The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism

by Walter Laqueur

s/t: From Ancient Times to the Present Day
"For thirty years the director of the Wiener Library in London, the leading institute for the study of antisemitism, Walter Laqueur here offers both a comprehensive history of antisemitism as well as a look at the newest wave of this phenomenon." Here is both a summing up of the entire trajectory of antisemitism - the first comprehensive history of its kind - and an exploration of the new wave of antisemitism that will be of interest to all concerned about the future of Jews, Judaism, and Israel.

Genres: History, Antisemitism, Nonfiction, Politics, Judaism, Judaica

228 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Walter Ze'ev Laqueur was an American historian, journalist and political commentator. Laqueur was born in Breslau, Lower Silesia, Prussia (modern Wrocław, Poland), into a Jewish family. In 1938, he left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust.

Laqueur lived in Israel from 1938 to 1953. After one year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he joined a Kibbutz and worked as an agricultural laborer from 1939 to 1944. In 1944, he moved to Jerusalem, where he worked as a journalist until 1953, covering Palestine and other countries in the Middle East.

Since 1955 Laqueur has lived in London. He was founder and editor, with George Mosse, of the Journal of Contemporary History and of Survey from 1956 to 1964. He was also founding editor of The Washington Papers. He was Director of the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library in London from 1965 to 1994. From 1969 he was a member, and later Chairman (until 2000), of the International Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington. He was Professor of the History of Ideas at Brandeis University from 1968 to 1972, and University Professor at Georgetown University from 1976 to 1988. He has also been a visiting professor of history and government at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Tel Aviv University and Johns Hopkins University.

Laqueur's main works deal with European history in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially Russian history and German history, as well as the history of the Middle East. The topics he has written about include the German Youth Movement, Zionism, Israeli history, the cultural history of the Weimar Republic and Russia, Communism, the Holocaust, fascism, and the diplomatic history of the Cold War. His books have been translated into many languages, and he was one of the founders of the study of political violence, guerrilla warfare and terrorism. His comments on international affairs have appeared in many American and European newspapers and periodicals.

(Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Laqueur makes some extremely pertinent points in this book that need to be noted.

70 years ago the slogan in Europe had been "Jews go to Palestine". today it is "Jews Out of Palestine".
The author draws attention to the massive wars and genocides in which millions have perished in the last 25 years, as the result of civil wars, repression, social persecution and tribal conflicts, from Cambodia to much of Africa (Liberia, Congo, Rwanda, Darfur and Zimbabwe).
National and religious minority groups have been systematically abused, raped, murdered, burned, shot, gassed and their property demolished from North Korea and Tibet to Indonesia, Bangladesh, Central Asia and beyond.
But as Laqueur points out: "There have been no protest demonstrations concerning the fate of the Dalets ("Untouchables) in India, even though there are more than 100 million of them. The fate of the Uighur in China, the Copts in Egypt or the Bahai in Iran (to name but a few persecuted people) has not generated much indignation in the streets of Europe and America...According to peace researchers, 25 million were killed in internal conflicts since World War II, 8 000 of them in the Palestinian Israeli conflict, which ranks 46th in the list of victims. But Israel has been condemned at the United Nations and other international organizations more than all other nations put together."
Is this because Israel is small and isolated. There is definitely some type of extreme prejudice at work here.

One of the most intriguing ideas represented in this book is an exercise in counterfactual history: "What if the Ottoman Empire had collapsed one hundred years earlier than it did, and what if the majority of European Jews had decided to settle there. Given a birth rate similar to the Gaza strip, the region would now have a population of between 60 and 80 million inhabitants, perhaps more. And what if major oil fields had been discovered in this imaginary Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates?" Such a country would be an honored member of the United Nations and accepted by the world. Nobody would question it's right to exist and it would be fully accepted by it's Arab and Moslem neighbors. The author presents an interesting historical analysis of anti-Semitism from ancient and mediaeval times, through the co-called "Enlightenment" to the present day.
He also analyses left wing anti-Semitism and illustrates how it is not always rooted in anti-Zionism or anti-Israel hatred. He also points out that anti-Israel hatred cannot really be accurately described as anti-Zionism. Israel is state based on many ideologies, Zionism only being one of them.
However the author does not go far enough in coming to the bolder conclusions to his pertinent questions.
The fact is that Israelis are Jews and being prejudiced against Israel or Israelis makes someone just as much a bigot as one who is prejudiced against Jews per se.
To hate a Jew for living in or being born in Israel is anti-Semitism in it's most extreme form, and to support attacks on Jews for living in Israel is murderous anti-Semitism, in my opinion no better than Nazism.
The Palestinians and their supporters want a Judenrein "Palestine", the same way Hitler wanted a Judenrein Europe.

The author certainly underestimates the the racist essence of Moslem anti-Semitism- he is simply wrong that conversion would dissipate the genocidal Arab and Iranian intentions.
Hamas has categorically stated that even if all Jews in "Palestine" converted to Islam, they would still have to leave or die, "As their blood is tainted with the criminal ideology of Zionism".
While for Diaspora Jews, a hatred of their own people and particularly of Israel, can gain them acceptance in Islamic and far-left circles. This is more difficult for the Jews of Israel.
Islamist and Leftwing radicals around the world (including "Respect" in the UK, The Workers World Party in the USA, and the International Solidarity Movement, even refer to Israeli children in terms of hatred as "Zionists", and claim their murder is justified.

Merged review:

Walter Laqueur makes some extremely pertinent points in this book that need to be noted.

70 years ago the slogan in Europe had been "Jews go to Palestine". today it is "Jews Out of Palestine".
The author draws attention to the massive wars and genocides in which millions have perished in the last 25 years, as the result of civil wars, repression, social persecution and tribal conflicts, from Cambodia to much of Africa (Liberia, Congo, Rwanda, Darfur and Zimbabwe).
National and religious minority groups have been systematically abused, raped, murdered, burned, shot, gassed and their property demolished from North Korea and Tibet to Indonesia, Bangladesh, Central Asia and beyond.
But as Laqueur points out: "There have been no protest demonstrations concerning the fate of the Dalets ("Untouchables) in India, even though there are more than 100 million of them. The fate of the Uighur in China, the Copts in Egypt or the Bahai in Iran (to name but a few persecuted people) has not generated much indignation in the streets of Europe and America...According to peace researchers, 25 million were killed in internal conflicts since World War II, 8 000 of them in the Palestinian Israeli conflict, which ranks 46th in the list of victims. But Israel has been condemned at the United Nations and other international organizations more than all other nations put together."
Is this because Israel is small and isolated. There is definitely some type of extreme prejudice at work here.

One of the most intriguing ideas represented in this book is an exercise in counterfactual history: "What if the Ottoman Empire had collapsed one hundred years earlier than it did, and what if the majority of European Jews had decided to settle there. Given a birth rate similar to the Gaza strip, the region would now have a population of between 60 and 80 million inhabitants, perhaps more. And what if major oil fields had been discovered in this imaginary Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates?" Such a country would be an honored member of the United Nations and accepted by the world. Nobody would question it's right to exist and it would be fully accepted by it's Arab and Moslem neighbors. The author presents an interesting historical analysis of anti-Semitism from ancient and mediaeval times, through the co-called "Enlightenment" to the present day.
He also analyses left wing anti-Semitism and illustrates how it is not always rooted in anti-Zionism or anti-Israel hatred. He also points out that anti-Israel hatred cannot really be accurately described as anti-Zionism. Israel is state based on many ideologies, Zionism only being one of them.
However the author does not go far enough in coming to the bolder conclusions to his pertinent questions.
The fact is that Israelis are Jews and being prejudiced against Israel or Israelis makes someone just as much a bigot as one who is prejudiced against Jews per se.
To hate a Jew for living in or being born in Israel is anti-Semitism in it's most extreme form, and to support attacks on Jews for living in Israel is murderous anti-Semitism, in my opinion no better than Nazism.
The Palestinians and their supporters want a Judenrein "Palestine", the same way Hitler wanted a Judenrein Europe.

The author certainly underestimates the the racist essence of Moslem anti-Semitism- he is simply wrong that conversion would dissipate the genocidal Arab and Iranian intentions.
Hamas has categorically stated that even if all Jews in "Palestine" converted to Islam, they would still have to leave or die, "As their blood is tainted with the criminal ideology of Zionism".
While for Diaspora Jews, a hatred of their own people and particularly of Israel, can gain them acceptance in Islamic and far-left circles. This is more difficult for the Jews of Israel.
Islamist and Leftwing radicals around the world (including "Respect" in the UK, The Workers World Party in the USA, and the International Solidarity Movement, even refer to Israeli children in terms of hatred as "Zionists", and claim their murder is justified.

[Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something that has puzzled me for many years is why everyone hates the Jews. I can understand people not being too fond of Muslims these days as some of them are not going out of their way to be liked much. But what did the Jews ever do to be hated for 2500 years? An article in Foreign Affairs about Anti-Semitism in Europe caught my attention and I wrote the author and put the question to him. This is part of his response:

"Antisemitism provides an answer for people who struggle with their own weaknesses, failings and insecurities. In its purest form it is a complete worldview that explains all that is bad and dangerous as being the fault of the Jews. It has survived for so long partly because for centuries it was promoted by powerful institutions such as the Catholic Church (although officially at least, this is no longer the case); because it served a social, political and economic function for powerful people in society; and because it relies on conspiracy theories and irrational superstitions, so it is difficult to contradict."

This is one of the books he recommended and "Anti-Semitism - the oldest hatred" edited by John Mann is the other.

This book could also be called A Short History of Anti-Semitism because it is not a long book but covers a great deal of Jewish history. It was all new to me.

Jews could not win for losing. If they were poor because of a country's laws and treatment, they were reviled as parasites. If they were rich, well, we all know that stereotype and I was surprised to learn that most of the time most of them were living in abject poverty. If they refused to convert to Christianity, they were hated. If they did convert, it wasn't good enough because of their "character". They were driven out of Western Europe and a majority of them ended up in the "Pale of Settlement", in eastern Poland and western Russia. We all know how that ended up, too.

Anti-Semitism had different faces in different places and different times, ranging from laws barring them from owning land or from certain professions to outright massacre in a number of pogroms, especially in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Jews were hated for different reasons sometimes at the same time by the same people. Jews were accused of both inflicting Bolshevism on the earth while at the same time being guilty of capitalist oppression of the workers. And so on.

Carving the State of Israel out of Palestine created serious problems which are still with us today and the author goes into some detail on the subject. Being upset at how Israel treats the Palestinians apparently puts one in the category of Anti-Semitism of the Left. I am not getting into that. Just to say that I would have given the book 5 stars but for the author's twisting of certain historical events and facts to suit his own narrative.

This is a book well worth reading just to get an idea of the treatment of Jews over the centuries and of how Anti-Semitism has changed with the times yet still remains.

[Rebecca Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful broad overview of how antisemitism has evolved in different parts of the world over the millennia. However, this book raises even more questions than it answers and I’m nearly as confused after reading it as I was beforehand.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a brilliant scholar, this was not as deep of a book as I was expecting. Nonetheless, a good overview.

[Brett C · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gained information about anti-Semitism from the middle ages to a racial anti-Semitism that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author then uses this historical account to compare modern anti-Semitism, explaining its origins and rationale, how it manifests itself, in what ways and why it is different from anti-Semitism in past ages, and what forms it may take in the future. I read about the modern question of anti-Zionism vs anti-Semitism. An interesting read in my opinion.

[James Miller]

Walter Laqueur, a Jew born in Germany, experienced the Holocaust first hand. He left Germany in 1938 -- his parents were murdered by the Nazis. He devoted his life to historical research and teaching, including positions at many prestigious universities.

Laqueur has a rather passive style of exposition -- rather than tell you what happened, he tells you what others -- whether historians, or contemporaries of the period -- thought about what was happening. He goes back to ancient times, when the Jewish diaspora was found not only in Judea, but in Alexandria, Rome and Athens. He quotes from Tacitus, Cicero, or other ancient chroniclers of customs to demonstrate the attitudes toward Jews in ancient times, and how they were expressed. But in this process, it is often difficult to understand whether he is reflecting honest appraisals, or mere prejudices toward Jews.

The central theme should be: what caused antisemitism in times past, and in modern societies? On this crucial question, he hesitates to express a view of his own, but rather recites the ideas and actions of others. The title refers to a "changing face" of this phenomenon -- and this is indeed what is demonstrated. But what about its nature, its essence, its origins and significance? Here he provides alternate views: antisemitism as religious doctrine, as national friction, as "racial" antagonism, as psychological aberration. But does he himself have an answer?

For myself, I believe Marxism, with its evolutionary and materialist view of history, is most capable of providing the answer. Granted, we are talking about something that has existed in various forms for more than two thousand years. Perhaps five thousand. There has been a continuous existence of Jewish communities during these epochs of time. Karl Kautsky, a German Marxist, in his book, "The Foundations of Christianity" (1908), provides a complete examination of the development of Judaism in the ancient world. Kautsky explains who the Jews were -- how they lived, how they protected themselves from adversaries and rivals, how they began to play a role traveling merchants, dealers in the products of labor throughout the Mediterranean world. They were following in the wake of the Phoenicians, the earlier seafaring traders. How they began to specialize in the bronze, copper, gold and silver currencies manufactured by various kingdoms to serve as means of exchange and stores of value.

Lacqueur rejects Marxism, and characterizes Marx as yet another antisemite. He says of the young Karl Marx,
"Marx wrote his 'Jewish Question' (1844) when he was a very young man unencumbered by knowledge of Jewish history; he knew about the Rothschilds but knew little and cared less about the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe. In later life Marx did not deal with the Jewish question as such, though when he referred to Jews in private correspondence his tenor was almost always negative."

Here he wishes to express his characterization of a Marx with not much knowledge of Jews, and not much appreciation for them. But why, then, does he not take on the challenge of refuting what Marx said at the time?

In the "Jewish Question," Marx wrote:

"Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money."

Marx's view seems to be a perfect expression of antisemitism. But what is his reason for using these terms to characterize Jewish activity? In this passage Marx is not casting aspersions on Jews, but rather, characterizing the fate that has befallen them, as a people. The history of the Jewish people is a history of a people-class evolving in the ancient world into a network of communities without a homeland, a diaspora of communities whose incomes were primarily the result of their specialization in exchange and the accumulation of wealth -- merchants, bankers, landowners, tax collectors, pawnbrokers. If we don't recognize this, we cannot understand what is meant by "Jews," nor can we understand antisemitism. I recommend reading "The Jewish Question," by Abram Leon, from Pathfinder Press:
https://www.pathfinderpress.com/produ...

[Lirazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could rate this higher. I came to it through Walter Laqueur's association with the Wiener Holocaust Library, and I have the utmost respect for his work there. I also think this is a subject growing in importance, and I wanted some insight. But I really struggled with this book's writing. As another reviewer stated, it raises more questions than it does answers--and not in the good way. Laqueur makes many references to things that he doesn't explain and even from sentence to sentence, things don't always seem to relate to each other or seem to contradict each other. In fact, it felt more like a stream-of-consciousness journal entry than a book; that could be an excellent starting point, but whoever the editor was did not do their job and turn it into a book. At the very least, footnotes would have helped a lot; I read with my phone by my side so I could look up an unfamiliar minor historical figure or event every few pages, but I wish I hadn't had to do that. Weirdly for a book that I felt did not go into enough detail about anything, there was a lot of repetition as well.

I really think this is a case of an editor not doing their job. There is a lot here that's worthwhile (such as the various kinds of antisemitism throughout history), but the shapelessness of the writing makes it difficult to get to.

[Joan Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a great intro to the topic

Walter Laqueur was a great historian, but in this small volume he could not decide whether he was writing a history of antisemitism or a personal reflection on it. It has some stellar analysis in places, but also meanders, repeats itself, and has more of the author's opinion than one would want. I followed a recommendation to use it for a course on antisemitism, and regret my choice.

[Joshua Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laqueur's history of anti-semitism is incredibly detailed, and is one of the most interesting and historically detailed that I've come across. Laqueur definitely has a knack for presenting things in an academic manner, trying to extract his own bias (which is incredibly difficult with regard to this issue) but it does result in the feeling of the text being very dry.

Apart from the actual writing as dry, it's a great read. It's fairly accessible and, if you are predisposed to the subject matter, will present a good amount of new data. It's definitely a worthwhile read.

[Isaac Timm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well argued but as a historical text it is really just a overview of a lot of history. Laqueur skips about a lot and lumps themes and time-lines together. I think a longer and some what more concise version would be well received.

[Jason Breedlove · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a little short for a book on the history of anti-Semitism, at 200 pages. But the information contained in it was worthwhile.