Antisemitism: Here and Now

Deborah E. Lipstadt

Schocken Books, New York. 288 pages.

Deborah Lipstadt has spent a lifetime combatting Holocaust denial through her books and court cases. Like a finger in the dyke holding back the uncontrollable forces beyond it, we see antisemitism and intolerance welling up around us once again. Lipstadt says that antisemitism is pervasive because it is a worldview, a conspiracy theory, that is more than hate speech or a series of antisemitic events. It has been built into Western culture over the last 1,000 years and more recently into Middle Eastern culture.

She writes the book as a series of letters to a Jewish student and a non-Jewish colleague addressing the issues of being Jewish and confronting antisemitism. This format gives her the opportunity to discuss the issues without the sometimes heavy language of academic discourse. She reaches a personal level to fathom the meaning of this sometimes inherent bigotry.

In referring to the new antisemitism of recent years, she mentions, “…every day a new development—the murder of a Holocaust survivor in Paris, elections in Hungary in which the wining side relied on overtly antisemitic tropes, a Polish law rewriting the history of the Holocaust, white power demonstrations in the United States, campus anti-Israel campaigns that easily morphed into expressions of antisemitism, Labour Party antisemitism in the United Kingdom, the growing resiliency of white supremacist groups, and so much more…”

Perhaps, the most insidious version of antisemitism is the one that is buried inside another argument. One such argument is against the “globalists” and “capitalists” who control the international financial and political systems. Invariably the names are Soros, Yellen, or Blankfein. She refers to a speech given by a prominent Hungarian governmental official entitled, “The Christian Duty to Fight against the Satan/Soros Plan” in which the Jew is clearly conflated with the Devil.

Another such expression of inherent antisemitism can be seen in the anti-Zionist arguments against Israel that begin with Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions but end with not giving room for a future state of Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Blaming Israel and its people for the policies of the government can become an inherent way of blaming the Jews.

Lipstadt points out that the crux of the issue is whether Israel is allowed to exist as a Jewish state. She quotes Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of the BDS movement as saying, “We definitely oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.” On another occasion he said, “I am completely and categorically against bi-nationalism because it assumes that there are two nations with equal moral claims to the land.” Denying the right of Israel to exist is anti-Jewish.

She closes the book with a note to her student, Abigail, with words that all of us need to hear:

“This need for Jews to balance the ‘oy’ with the ‘joy’ is an exhortation that could well be shared with many other groups that have become the objects of discrimination and prejudice…I say, in the words of the Hebrew Scriptures, ‘be strong and of good courage.’ Never stop fighting the good fight, even as you rejoice in who you are.”