Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism

by Paul Berman, Cynthia Ozick (Afterword)

Something has changed.

After the horrors of World War II, people everywhere believed that it could never happen again, but today the evidence is unmistakable that anti-Semitism is dramatically on the rise once more. The torching of European synagogues, suicide terror in Israel, the relentless comparison of the Israelis to Nazis, the paranoid post–September 11 Internet-bred conspiracy theories, the Holocaust-denial literature spreading throughout the Arab world, the calumny and violence erupting on American college Suddenly, a new anti-Semitism has become widespread, even acceptable to some.

In this chilling and important new book, Ron Rosenbaum, author of the highly praised Explaining Hitler, brings together a collection of powerful essays about the origin and nature of the new anti-Semitism. Paul Berman, Marie Brenner, David Brooks, Harold Evans, Todd Gitlin, Jeffrey Goldberg, Bernard Lewis, David Mamet, Amos Oz, Cynthia Ozick, Frank Rich, Jonathan Rosen, Edward Said, Judith Shulevitz, Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Toobin, and Robert Wistrich are among the distinguished writers and intellectuals who grapple with painful Why now? What is—or isn’t—new? Is a second Holocaust possible, this time in the Middle East? How does anti-Semitism differ from anti-Zionism?

These are issues too dangerous to ignore, too pressing to deny. Those Who Forget the Past is an essential volume for understanding the new bigotry of the twenty-first century.

Genres: History, Religion, Politics, Israel, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Judaism

720 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2004

About the author

Paul Lawrence Berman is an American author and journalist who writes on politics and literature. His articles have been published in The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review and Slate, and he is the author of several books, including A Tale of Two Utopias and Terror and Liberalism.

Berman received his undergraduate education from Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1971 with a BA and MA in American history. He has reported on Nicaragua's civil wars, Mexico's elections, and the Czech Republic's Velvet Revolution. Currently he is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, a professor of journalism and distinguished writer in residence at New York University, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent. Berman's influence has seen him described as a 'Philosopher King' of the liberal hawks."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Berman

"Paul Berman is a writer on politics and literature whose articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the New Republic (where he is a contributing editor), the New Yorker, Slate, the Village Voice, Dissent, and various other American, European and Latin American journals. He has reported at length from Europe and Latin America. He has written or edited eight books, including, most recently, Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath, with a new preface by Richard Holbrooke for the 2007 paperback edition; Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, edited with an introduction, published in 2006 by the American Poets Project of the Library of America; and Terror and Liberalism, a New York Times best-seller in 2003. His writings have been translated into fifteen languages. Berman received a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Columbia University and has been awarded a MacArthur, a Guggenheim, the Bosch Berlin Prize, a fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Center for Writers & Scholars, and other honors.

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 2004 in the 4th year of the Palestinian terror war against the Israeli population, known by the terrorists as the Al Aqsa Intifada.

This digest edited and put together by Ron Rosenbaum, author of the momentous Explaining Hitler (text only) by R. Rosenbaum, brings together essays by key thinkers and writers on the topic of the New Antisemitism and anti-Israel hate.

Some very palpable observations by the writers here make this essential reading for those concerned about the newest form of the oldest hatred.
In his article in The New Yorker article entitled 'Behind Mubarak' , Jeffrey Goldberg cites an example of Islamic admiration for and determination to emulate Adolf Hitler. A columnist in a 'moderate' Cairo newspaper wrote 'Thanks to Hitler of blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians took revenge in advance on the most vile criminals on the face of the earth...WE do have a complaint against him [Hitler] for his revenge was not enough'.

In his essay 'Something has Changed' Paul Berman refers to the Judeophobic Portuguese novelist Jose Scaemango who claimed when he victed Ramallah in 2002 to observe the Israeli siege of arch terrorist Yasser Arafat's terror compound in Ramallah, referred to this siege as 'a crime comparable to Auschwitz'. The only thing comparable to Auschwitz was the bloody campaign of terrorist atrocities - mainly homicide bombings killinmg hundreds of Israeli men, women and children (they made no boned about the fact of especially targeting children) that led to Israel besieging Arafat in the beginning.

Scaramngo does not end his absurdity there, but traces Israel's policies to Biblical Judaism. According to Scaramango the story of David and Goliath was that of a blond person (David) employing superior technology to kill at a distance a helpless and supposedly non blond person , the unfortunate and oppressed Goliath. Berman go's some way towards analyzing the demonization of Israel and glorification of terrorist murder.

Harold Evans succinctly and accurately in his talk 'The View from Ground Zero' , what is and what is not Antisemitism dealing effectively with the idiotic cliche that defenders of Israel silence the critics of that nation with accusations of Antisemitism. Evens points out that while it is not necessarily Antisemitic to question specific Israeli government actions or policies 'It is Antisemitic to vilify the State of Israel as a diabolical abstraction, reserving tolerance for individual Jews but not the collective Jew ; It is Anti-Semitic to invent malignant outrages ; It is Anti-Semitic to constantly condemn in Israel what you ignore or condone elsewhere; It is above all Anti-Semitism to dehumanize Judaism and the Jewish people so as to incite and justify their extermination. That is what has been done thousands and thousands of times over on a preposterous basis.
Evans deals with some of the vile Anti-Semitic propaganda in the Islamic world and of the left in the media and universities. Included in these are numerous reports in the Arab and Iranian media that Jews use the blood of gentiles to make matzoh for Passover or pastries for Purim. Or the Pro-Palestinian students as San Francisco State University who put up a poster of can labelled 'Palestinian children's meat slaughtered according to Jewish rights under American license'.

Evans explores the adoption by Hamas and Hezbollah and across the Islamic world of the Tsarist forgery 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'
He also describes the brutal exhibition at al Nayhar University in Nablus entitled 'The Sbarro Cafe Exhibition' celebrating the bombing by Hamas of of a family Pizza restaurant in Tel Aviv,where mostly Jewish children were killed.

In his essay on The Old-New Anti-Semitism Robert Wistrich describes how Israel embodies the collective Jew. Wistrich rightly points out that 'Despite the incessant hair-splitting over the need to separate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, this has in recent decades become a distinction without meaningful difference. Whatever theoretical contortions one may indulge in- The State of Israel is a Jewish State. Whoever wants to defame or destroy it, openly or through policies that contain nothing else but such destruction is in effect practicing the Jew-hatred of yesteryear, whatever their self-proclaimed intentions'.



I might add that Israel being the largest Jewish community in the world and the fact that Israelis are Jews makes the 'We are anti-Zionist but not ant-Semitic' lie perfidious.

Gabriel Schoenfeld goes further in getting to the heart of hatred of Jews and Israel. He quotes a Saudi cleric, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute who , in a government sponsored sermon, exhorted his followers 'Not to have mercy or compassion of the Jews. their blood, their money, their flesh. Their women are yours legitimately. God made them yours. Why dont you enslave their women? Why dont you wage Jihad? Why don't you pillage them?'
More recently a female Palestinian lawyer, with strong connections to the Western left has exhorted Palestinians to use rape as a weapon against Israeli women.

Other essays dissect the perverted and bizarre Holocaust inversion, the staple diet of the Islamists and anti-Zionist left whereby the Jews , descendants of Holocaust survivors, are now branded Nazis and the Palestinians (who aim to slaughter every last Jewish man, women and child in Israel) are awarded the status of the Jews of the Holocaust.

Laurie Zoloft describes the violent attack at San Francisco State University by a mob of Pro-Palestinian students on a group of Jewish students who had gathered for a peace rally. The university administration refused to intervene. Zoloft correctly points out that had it been Palestinian or Black students under attack, the university administration would certifiably have gone to stand by their side.
The venomous culture of Jew and Israel-hatred on American universities is analysed by various other writers also.

In her piece Fiamma Nirenstein points out how worldwide the killing of Jews whom live in Judea and Samaria, and who lived in Gaza, 'the settlers' is presented in the media as justified, as if 'they asked for it' , even small children. While when a Hamas commander is killed although he obviously 'asked for it' opens up a flurry of finger pointing on the perfidy of extra-judicial death sentences.

Daniel Gordis points out in a letter to a Pro-Palestinian extreme left Jew that 'the concern for people trying to kill them is a luxury I suspect even our uncorrupted children wont have'.

This digest is a penetrating and chilling , educational , eye opening and sometimes harrowing read which cannot be ommited by anyone seriously interested in the subject.

Merged review:

Published in 2004 in the 4th year of the Palestinian terror war against the Israeli population, known by the terrorists as the Al Aqsa Intifada.

This digest edited and put together by Ron Rosenbaum, author of the momentous Explaining Hitler (text only) by R. Rosenbaum, brings together essays by key thinkers and writers on the topic of the New Antisemitism and anti-Israel hate.

Some very palpable observations by the writers here make this essential reading for those concerned about the newest form of the oldest hatred.
In his article in The New Yorker article entitled 'Behind Mubarak' , Jeffrey Goldberg cites an example of Islamic admiration for and determination to emulate Adolf Hitler. A columnist in a 'moderate' Cairo newspaper wrote 'Thanks to Hitler of blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians took revenge in advance on the most vile criminals on the face of the earth...WE do have a complaint against him [Hitler] for his revenge was not enough'.

In his essay 'Something has Changed' Paul Berman refers to the Judeophobic Portuguese novelist Jose Scaemango who claimed when he victed Ramallah in 2002 to observe the Israeli siege of arch terrorist Yasser Arafat's terror compound in Ramallah, referred to this siege as 'a crime comparable to Auschwitz'. The only thing comparable to Auschwitz was the bloody campaign of terrorist atrocities - mainly homicide bombings killinmg hundreds of Israeli men, women and children (they made no boned about the fact of especially targeting children) that led to Israel besieging Arafat in the beginning.

Scaramngo does not end his absurdity there, but traces Israel's policies to Biblical Judaism. According to Scaramango the story of David and Goliath was that of a blond person (David) employing superior technology to kill at a distance a helpless and supposedly non blond person , the unfortunate and oppressed Goliath. Berman go's some way towards analyzing the demonization of Israel and glorification of terrorist murder.

Harold Evans succinctly and accurately in his talk 'The View from Ground Zero' , what is and what is not Antisemitism dealing effectively with the idiotic cliche that defenders of Israel silence the critics of that nation with accusations of Antisemitism. Evens points out that while it is not necessarily Antisemitic to question specific Israeli government actions or policies 'It is Antisemitic to vilify the State of Israel as a diabolical abstraction, reserving tolerance for individual Jews but not the collective Jew ; It is Anti-Semitic to invent malignant outrages ; It is Anti-Semitic to constantly condemn in Israel what you ignore or condone elsewhere; It is above all Anti-Semitism to dehumanize Judaism and the Jewish people so as to incite and justify their extermination. That is what has been done thousands and thousands of times over on a preposterous basis.
Evans deals with some of the vile Anti-Semitic propaganda in the Islamic world and of the left in the media and universities. Included in these are numerous reports in the Arab and Iranian media that Jews use the blood of gentiles to make matzoh for Passover or pastries for Purim. Or the Pro-Palestinian students as San Francisco State University who put up a poster of can labelled 'Palestinian children's meat slaughtered according to Jewish rights under American license'.

Evans explores the adoption by Hamas and Hezbollah and across the Islamic world of the Tsarist forgery 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'
He also describes the brutal exhibition at al Nayhar University in Nablus entitled 'The Sbarro Cafe Exhibition' celebrating the bombing by Hamas of of a family Pizza restaurant in Tel Aviv,where mostly Jewish children were killed.

In his essay on The Old-New Anti-Semitism Robert Wistrich describes how Israel embodies the collective Jew. Wistrich rightly points out that 'Despite the incessant hair-splitting over the need to separate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, this has in recent decades become a distinction without meaningful difference. Whatever theoretical contortions one may indulge in- The State of Israel is a Jewish State. Whoever wants to defame or destroy it, openly or through policies that contain nothing else but such destruction is in effect practicing the Jew-hatred of yesteryear, whatever their self-proclaimed intentions'.

I might add that Israel being the largest Jewish community in the world and the fact that Israelis are Jews makes the 'We are anti-Zionist but not ant-Semitic' lie perfidious.

Gabriel Schoenfeld goes further in getting to the heart of hatred of Jews and Israel. He quotes a Saudi cleric, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute who , in a government sponsored sermon, exhorted his followers 'Not to have mercy or compassion of the Jews. their blood, their money, their flesh. Their women are yours legitimately. God made them yours. Why dont you enslave their women? Why dont you wage Jihad? Why don't you pillage them?'
More recently a female Palestinian lawyer, with strong connections to the Western left has exhorted Palestinians to use rape as a weapon against Israeli women.

Other essays dissect the perverted and bizarre Holocaust inversion, the staple diet of the Islamists and anti-Zionist left whereby the Jews , descendants of Holocaust survivors, are now branded Nazis and the Palestinians (who aim to slaughter every last Jewish man, women and child in Israel) are awarded the status of the Jews of the Holocaust.

Laurie Zoloft describes the violent attack at San Francisco State University by a mob of Pro-Palestinian students on a group of Jewish students who had gathered for a peace rally. The university administration refused to intervene. Zoloft correctly points out that had it been Palestinian or Black students under attack, the university administration would certifiably have gone to stand by their side.
The venomous culture of Jew and Israel-hatred on American universities is analysed by various other writers also.

In her piece Fiamma Nirenstein points out how worldwide the killing of Jews whom live in Judea and Samaria, and who lived in Gaza, 'the settlers' is presented in the media as justified, as if 'they asked for it' , even small children. While when a Hamas commander is killed although he obviously 'asked for it' opens up a flurry of finger pointing on the perfidy of extra-judicial death sentences.

Daniel Gordis points out in a letter to a Pro-Palestinian extreme left Jew that 'the concern for people trying to kill them is a luxury I suspect even our uncorrupted children wont have'.

This digest is a penetrating and chilling , educational , eye opening and sometimes harrowing read which cannot be ommited by anyone seriously interested in the subject.

[Phoenix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Judeophobia in the Present Tensions

In modesty the book's editor Ron Rosenbaum suggests skipping his introduction for the other essays in the book. Don't, it contains insights that might otherwise take years to learn. The book itself consists just over 50 contemporary essays and columns that compare anti-Israelism to anti-Semitism. Published in the middle of the 2nd Palestinian intifada, there are groups of articles that revolve around the same news items such as the videotaped execution of Daniel Pearl and the potential anti-Semitic impact of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" and ruffles caused by extreme public positions taken by individuals such as British poet Tom Paulin and Portuguese Nobel prize winner Jose Saramago , who's names today would fail to register. Even so, there are more than an average number of well written compositions that are unfortunately still timely and relevant.

Top reads (in no particular order):

1. Marie-Brenner's "France's Scarlett Letter" which follows retired police detective Sammy Ghozlan's efforts to document and expose anti-Semitic attacks such as arson and assault from the traditional far right, but also amongst the North-African immigrant population of the Paris suburbs .

2. Tom Gross has two entries, "Jeningrad" and "The Massacre that Never Was" along with David Zangen's "Seven Lies About Jenin" puts the myth of a massacre by Israel in Jenin effectively to rest.

3. Robert Wistrich's "The Old-New Anti-Semitism" examines common elements of 20th century anti-Semitic demonization employed against Israel and the Jews by Nazis, Soviets and Islamofascists noting how Jews are once again cast as an existential threat in the Arab world

4. Mark Straus "Anti-Globalism's Jewish Problem" asks why the anti-Global left has turned on the Jewish State. He suggests a synchronicity between conspiracy theories involving bankers and Jews as controllers of the world's economy and argues that Jews represent a successful globalized culture, which contradicts one of anti-Globalism's main tenets which is that globalization creates an homogenized world that destroys local cultures.

5. "The Neoconservative Cabal" by Joshua Muravchik unravels the mystique surrounding the so called Straussians and the "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC) document as a Jewish plot. The report itself was one individual's summary of a conference, and the names "attached" were not endorsements rather merely attendees. Muravchik concludes that, contrary to the accusations of conspiracists, those given the neocon label established their pro-interventionist policies for American benefit long before any involvement in the ME, and out of a belief that problems abroad would, if not countered early enough, would find their way back to America. As an interesting aside, the so called PNAC Document was merely a summary report of the conference and the names on it were not an endorsement, rather it was simply a list of attendees.

6. There's are two interesting to and fros in Part IV, one a satire by novelist Philip Roth on the "diasporism" - the opposite of Zionism with a serious response by Rosenbaum, and a piece by Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic "Against Ethnic Panic: Hitler is Dead" which argues that the Arabs aren't in a position to cause a 2nd Holocaust, with Ruth Wisse "On Ignoring Anti-Semitism" responding to Wieseltier and Tony Judt that Jewish voices in the 1930s were equally dismissive and that anti-Semitic rhetoric in the Arab/Muslim world does need to be taken seriously

7. Martin Peretz "The Poet and the Murderer" ably explores the divide between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland argues that anti-Zionism need not be anti-Semitic, observes that is often is and provides an apologetic for how to avoid accusations of the same. Whether one accepts the POV that certain progressive reforms are necessary to win back support of the far left is problematic when one considers the selective nature of the request. However it is Judith Butler, the kind of academic for whom George Orwell coined the aphorism "Only an intellectual could be so stupid" who inadvertently closes the gap when she decries the "brutal" destruction of homes in Jenin, for at this point we know that Erekat lied, that 500 Palestinians were not slaughtered in that incursion, that Jenin was also a base of operations for Palestinian terrorism responsible for the deaths of over 100 Israelis that had to be stopped. Butler attempts is to create a licensed grievance for a specific form of hatred, moreover one that is immune from criticism and self examination.

8. Philip Greenspun's wide ranging "Israel" considers "Why do they hate us?" - us being Americans or Jews. For one, Arabs generally have a longer list of grievances about their own countries and lives. The poor are getting poorer and their own governments are corrupt. There's a hypocritical relationship as generally Arabs are opposed to American intervention, yet they blame the US for supporting their government instead of allowing it to be overthrown - which they could do anyway as the US would just make a deal with the successor. He proposes several interesting twists such as examining the benefits the Arab countries have received for hating Jews, arguing that for minimal cost and without receiving the approbation given to Hitler, the Arabs were able to acquire the assets of 870,000 Jews from Arab last worth an estimate $13-$50B 1950 USD and achieve a vast Jew-free empire that limits Jews to reservation less than 1% of their total, a virtual concentration camp where it will be easier to kill them off. For the first time in 2500 years an Arab is able to walk the streets of Baghdad without meeting a single Jew.

The book also has a number of excellent pieces by Judea Pearl, Barry Originger Fiamma Nierstein, Melanie Philips, Simon Schama, Bernard Lewis, Shalom Lapin Robert Jan Van Pelt, and David Mamet. Edward Said is represented, but he thinks tragedies can be horse traded. There's also a reasonable plea for inter-religious dialog from Tariq Ramadan, but its not something he's followed through on.

Just over a decade later many of these writers are still active and though more details have accumulated, the landscape is still the same. Recommended.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contrarian, brilliant, densely argued.

[Dee]

Using this book for a research paper on Holocaust denial. Excellent resource!