Deciphering the New Antisemitism

by Bruno Chaouat (Contributor), Günther Jikeli (Contributor), Kenneth L. Marcus (Contributor)

Deciphering the New Antisemitism addresses the increasing prevalence of antisemitism on a global scale. Antisemitism takes on various forms in all parts of the world, and the essays in this wide-ranging volume deal with many of European antisemitism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and efforts to demonize and delegitimize Israel. Contributors are an international group of scholars who clarify the cultural, intellectual, political, and religious conditions that give rise to antisemitic words and deeds. These landmark essays are noteworthy for their timeliness and ability to grapple effectively with the serious issues at hand.

Genres: Antisemitism, Religion, Politics, Islam

581 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2016

Reviews

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A profound mix bag. There are some really great contributions here. The entire section on Holocaust Denial is solid, Sina Arnold's chapter on OWS and left antisemitism in the US is stellar, "Antisemitism and the Radical Catholic Traditionalist Movement" and "Antisemitism and Antiurbanism, Past and Present: Empirical and Theoretical Approaches" are outstanding, and there are several strong others. But there are also other chapters that skate close to Islamophobia, which obsessively use nationalism in Israel as a total barometer of antisemitism, and essentially have a conservative approach to the issue of antisemitism. There are good conservative chapters and bad ones, and some of these have foundational assumptions that I not only don't agree with, but are not presented well in the papers and at times come near to factual inaccuracies.

This sounds like a mixed review when I look over it, but in reality I liked the book very much for the chapters that were good. Even the chapters I did not like in total had interesting thing, so I would definitely recommend this book to people serious about understanding contemporary antisemitism. I will be following up with several of these authors and the series from the institute.