_A Lethal Obsession Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad_, by Robert S. Wistrich, 2010

Yo (Yocheved) Menashe Discussion

From the Introduction The Return of Anti-Semitism

"Future historians may well regard the past seven decades as a golden age of ideological politics. Millions have been slaughtered on the altar of false messianisms and their salvationist logic. In the totalitarian nightmare of the past seventy-five years, a special role has undoubtedly been played by the political religions of Nazism, Stalinism, and Islamism. It is certainly no coincidence that in all three cases, a remarkable similar anti-American and anti-Jewish demonology has been manipulated in the cause of destroying Judeo-Christian values, individual freedom, and the liberal democracy. All three anti-Western ideologies have shared the same penchant for conspiracy theories of history, society, and civilization; they are equally characterized by a similarly closed system of belief, addiction to historical inevitability, and an unquenchable will to power. At their very heart we can find the oldest and darkest of ideological obsessions -- that of anti-Semitism -- for which nearly twenty years ago I coined the term "the longest hatred." Page 3.

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He gave me his permission to quote from the book at the time he was writing the following on the inside front cover: "Dear Yo, With my best wishes and hope that this book will provide a guide on the path to the understanding Robert S. Wistrich, June 2010"

I still don't understand antisemitism!

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Understanding antisemitism is no mystery. But it is laborious, for Jew-hatred needs to be understanding as always changing in emphasis, depending on the context, though lingering aspects from Biblical times will always complicate the diagnosis.

I have asked my observant son-in-law to explain why he considers me, a secular person of Jewish descent, to be archetypally "Jewish" with a "Talmudic mind." He says that it is close readings of texts that is the constant feature of antisemitism. Look back at Plato's PHAEDO for his scoffing at the evidence of the senses, polluted by the passions. It is but a short step from that antique belief to the insistence that this is the Devil's realm, hence a world of lies. Jews reject the notion of the Devil.

I have offered this group numerous samples of context-specific postings regarding how antisemitism functions at specific moments. Here is one that I like a lot, for it deals with the myth of the Wandering Jew, and how some Romantics transmitted favorable definitions of the defiant figure, only to lapse back into traditional rejectionism. See http://clarespark.com/2010/11/16/good-jews-bad-jews-and-wandering-jews/.