REVIEWING A BOOK THE size and depth of Robert Wistrich’s monumental “A
Lethal Obsession” brings with it a unique set of challenges. As if the 941 pages of
text, the 174 pages of footnotes, and a bibliography with which one could
start
a university department were not enough, there is the depth of the author’s
half-century engagement with the field. Any attempt at comprehensiveness
would
either lead to a review of intimidating length or run the risk of
superficiality.
There is also anti-Semitism itself. Currently there are endless analyses,
essays, blogs, surveys, opinions, debates and attendant controversies as
to what
does – and doesn’t – constitute anti-Semitism. Regrettably in the last
decade
the public attitude to the subject has been too frequently debated along the
lines of the old cassette-tape commercial: ‘Is it real – or is it
Memorex?’ In
other words, is this something new, or is it the same age-old hatred in
different guises, amplified by the post- Holocaust trauma-induced
hypersensitivities of a certain ethnic minority with allegiances to a
country caught up in a geopolitical struggle?
Robert S. Wistrich is the Neuberger Professor of Modern European History
at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem and director of the university’s Vidal Sassoon
International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism. Fordecades he has been
researching and advancing the cause of a serious, objective and academic
study
of anti-Semitism and is the preeminent authority on the subject.
Wistrich’s extensive treatment of the historical origins of anti-Semitism –
especially those emerging with the emergence of Christianity and the
expanding
Greco-Roman empire can be found in his previous works, particularly his 1991
publication “The Longest Hatred.” Here, given the subsequent proliferation
of
material on the subject, he concentrates on its mutations during the past
seven
decades. He recognizes the need for a comprehensive treatment of the topic,
which, as a form of group hatred, has its own peculiarities, idiosyncrasies,
logic, utility, and hard-to-pin down quality of morphing bfrom place to place
and generation to generation.
Therefore, he chooses a phenomenological approach, engaging with
anti-Semitism
as a history of ideas evolving over time in differing historical,
political and
social contexts.A sampler of chapter headings offers a glimpse of this
approach:
“From Deicide to Genocide,” “The Soviet War Against Zion,” “The
Postcommunist
Trauma,” “German Guilt,” “Jewish Angst,” “Liberté Egalité
Antisemitisme,”
“The
Anti-Zionist Masquerade,” “Shylock Meets Uncle Sam,” “Multiculturalism
and
its
Discontents,” “Toward the Muslim Apocalypse” and “Ahmadinejad: The Last
Jihad.”
This approach allows Wistrich to differentiate between various types and
recensions of anti-Semitism, unpack their origins and lay bare their
compelling,
if contradictory, logic. The effect is a far-reaching synthesis of a
approaches
from different disciplinesthat effectively ‘connects the dots’ – between
such
phenomena as anti-Zionism and anti- Americanism, biblical concepts of
chosenness
and exclusiveness/apartness and world domination, dual loyalties and double
standards, rightwing and left-wing anti-Semitism, Islamist and Nazi
anti-Semitism, fringe and mainstream, multiculturalism and its totalitarian
response.
“Each new stage in the history of anti- Semitism has been able to build on a
prior legacy of negative stereotypes, adapting them to a novel domestic, and
international, context” writes Wistrich, thus explaining its singular
status as
‘probably the most adaptable of all group hatreds.’ In taking this
approach,
Wistrich bequeaths the possibility of multiple eureka moments to readers with
the time and fortitude to go the distance with his meticulously researched
and
lucidly detailed study. At any given juncture, in chapters that are
self-contained monographs in themselves, an overarching Gestalt of anti-
Semitism begins to take shape: a vast matrix of hatreds with every node
bundled
like a nerve fibre of thought-structures connecting the past to the
present. In
its unparalleled reach, A Lethal Obsession reveals a veritable family tree of
anti-Jewish malice, allowing the reader to both differentiate and detect its
underlying patterns and taxonomies.
WHILE THE BOOK’S SUBTITLE could easily be “the varieties of
anti-Semitism,”
making it resistant to attempts to construct a unified field theory about it,
one leitmotif nevertheless pulses through this multifaceted work. With every
tightly worded paragraph Wistrich inductively and conclusively drives home
the
message that it is the conceptual frameworks of anti- Semitism that must be
grappled with and comprehended – not merely its florid manifestations.
Nowhere
is this clearer than in Wistrich’s evaluation of the Islamist threat, noting
that “Western Europe has barely begun to deal seriously at the level of ideas
with the existential threat that Islamism now poses to human rights, to its
democratic values, to its own cultural identity and to the future of its
minorities.”
If there is a message here, it is this: Only when we see the coherence,
attraction and socio-political usefulness of recurring anti- Semitic
components
at work and in different milieus, languages, cultures and historical
circumstances, can we begin to decode its DNA and ultimately devise effective
antidotes to counteract it.
As erudite and scholarly as A Lethal Obsession is, it is refreshingly free of
didacticism and polemic, even when it draws conclusions or breaks new ground.
The chapter “Multiculturalism and Its Discontents” is a case in point.
Wistrich’s initial exploration of the subject appeared as a lecture
published by
the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at
Hebrew
University, which he directs. In it he drew disquieting parallels between
reactionary forces at work in the fin de siècle, post-Hapsburg Europe of the
late 1890s/early 20th centuries, and the eviscerated national identities that
currently plague Western democracies. Buttressed by the latest research taken
from original sources in various languages, the reader is given the
intellectual
tools, which enable him or her to understand the paradox of an anti-Semitism
that forges red-green alliances and is so malevolently at play in today’s
Europe.
Yet the ultimate value of A Lethal Obsession is not simply as an
indispensible
guide for decoding every conceivable form of anti-Semitic discourse across
political, historical and linguistic landscapes. Lucidly written and
capaciously
referenced, Wistrich’s work is a foundation stone upon which a thorough,
objective, systematic treatment of anti- Semitism as an academic subject –
one
living up to the highest standards of scientific scrutiny – can ultimately be
built.
It is true that several academic centers engaged with anti-Semitism have been
established of late. The Sassoon Center at Hebrew University and the Berlin
Center for Antisemitism Research opened in 1985, while the new Pears
Institute
for the Study of Antisemitism at the University of London, Birkbeck aims to
award degrees in the study. However, the field as a stand-alone academic
discipline has taken a back seat over the last 50 years to such topics as
racism
and even Holocaust studies. The resources contained in A Lethal Obsession
should
help fill this gap, as well as promoting the importance of the topic in
higher
education in the US and Europe.
Finally – and this may be potentially its most far-reaching utility – is
the
book’s use as resource for building a much-needed strategic assessment of the
threat of anti-Semitism and its capacity for undermining the structures of
civil
society. As such, the book is must reading for policy makers, think tanks,
advocacy organizations and communal leaders alike – if only for the reason
that A Lethal Obsession both expands our knowledge of the deepest and most
complex of hatreds while potentially serving as a catalyst for devising
new ways
to bring it under control.
