“Excellent and timely.” — The New Yorker “Informative insightful and provocative On
Antisemitism couldn’t be more timely.” — The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “An immense
contribution. . . . In tracing the evolving meaning of ‘antisemitism ’ [Mazower] demonstrates
persuasively how we might turn it from a weapon back into a word. . . . Rigorous and lucid.” —
The New Republic From one of our most eminent historians a penetrating and timely
examination of how the meaning of antisemitism has mutated with unexpected and troubling
consequences What are we talking about when we talk about antisemitism? For most of its
history it was understood to be a menace from the political Right the province of
ethno-nativists who built on Christendom’s long-standing suspicion of its tiny Jewish
population and infused it with racist pseudoscience. When the twentieth century began the vast
majority of the world’s Jews lived in Europe. For them there was no confusion about where the
threat of antisemitic politics lay a threat that culminated in the nightmare of Nazi Germany
and the Holocaust. Now in a piercingly brilliant book that ranges from the term’s invention
in the late nineteenth century to the present Mark Mazower argues the landscape is very
different. More than four-fifths of the world’s Jews live in two countries Israel and the
United States and the former’s military dominance of its region is guaranteed by the latter.
Before the Second World War Jews were a minority apart and drawn by opposition to Fascism into
an alliance with other oppressed peoples. Today in contrast Jews are considered “white ” and
for today’s anti-colonialists Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has become a critical
issue. The old Left solidarity is a thing of the past indeed the loudest voices decrying
antisemitism see it coming from the Left not the Right. Mazower clearly and carefully shows
us how we got here navigating this minefield through a history that seeks to illuminate rather
than to blame demonstrating how the rise of a pessimistic post-Holocaust sensibility along
with growing international criticism of Israel produced a gradual conflation of the interests
of Jews and the Jewish state. Half a century ago few people believed that antisemitism had
anything to do with hostility to Israel today mainstream Jewish voices often equate the two.
The word remains the same but its meaning has changed. The tragedy Mazower argues is that
antisemitism persists. If it can be found on the far Left it still is a much graver danger
from those forces on the Right chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville and their
ilk. If we allow the charge to be applied too loosely and widely to shut down legitimate
argument we are only delegitimizing the term and threatening to break something essential in
how democracies function. On Antisemitism is a vitally important attempt to draw that necessary
line.
