It’s been too easy to pretend that anti-Semitism is just a weapon of the Jewish establishment to tamp down criticism of Israel, but I think we should reconsider with a much colder eye. On a snowy winter day, I’m reading Robert Zaretsky writing in the Forward about the new anti-Semitism in France. The youtube clip at the Forward is almost un-watchable. Everyone gets to participate. As described by Zaretsky, it’s a right-left anti-republic mutant formation. With deep historical roots, it combines contemporary anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, nativism, racism, homophobia, and nationalism. You can read the article here. Will it burn itself out, this outburst of counter-Enlightenment, and at what cost to Jewish life in France, and at what cost to the French Republic? The Enlightenment has never mattered more. Or was the French Enlightenment part of the problem, as per Arthur Hertzberg, the other side of the same coin as French Reaction. What depresses me most are all the young Jew-haters.
It’s hard. And this is not even about memory politics, or the place of the Shoah in French commemorative spaces. And France is not even a post-fascist/totalitarian state. Believe me, this is multiplied in South Germany, Italy, and I won’t even bring up Hungary, because I could go on for hours.
The community’s response has to be, necessarily at the cost of survival, the utmost silence, and I’m never sure whether internalizing our pain preserves or completely demolishes our dignity.
thank you, animalizard for both posts. but who are you, and where are you in Europe? am now a follower.
I keep my academic thoughts for my thesis, so I apologise for the melodrama of my blog 🙂
I’m a graduate researcher in Italy.
no need to apologize for melodrama, not here at least.
🙂 indeed.