'kosi, Ma’tyas, 151-2 Ras Burqa, killing

o f Israeli tourists at

Révai, J625ef, 152 La Revue Socialiste, 48 Rhineland, 18, 23, 196, 311 Ringelblum, Emmanuel, 159 r i t u a l m u r d e r , charge of, x i x , 28, 30-1, 32, 33, 34, 36, 39, 50, 108, 118, 202, 235; B e i l i s t r i a l (1911), 173: Hilsner case, 154, 2 9 0 n : Tisza-Eszlar trial (1982), 150, 2 8 9 n Riza Shah Pahlavi, 218 Robespierre, M a x i m i l i e n , 43 Rochelle, Drieu la, 144

Rockefeller family, 117 Rocques, Henri, 2 8 7 n Rogger, Hans, 173

Rohling, Canon August, 62, 234 Roman Empire, xviii, 3, 5-6, 7 - 1 0 , 11, 1 3 - 1 4 , 19—20, 6 8 Roman, Petre, 148

Romanenko, Alexandr Z., 183: The Class Essence of Zionism,181 Roman-Marie (Front National deputy), 140 Rome, x v i i , 20,37 Rommel, Field-Marshal E r w i n , 8 1

Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 1l 9

al-Qaddafi, Colonel M u a m m a r , x x i v , 122,

Jews’, 2 2 5 - 6

Rosen, Chief Rabbi Moses, 148 Rosenberg, Alfred, 69; Myth of the Twentieth Century, 68 Rossy (Soviet organisation), Leningrad, 183

Rothschild family, 51, 60, 103, 106, 256 Roumani, Maurice, 210—11 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 4 5 Ruge, A r n o l d , 55 Rt'ihle, Gunther, 8 3 Rfihs, Friedrich, 55 Rumania, 91, 132, 145, 146-9, 153, 165, 177, 246, 288n: Ceaucescu Communist regime, 147, 148, 149: I r o n Guard

movement, 146—7; National Legionary

(1985), 258 Rasputin, Grigoriy, 180

Rasputin, Valentin, 183, 185, 189 Rassinier, Paul, 2 8 6 n Rauschning, H e r m a n n , x x i v

Reagan,President Ronald, 84 Rebatet, Lucien, 131, 134 Reconquista, Spanish, 35, 36 Red A r m y , Soviet, 151, 159

Reformation, xx-xxi, 38-42, 309 Régis, M a x , 128, 285—6n Regnard, Albert, 48

Reich, Wilhelm, 62 Reinthaller, A n t o n , 9 3

252

Republikaner Party, Germany, 85—6

State, 147 Russia, x v , x x , 116, 171—4, 180; Beilis ritual-murder trial (191 1), 173, 310:

emigration from 104, 117, 241; May Laws (1882), 172; Pale o f Settlement, 104, 171, 174; pogroms, 172, 173, 174, 188, 190, 315: see also Soviet Union Russian C i v i l W a r (1918—20), 173—4, 315 Russian Orthodox Church, 1 7 1 - 2 , 175 Russian Republic Culture Fund, 183 Russian Revolution (1905), 64, 173 Russian Revolution (1917), 70, 107, 140, 173—4, 182, 187, 242

338

Index

Russian W r i t e r s ' U n i o n , 1 8 3 , 1 8 5

Shakespeare, William, The Merchant of

’Russophobes', 184-5

Venice, 102 Shamir, ltzhak, 256 Sharabi, Hisham, 250 Shi'ite Muslims, 200, 217, 220, 237, 316 Shiraz (Iran), 218

al-Sab'awi, Yunus, 215 Sabbalarians, 39 Sabbath, Jewish, xviii, 8 , I 1 Sabri, M u h a m m a d , 235 al-Sa'dani, Mustafa, 235

Shukeiry, Ahmad, 247

236, 237, 255, 261; lsraeli Peace Treaty w i t h (1979), 226, 231, 255; a n d visit t o Jerusalem, 226, 228 Saddam Hussein, President o f Iraq, x x i v , 141, 217, 249, 256, 260, 261, 267, 306n Sa'fan, K a m i l , 235 Safed pogrom (1929), 244 Safi (Morocco), 209

Siberian concentration camps, 177, 178 Sichev, Igor, 183 Sieff, Israel, 1 1 1 Silver Shirts, 1 15 Simon o f Trent, 34 Six Day War, Arab-Israeli (1967), 81, 1 3 6 , 1 3 7 , 1 6 2 , 1 7 9 , 209, 210, 211, 213, 216, 223, 232, 237, 247 Skurlatov, V., 181 Slansky, Rudolf, trial o f ( 1 9 5 1 - 2 ) , 155, 177 Slovakia, 132, 149, 153, 155, 156

Said, Edward, 250

Slowo Narodowy, monthly, I67

Salten, Felix, 6 2 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Reflexion: sur la Question Juive, 135 Sassoon brothers, 103, 106 Saudi, Arabia, 223, 232—4, 254

Smirnov-Ostashvili, Konstantin, 188 Smith, Gerald, L. K . , 116 Smyrna ( n o w Izmir) pogroms (1872), 206

Sadat, Anwar, President of Egypt, 227,

El Sayed, Professor Abdul Sattar, Mufti of Tursos, 2 3 0 Scheicher, Joseph, 63 Schnapper, Dominique, 286n Schneider, Ernst, 62, 63 Schnitzler, A r t h u r , 62

Social Democratic Party, Austria, 89 Socialist Party, Austria, 92, 93

Society Against Alcoholism, Soviet, 183 Sokolow, Nachum, xvii Solidarity movement, Poland, 164—5, 168

Sombart, Werner, 60 Sonnenberg, Liebermann von, 61

Schoenberg, Arnold, 54, 62, 184 Schoenerer, Georg v o n , 62, 65 Schonht’iber, Franz, 85 Schuschnigg, Chancellor K u r t v o n , 8 9 Second Vatican Council, 293n,‘ Nostra Aetate, 166, 2 3 5 - 6 Second World War, 78, 84, 9 3 , 109, 1 10, 116,120,131,132—4,141,147,151, 158—9, 176, 215: Operation Barbarossa (1941), 72, 7 5 , 9 4 , 1 7 6 Sefrou (Morocco), 205

Soury, Jules, 126, 130 South Africa: Boer War, 1 0 5 - 6 Soviet Communist Party, 173, 174—91 passim: Jewish Section (Yevsektsia), 175 Soviet Union, 52, 53, 127, 151, 152, 165, 174—91; anti-Zionist policy a n d views, 179-81: C i v i l W a r (1918-20), 173-4, 315; Doctors' Plot (1953), x x i v , 178;

Great Purges (1936-7), 175-6; Hebrew language outlawed, 175: Krushchev denounced Stalin's crimes (1956), 178;

Nasser's alliance with, 227; Nazi

Seipel, Chancellor Ignaz, 89 Semites, concept of, 47, 252: vs. Aryans, x v i , x x i v , 47-8, 245 Semitic languages, x v i , 252, 253 Seneca, S, 8 , 9 Sephardic Jews, 103, 143, 197, 243, 309, 315 Servitus Judaeorum doctrine, 25 Settat (Morocco), 205 Seville, massacre o f Jews i n (1391), 35 Seyss-lnquart, A r t u r v o n , 9 1 Sfax (Tunisia), 2 1 0

Shafarevich, Igor, 183-5: Russophobia, 184

invasion o f (Second World W a r ) , 72, 7 5 , 94, 176, 177: Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939), 176: a n d Poland, 157, 159, 160, 161: Russian Revolution (1917), 70, 107, 140, 173-4, 182, 187, 242:

'Russophobes', 184-5; Third World anti-imperialist strategy, 178—9: W h i t e Russian pogroms, 174; see also Russia; Stalin Sovietskaya Rossiya, newspaper, 183—I86 Spain, 18, 3 5 - 7 , 101; conversos/marranos, 3 5 - 6 , 314; Inquisition, 36, 50; Jewish exodus (1492), x x , 36; Jews i n M u s l i m Spain, xvii, 196, 198, 204: ' N e w

339

Index

Tripolitania, 206 Tridon, Gustave, Du Molochisme Jutf, 48 Trotsky, Leon, 107, 174, 186—7

Christians’, 3 6 - 7 ; persecutions o f 1391: 34; Reconquista, 35, 36; Visigothic, 2 0 - 1 , 22, 2 3 Spree, Graf v o n , 8 4

Tunis, 196, 205-6: burning of Great Synagogue (1967), 210 Tunisia, 196, 205-6, 210 Turkey, Turks, x x i , 204, 21 1, 240;

SS,Nazi, 73, 74, 75, 76, 90, 93, 134, 245 Stalin, Josef, x x i v , 175, 176, 177, 178, 186 Stalinism, 152, 177, 182, 188; neo-, 186 Starhemberg, Prince, 8 9 Stein, Edith, 2 9 3 n Stillman, N o r m a n , 235, 3 0 0 n Stoleru, Lionel, 141 Streicher, Julius, 7 1 Der Stiirmer, newspaper, 71, 255, 310—11 Sudan,222

Ottoman, 195, 206, 240, 311 Turkish ‘guest workers' i n Germany, 85 T u w i m , Julian, 2 9 1 n ulema ( M u s l i m learned m e n ) , 317 ' U m a r 1, Caliph, 2 0 4 U n i o n o f Russian Artists, 183

Union of the Russian People, 173 U n i t e d Nations, 179, 2 5 6 - 7 : Centre for H u m a n Rights' Seminar (1984), 2 3 4 U n i t e d States, 1 14—25, 257, 285n: black antisemitism a n d anti-Israel stance, 121—4: Frank Affair (1916), 118:

Sudetanland, 155 Suez W a r (1956), 212 S u n n i Muslims, 197—8, 217, 218, 237,

316

Jewish lobbying on behalf of lsrael,

synagogues, 17, 19, 2 2 - 3 , 2 4 , 27, 44, 73,

74, 90, 138, 147, 175, 206, 209, 210.

120, 124; Johnston Act (1924), 120:

212,214

mass immigration of Russian Jews to,

Syria, 213-14, 226, 230, 237, 245, 259, 263, 310: Druze revolt against French

1 17

Valles, Jules, 130 Vanderbilt family, 117

r u l e (1925), 213; Independence

(1W5L213

Vas, Zoltan, 152 Tacitus, Cornelius, S; Histories, 8-9, 2 6 9 n Talmud, 26, 29, 33, 4 6 , 50, 223, 229, 234, 314, 316-17

Vasiliev, D m i t r i , 183 Das Valeriand, new5paper, 58 Vatican (Papal State), 37, 166, 2 3 5 - 6

Tarkovsky, A., 184

Veil, Simone, 139, 141

Taza (Morocco), 205 Teheran, 218

Verrall, Richard (pseudonym Harwood),

Verein Deutscher Studenten, 6 1

Thatcher, Mrs Margaret, 111 Theodosius, Emperor, 20

11 1 Versailles Treaty, 244 Vespasian, Emperor, 7

T h i r d Lateran Council (1179), 25 al-Tilmisani, U m a r , 227-8 Tisza-Eszlar r i t u a l - m u r d e r case (1882),

Veterans’ Association, Poland, 162 Vichy government, French (1940—4), 131,132-4,140,142 Vienna, x v i i , 54, 57, 62, 63—4, 65, 67, 88, 89-90, 91, 9 2 , 94, 150

150, 289n, 310 Titus, Emperor, 7

Tlas, Mustafa, The Matzah of Zion, 207 Toledo, 2 0 ; Seventeenth Council o f (694), 21 Toller, Ernst, 6 9 Torah, 4, 6, 10, 15, 18—19, 49, 180, 199, 316, 317 Torquemada, Tomas de, 36 Toussenel, Alphonse, 48 Touvier, Paul, 134 Transjordan, 233 Transylvania, 146, 147, 149, 151 Treitschke, Heinrich v o n , 59 Trent episode (1473), 34 Trianon Treaty, 150 Tripoli, anti-Jewish riots i n , 2 1 1

Vogelsang, Karl von, 58 Vb'lkische Beobachter, 90 Voltaire, x x i , 45, 48, 49: Dictionnaire Philosophique, 4 5 al-Wafd, newspaper, 256 W é fi , ’ A l i ’ A b d al-Wahid, 23S Wagner, Richard, x x i , 5 5 - 7 , 69, 275; Das Judentum in der Musik, 55-6 Waldheim, K u r t , 94-7 Walesa, Lech, 167, 292n: elected President o f Poland (1990), 165 Watson, T o m , 1 l 8 Weidenfeld, George, 1 1 1

340

Index

Weimar Republic, Germany, xvii, 54, 69,

81, 187, 190 Weinstock, Arnold, I I I well-poisoning, x i x , 29, 3 2 - 3 , 202 Werblan, Andrzej, 163 West Bank (Israeli-occupied), 231, 248, 249, 254, 261; intrfada i n , 238, 249,

254

Yemen, 205 Yevseyev, Yevgeny, I 8 1 Yevtushenko, Yevgeny, ’Babi Yar', I 7 8 Yishuv (Jewish c o m m u n i t y i n Palestine), 317: N e w , 317: Old, 241, 243, 244, 317 York Jews, mass suicide o f ( I 190), 101 Young Hegelians, 49, 50, 55

West Germany (Federal Republic), 78, 79.

80-6 White, Arnold, 106

Wiesenthal, Simon, xi, 94 W h i t e Russian counter-revolutionaries.

I74: pogroms carried out by, 174 Willette, 130 W i n r o d , Gerald B., I 15

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 54 Wollson, Isaac, I I I World Jewish Congress, 94, 95, 96-7

World Muslim Congress, 234 World Muslim

League Council, 236

Yadlin, Rivka, 255, 263 Yaqub i b n Killis, 198

Zambrowski, Roman, 161 2525, Hasan, 235 Z h u k o v , D m i t r i , I 8 0 , 181 Zionism, xvii, x x i i , xxiii, x x i v , x x v , 82, 86, 9 4 , 1 0 8 , 1 1 0 , 1 2 1 , 1 2 4 , 1 3 7 , 1 5 4 , 155,156,162,I63, 164,175,176, 179—81, 182, 188, 208, 209, 212, 214, 215, 2 1 6 - 1 9 : Palestinian/Arab views, 222-67 'Zionist Occupation Government', 124 Zola, Emile, 129, I 3 0 Zoroastrians, 203 Zuckmayer, Carl, 8 9 Zweig, Stefan, 62

341

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5a A sixteenth-century painting showing a German Jewess wearing the obligatory Jew-badge o n her outer garment.

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19a I n January 1953 nine Kremlin doctors, most of them Jewish, were arrested as agents of Western intelligence, accused o f plotting t o poison the Soviet leadership. A wave of antisemitic hysteria swept through the USSR. ’The Doctors’ Plot’ was fabricated b y Stalin as a prelude to his planned purging o f the Jews from Soviet society.

19b I n this cartoon from Trud, 18 January 1972, Judaism, the driving force behind anti-Communism a n d anti-Sovietism, is drawn b y a crippled dollar.

19c A y o u n g supporter w i t h a n anti-Jewish poster, Moscow, 1990.

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20a This wooden cross was erected i n 1 9 8 9 by Carmelite nuns just outside the walls of Auschwitz. The intrusion of this Christian symbol at the death-camp provoked Jewish protests, international controversy and renewed antisemitism i n Poland.

20b Poland’s only rabbi, Menachem Joskowitz, stands i n front of the vandalised Jewish State Theatre i n Warsaw. The graffiti relate to the controversy over the Carmelite nuns i n Auschwitz.

2 1 a T h e m e e t i n g in Berlin b e t w e e n t h e G r a n d Mufti of J e r u s a l e m , Haj A m i n , a n d Adolf Hitler o n 2 8 N o v e m b e r 1941, i n w h i c h t h e y discussed ’ t h e J e w i s h Question’.

2 l b Antisemi tic b o o k s displayed o u t s i d e o n e of Cairo’s m a i n bookshop s, S e p t e m b e r 1986. T h e Arab edition of Mein Kampf, s e e n in t h e f o r e g r o u n d , w a s circulated b y t h e PLO in 1982.

2 2 a A n Egyptian cartoon depicting t h e Arab reSponse t o t h e UN resolution of November 1 9 4 7 , w h i c h paved t h e w a y for t h e c r e a t i o n of t h e s t a t e of Israel.

2 2 b ’Instructioms for t h e u s e of t h e S t a r of David.’ This c a r t o o n a p p e a r e d d u r i n g t h e J u n e war of 1967 in Baghdad and Cairo.

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2 2 c By S e p t e m b e r 1 9 8 7 t h e Israelis w e r e regularly portrayed a s Nazis. I n this cartoon a b o u t t h e closure of the PLO W a s h i n g t o n office t h e Israeli Prim ' ter, I tz ha k S h a m i r , is s h o w n dictating A m e r i c a n policy.

23a The jacket of Syrian defence minister Mustafa Tlas’s b o o k The Matzah of Zion, published i n Damascus i n 1983. I n this book h e treats Jewish ritual m u r d e r as a documented fact.

2 3 b K u r t Waldheim’s election t o the Austrian presidency i n 1 9 8 6 was celebrated b y Filastz'n-el-thaura (the journal of the A b u Nidal faction of the PLO). The text reads: ’Waldheim’s victory is a powerful slap i n the face for the Zionist movement a n d its racist state.’

2 4 A Hassidic Jew contemplates tombstones i n the M o u n t of Olives cemetery, desecrated b y Arab vandals.

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9a above left Late nineteenth-century cartoon b y Caran d’Ache depicting t h e consequences of t h e French Revolution. T h e J e w s h a v e replaced t h e aristocracy as oppressors of t h e peasantry.

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9b above right A hundred years after t h e French Revolution, this election poster forthe antisemitic candidate Adolphe W i l l e t t e calls o n voters t o rise u p against ‘Jewish tyranny’.

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9c Alfred Dreyfus stands before t h e court martial at Rennes in I899.

10a The fi v e sons of M a y e r Amschel Rothschild (clockwise from the top): Amschel (Frankfurt), Salomon (Vienna), James (Paris), K a r l (Naples), Nathan (London).

10b ’The Jewish danger’, fr om the 1 9 3 4 French edition o f The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, symbolises the spectre of global Jewish domination.

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l l a Antisemitic electoral poster from I 9 2 0 alluding to the danger of racial pollution.

l l b Public humiliation i n Hamburg o n charges of Rassenschande (racial defilement), as laid d o w n i n the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. O n the woman's board: ’I am the filthiest w o m a n here. I let o n l y Jews call m e dear.’

12a T h e Jewish children a n d teacher arc expelled from school.’ Fr o m a children’s book published b y Der Stiirmer i n 1938.

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12b (From the same book.) The sign reads: ’Onc-way street — t h e Jews are o u r misfortunc.’ The accompanying text rcads: ’ I n the far south lies the country w h i c h was once the bir’thland o f the c s . That's where they should go.’

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14a President Reagan visits Bitburg cemetery, where members of the Waffen 58 were buried, i n M a y 1 9 8 5 . T h i s visit, made at t h e insistence o f Chancellor K o h l , aroused intense controversy.

14b German neo-Nazis carrying posters o f Nazi leader Rudolf Hess, 18 August 1990.

JOIN THE KU KLUX KLAN ._ AND FIGHT ma RACE AND NATION fin gilt w.

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1 5 a T h e K u K l u x Klan a r e still active in t h e United States in p r o m o t i n g t h e i r creed of w h i t e supremacy, racism a n d antisemitism.

1 5 b A British Movement supporter during the November 1 9 8 0 d e m o n s t r a t i o n in L o n d o n , his a r m tattooed w i t h various Nazi slogans, including ’Pcrish J u d a h ' .

163 Hoveniersstraat i n ‘ A n t w e r p after the 1981 b o m b attack o n the s y n a g o g u e w h i c h killed t w o people. This was one o f a series o f terrorist actions against Jewish targets throughout Europe d u r i n g the last decade.

16b I n September 1 9 8 7 the leader o f the Front National i n France, Le Pen, called t h e gas chambers ‘merely a detail i n the history o f the Second W o r l d War’.

(continued

from front flap)

the wake of the collapse of Communism and the new national hysteria which has set the ground burning under the feet of a still substantial Jewish minority. H e provides a country-by-country survey, showing the modern guise of antisemitism a s it

appears today throughout the world—in Germany, Austria, the United States, Brita i n , France, Eastern Europe, a n d t h e countries of the former Soviet Union, as well a s in the Middle East amid a radical-

KEN GARLAND

ized Islam.

R OBERT S . WlSTRlCH h o l d s t h e Neuberger Chair of Modern European History a t the Hebrew University of Jerusa-

l e m , where h e h a s taught since 1 9 8 0 . Among his books are Hitler’s Apocalypse

(1985) and The Jews in Vienna in the Age o f Franz Joseph (1989).

Jacket design by Henry Sene Yee

FPT T

hroughout history, Jews have been turned into demons in the public

m i n d by a m i a s m a of paranoia, m i l l e n n i a l

fantasy, and sheer political cynicism. Barely fifty years after the Holocaust, a n t i s e m i t i s m i s b a c k i n t h e n e w s . Just w h a t exactly i s t h i s terrible disease of t h e mind? Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred takes a s w e e p i n g l o o k at t h e phenomen o n of antisemitism from i t s beginnings to t h e present, t r a c i n g t h i s virulent virus

from i t s pagan roots t o the Christian charge of deicide a n d beyond to t h e m a s sacres of t h e Crusades a n d t h e Inquisit i o n , w h i c h heralded later b l o o d libels a n d fantasies of Jewish conspiracies for w o r l d domination. I s there really anything new

in the endless accusations that have echoed across t h e centuries from H a m a n to Hitler? I s t h e r e any m e a n i n g to b e extracted from t h e myths, t h e stereotypes, a n d t h e obsessions t h a t have characterized t h e a n t i s e m i t i c discourse f o r m o r e t h a n two millennia? Robert S . Wistrich sets o u t to f i n d t h e answers i n a l u c i d a n d t i m e l y survey i n -

formed by a profound knowledge of history. “Can i t happen here?" This question i s now b e i n g asked w i t h trepidation where v e r t h e poison of a n t i s e m i t i s m h a s m a d e a comeback after having survived intact t h e n e a r e x t i n c t i o n of European Jewry. Charting the course of antisemitism

through history, Wistrich focuses o n t h e dramatic reemergence of antisemitism i n (continued

on back

flap)

“A shocking, indeed a terrifying b o o k . . .invaluable."

“The m o s t comprehensive, succinct, a n d well-written one-volume treatment o f t h e subject n o w available."

“A significant achievement. . . i t glistens w i t h insight."

“Encyclopedic i n detail, scholarly i n research. . . a major c o n t r i b u t i o n . b e l o n g s i n t h e library o f every person, group, a n d institution dedicated

V

t o t h e b u i l d i n g of a society free o f religious a n d racial bigotry."

“A comprehensive, balanced a n d enlightening b o o k . "