Quotes About Antisemitism

twin factors that help explain the Jews' survival—antisemitism and assimilation—have also served as constraints on their growth. Over the course of millennia, Jews married into, converted to, and joined other groups, sometimes through coercion and sometimes not, to the point of disappearance.

criticisms of the actions of the state of Israel and antisemitism are conflated in many statements and in actions taken against the state of Israel.

It is often argued that the British left is the main perpetrator of this form of antisemitism.

In essence, in the UK and to some degree in the USA, this is said to be the 'new antisemitism': criticisms of the state of Israel that do not discriminate sufficiently between Israel and Jewish people whether in Israel or outside Israel.

But French new antisemitism has also become intertwined with far-right infiltration into protests by the 'yellow vests' (gilets jaunes), which initially began as protests against fuel price rises but have morphed into wider antagonisms against falling living standards and elitism.

In France it is Muslims, of North and West African origin, whose members are generally regarded as part of minorités visibles, or visible minorities, who are said to be the perpetrators of the new antisemitism.

Let me be clear: I recognise the necessity of tackling antisemitism in the Labour party head-on.

Look at the Justice Department, it's full of Jews...The lawyers in government are damn Jews.

I'll close by referring to a comment I made at the outset of this exchange, when I expressed the hope that my answers would leave both those on the right and the left discomforted. That discomfort should be caused by an acknowledgment on everyone's part that extremism and antisemitism are found not only among people on the other side of the political spectrum. As long as we are blind to it in our midst, our fight against it will be futile.

There are of course also Jews who—intentionally or unintentionally—traffic in antisemitic stereotypes. When this seeps into the larger culture, it signals that it's okay for non-Jews to do likewise.

When groups that have been subjected to discrimination and prejudice denigrate themselves, they do more than internalize a negative self-perception. They give license to others to do likewise. This is not harmless humor. It belittles Jews and women. The fact that it has its roots among Jews makes it no less debilitating.5 Whether coming from Jews or non-Jews, this manifestation of latent antisemitism spreads hateful and hurtful tropes and ideas.

It is doubtful that Corbyn deliberately seeks out antisemites to associate with and to support. But it seems that when he encounters them, their Jew-hatred is irrelevant as long as their other positions—on class, race, capitalism, the role of the state, and Israel/Palestine—are to his liking.

As has become evident in recent years, there are those on the far left who also engage in denial. During a BBC interview in September 2017 on leftist antisemitism within Britain's Labour Party, Ken Loach was asked to comment on a session at the party's annual conference where a participant called for a "yes or no" discussion of the Holocaust. Loach's rather ambiguous response: "I think history is for us all to discuss, wouldn't you?

Deniers are not the equivalents of flat-earth theorists, nor are they just plain loonies. Theirs is not a cognitive error that can be rectified by showing them documentation or evidence. They are, pure and simple, antisemites, and their agenda is to reinforce and spread the very antisemitism that produced the Holocaust. They can't be completely discounted.

This toxic brew of race, religion, politics, and pseudoscience became the cornerstone of Nazi antisemitism and is today a cornerstone of the white power movement and white supremacist antisemitism.

The structure of antisemitism means that it's not just a bunch of haphazard ideas, but it can result in, as Fein notes, "actions—social or legal discrimination, political mobilization…and collective or state violence." It also has an internal coherence.

Antisemitism is not simply the hatred of something "foreign," but the hatred of a perpetual evil in the world. Jews are not an enemy but the ultimate enemy.

It's important for you to understand that antisemitism, as is the case with any prejudice, exists independently of any action by Jews. Sometimes, an accusation against a particular Jew, or even a group of Jews, may be correct. There are some Jews who are obsessed with money or who mistreat their employees. But the same can be said about certain non-Jews. Saying that "of course X is obsessed with money; he's a Jew, isn't he?" is antisemitic.

Antisemitism is not the hatred of people who happen to be Jews. It is hatred of them because they are Jews.

Given the absurdity of antisemitic accusations, why do they gain any traction? One explanation may be that, having been embedded in society for millennia, they have gained a staying power that is hard to eradicate. Antisemitism also became a means of explaining otherwise inexplicable situations.

But whatever form it takes, we must always insist that antisemitism has never made sense and never will. Fight it. But don't elevate it or its purveyors in importance.

As horrific as the Holocaust was, it is firmly in the past. When I write about it, I am writing about what was. Though I remain horrified by what happened, it is history. Contemporary antisemitism is not. It is about the present. It is what many people are doing, saying, and facing now.

In one of those bitter ironies, at the end of his life Marr recanted his antisemitic accusations and, in a final essay entitled "Testament of an Antisemite," acknowledged that the faults he attributed to the Jews were, in fact, the result of the Industrial Revolution and the political debates of the times.2 His remorse notwithstanding, the damage had already been done.)

Another reason numbers should not drive us is that antisemitism is a worldview, a conspiracy theory. It therefore cannot simply be measured by the number of recorded antisemitic acts or by the number of people being categorized as antisemites.