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This article is concerned with Modern anti-Semitism, roughly covering the period from right after World War II to the present.

The Holocaust

The most horrific manifestation of anti-Semitism this century, subsequent to the rise of far-right ideologies in Europe, led to the "Jewish holocaust" during World War II, in which millions of Jews in Europe were systematically murdered. See Holocaust, Warsaw Ghetto, and Protest of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka.

Holocaust denial

Holocaust revisionists often claim that "the Jews" or a "Zionist conspiracy" is responsible for the exaggeration or wholesale fabrication of the events of the Holocaust. Critics of such revisionism point to an overwhelming amount of physical and historical evidence that supports the mainstream historical view of the Holocaust. See the main article on Holocaust denial.

Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism is a term that has been used to describe several very different political and religious points of view (both historically and in current debates) all expressing some form of opposition to Zionism. A large variety of commentators - politicians, journalists, academics and others - believe that criticisms of Israel and Zionism are often disproportionate in degree and unique in kind, and attribute this to anti-Semitism. In turn, critics of this view believe that associating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is intended to stifle debate, deflect attention from valid criticism, and taint anyone opposed to Israeli actions and policies. This subject is discussed in the main article on Anti-Zionism.

The new anti-Semitism

In recent years some scholars of religion and many Jewish groups, have noted what they describe as the new anti-Semitism. In this view, core themes of the new anti-Semitism include:

  • Criticism of Zionism using terms that equate Jews with Nazis
  • Editorial cartoons which portray Israelis in the same way that Nazi cartoonists portrayed Jews
  • The censorship of works or participation by Jewish scholars from international conferences
  • Harsh and repeated criticism of the State of Israel that is not made towards other nations for similar actions (an accusation of a double standard)
  • Straw-man attacks, in which it is said that Jews claim that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. This claim is then used to criticise Jewish groups as unreasonable. However, no Jewish groups hold such a position.

Forms of discrimination

In his article Human Rights and the New Anti-Jewishness, Irwin Cotler, the new Minister of Justice for Canada, writes:

In a word, classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, or denial of, the right of Jews to live as equal members of a free society; the new anti-Semitism—incompletely, or incorrectly, as "anti-Zionism"... —involves the discrimination against, denial of, or assault upon the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations. What is intrinsic to each form of anti-Semitism—and common to both—is discrimination. All that has happened is that it has moved from discrimination against Jews as individuals—a classical anti-Semitism for which there are indices of measurement (e.g., discrimination against Jews in education, housing, or employment)—to discrimination against Jews as people—a new anti-Semitism—for which one has yet to develop indices of measurement.

Cotler noted six categories and thirteen indices of modern anti-Semitism:

  • Genocidal anti-Semitism
    • the public call for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people
  • Political anti-Semitism
    • the discrimination against, denial of, or assault upon the Jewish people's right to self-determination
    • discrimination against the Jews as a people
    • the "demonizing" of Israel
  • Theological anti-Semitism
    • the convergence of state-sanctioned Islamic anti-Semitism, which characterizes Jews, Judaism, let alone Israel, as the perfidious enemy of Islam
    • cultural anti-Semitism
    • European "hierarchical" anti-Semitism
  • Denying Israel equality before the law
    • the singling out of Israel for differential, if not discriminatory, treatment amongst the family of nations
    • the disenfranchisement of Israel in the international arena
  • Economic anti-Semitism
    • the extra-territorial application by Arab countries of an international restrictive covenant against corporations conditioning their trade with Arab countries on their agreement not to do business with Israel (secondary boycott)
    • not doing business with another corporation which may be doing business with Israel (tertiary boycott)
    • conditioning the trade with such corporations on neither hiring nor promoting Jews within the corporation
  • State-sanctioned anti-Semitism
    • the state-sanctioned "culture of hate"

The United Nations

Many Jewish groups have been disappointed with the role of the United Nations in regards to the treatment of Jews; many Jewish groups and writers have stated that the actions of the United Nations have often implicitly condoned, or encouraged, anti-Semitism. (more to come.)

In a recent development, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated on June 21, 2004, that "It is hard to believe that 60 years after the tragedy of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is once again rearing its head. But it is clear that we are witnessing an alarming resurgence of these phenomena in new forms and manifestations. This time the world must not, cannot, be silent." Anan then asked U.N. member states to adopt a resolution to fight anti-Semitism, and stated that the UN's Commission on Human Rights must study and expose anti-Semitism in the same way that it fights bias against Muslims. Anan stated "Are not Jews entitled to the same degree of concern and protection?"

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Straw-man anti-Semitism

One common form of anti-Semitism is the statement that Jews claim that all criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitism. This claim is then used to criticise Jewish groups as unreasonable.

However, no Jewish groups hold such a position. This position has never been held, in any form, by any of the modern Jewish denominations. In fact, on numerous occasions many Jewish groups have publicly criticised the policies of different Israeli governments. Further, these Jewish groups are aware of many criticism by non-Jewish groups, and have not considered the majority of these criticisms as anti-Semitic. Public statements by leaders of many Jewish groups explicitly state that disagreement with a policy or government of the State of Israel is not, of itself anti-Semitic. One popular understanding of this issue can be found in a statement by the Anti-Defamation League:

"Criticism of particular Israeli actions or policies in and of itself does not constitute anti-Semitism. Certainly the sovereign State of Israel can be legitimately criticized just like any other country in the world. However, it is undeniable that there are those whose criticism of Israel or of "Zionism" is used to mask anti-Semitism." (Anti-Defamation League website.)

In his speech) given at Berkeley University on April 29, 2004, Law Professor at Harvard University Law School Alan Dershowitz said, in particular: "Show me a single instance where a major Jewish leader or Israeli leader has ever said that criticizing a particular policy of Israeli government is anti-Semitic. That's just something made up by Israel's enemies."

The European Union

Groups monitoring hatespeech and violence in the European Union have noted an upswing in attacks on Jewish people and Jewish institutions in many European countries, especially in France. Jews have been attacked, stabbed, beaten and threatened in large numbers; synagogues have been vandalized, desecrated and burned. Jewish cemetaries have been vandalized.

A number of political and social leaders in the European Union have become concerned with this phenomeon. As such, a report on this phenomenon was written at the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. This report was written on behalf of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC.) The February 2003 version of this report is available online.

According to a study by Pew Research Center, in some European countries there has been a recent decrease in some forms of anti-Semitism.

France

The Interior Minister of France has announced that the number of anti-Semitic attacks in France this year is more than double that of the same period last year. (Reuters)

Positions of Jewish groups on the new anti-Semitism

Tikkun magazine, an American Jewish magazine which is written from the perspective of the political left, ran a series of article on the resurgence of anti-Semitism across the world.

The Anti-Defamation League stated that: "The events of September 11, the American campaign against terrorism and the Palestinian intifada against Israel have created a dangerous atmosphere in the Middle East and Europe, one that 'gives anti-Semitism and hate and incitement a strength and power of seduction that it has never before had in history.'"

Books on the anti-Semitism

A number of book-length treatments about this subject have been published, including The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It, Phyllis Chesler (Jossey-Bass, 2003); The Return of Anti-Semitism by Gabriel Schoenfeld, Encounter Books, 2003; and Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism by Abraham Foxman, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.

Views of the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church has recently spoken on this subject as well, stating "We oppose anti-Semitism in any way and form, including anti-Zionism that has become of late a manifestation of anti-Semitism." http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=449338

Views of Natan Sharansky

Israeli political leader Natan Sharansky has suggested that anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism can be distinguished from legitimate criticism of Israel if it fails the "3D" test, as follows:

The first D is the test of demonization. Whether it came in the theological form of a collective accusation of deicide or in the literary depiction of Shakespeare's Shylock, Jews were demonized for centuries as the embodiment of evil. Therefore, today we must be wary of whether the Jewish state is being demonized by having its actions blown out of all sensible proportion. For example, the comparisons of Israelis to Nazis and of the Palestinian refugee camps to Auschwitz -- comparisons heard practically every day within the "enlightened" quarters of Europe -- can only be considered anti-Semitic. Those who draw such analogies either do not know anything about Nazi Germany or, more plausibly, are deliberately trying to paint modern-day Israel as the embodiment of evil.
The second D is the test of double standards. For thousands of years a clear sign of anti-Semitism was treating Jews differently than other peoples, from the discriminatory laws many nations enacted against them to the tendency to judge their behavior by a different yardstick. Similarly, today we must ask whether criticism of Israel is being applied selectively. In other words, do similar policies by other governments engender the same criticism, or is there a double standard at work? It is anti-Semitism, for instance, when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while tried and true abusers like China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria are ignored. Likewise, it is anti-Semitism when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross.
The third D is the test of deligitimation. In the past, anti-Semites tried to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish religion, the Jewish people, or both. Today, they are trying to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish state, presenting it, among other things, as the last vestige of colonialism. While criticism of an Israeli policy may not be anti-Semitic, the denial of Israel's right to exist is always anti-Semitic. If other peoples have a right to live securely in their homelands, then the Jewish people have a right to live securely in their homeland.

Anti-Semitism in modern-day nations

Anti-Semitism in some Eastern European countries still remains a substantial problem. The entry on Anti-Semitism in Poland discusses the current state of how the predominantly Catholic Polish population views Jewish people. Anti-Semitism exists to a lesser or greater degree in many other nations as well, including: Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and Syria.

While in a decline since the 1940s, there is still anti-Semitism in the United States of America as well, although acts of violence are quite rare. The 2001 survey by the Anti-Defamation League reported 1432 acts of anti-Semitism in the United States that year. The figure included 877 acts of harassment, including verbal intimidation, threats and physical assaults ().

References

  • The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust As Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Michael Berenbaum. Little Brown & Co, 1993
  • The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945 Lucy S. Davidowicz. Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub, 1991
  • Antisemitism in America, Leonard Dinnerstein, Oxford Univ. Press, 1995
  • Phyllis Chessler The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It, Jossey-Bass, 2003
  • The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Norman G. Finkelstein. Verso Books, 2001
  • Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism]] by Abraham Foxman, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003
  • Antisemitism in the New Testament, Lillian C. Freudmann, University Press of America, 1994
  • The Destruction of the European Jews Raul Hilberg. Holmes & Meier, 1985. 3 volumes
  • A New Antisemitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st Century Britain, Ed. Paul Iganski and Barry Kosmin. Profile Books, 2003
  • Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory Deborah Lipstadt, 1994, Penguin
  • Gabriel Schoenfeld The Return of Anti-Semitism, Encounter Books, 2003
  • Why the Jews? The Reasons for Antisemitism Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, Simon & Schuster, 1983
  • Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred, Robert S. Wistrich. Pantheon Books, 1992.

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