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Robert S. Wistrich was the Neuburger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the director of the university’s Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism. He may also have been the leading academic authority on anti-Semitism. Witness his histories A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism From Antiquity to the Global Jihad(2010) and From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, The Jews and Israel (2012). Professor Wistrich died in 2015 at the age of 70. The New York Times obituary by Sam Roberts is here. Would that he were alive in this hour.
I interviewed Professor Wistrich by email in connection with his 2012 book. It occurred to me that it might be a good time to revisit the interview. Here it is.
PL: You begin your new book with an autobiographical account dating back to your time on the Left. How did you get from there to here, so to speak?
RSW: I belonged, at one point, to the radical 1968 generation in the West who were intoxicated (in my case, briefly) with the secular utopianism of radical Marxism and the mirage of “cultural revolution.” I was physically present in Paris when the French students shouted “We are all German Jews” in support of their leader “Dany the Red,” who had just been prevented by De Gaulle from returning from Germany to France. Today, their equivalents in Europe might well be shouting “Death to Israel” or “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!” That is one strand of the journey that led me to retrospectively subject the contemporary Left to intense critical scrutiny.
PL: Would you talk a little bit about your scholarly interest in the subject of anti-Semitism?
RSW: Ever since I was a student at Cambridge University in the late 1960s (and probably much earlier), I have been both intrigued and repulsed by the sheer persistence of anti-Semitism in its many forms. Living as I did in Great Britain for the first thirty years of my life, I always felt an outsider and my Jewish identity was clearly part of that. The more that I subsequently studied the history of Jew-hatred, the more I began to see it as an embedded part of the cultural DNA of the West (especially of European history). The return of anti-Semitism in our time – much of it under the guise of loathing Israel – has confirmed for me its near-ubiquity and perennial nature. But already in 1991, I had invented the term “the longest hatred” to describe its extraordinary tenacity.
PL: What would you like prospective readers to know about your book?
RSW: I believe that my most recent book does expose for the first time in such a systematic fashion the enduring Judeophobic passions prevalent in so many left-wing revolutionary movements; the emptiness of the dream of “proletarian solidarity”; and the political fantasy-world of Communist egalitarianism, some of it ardently espoused by Jewish intellectuals. Moreover, my book unmistakably shows that conspiracy theories are as much a proclivity of the Left as of the Right. I see it as a much-needed demystification of all the standard leftist stereotypes and delusions about the Jews and Israel, whose exposure is long overdue.
PL: Would you briefly summarize your findings for us?
RSW: One of the key points in my study is that anti-Semitism has been an important feature of left-wing thought ever since its beginnings in the 1840s with Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. This animosity derives in part from a distorted post-Christian Enlightenment perception of Judaism as a fundamentally reactionary tribalist religion and an obstacle to “human emancipation”; from a grossly simplistic identification of Jews with banks, money, financial speculation and capitalist injustices; as well as a stubborn refusal in our own time to recognize the indubitably national character of the Jewish people and the overwhelming historic legitimacy of the Jewish State in the Land of Israel.
PL: What role did the Soviet Union play in creating the current anti-Semitism and its tropes?
RSW: The Soviet Union may have collapsed in 1991 but twenty years later, we can still see in the West, the Middle East and in the Third World the truly poisonous legacy of its vile demonology concerning the Jews and Israel. All the more malevolent and mendacious amalgams of our own day, equating Zionism with racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, fascism, Nazism and the totally imaginary “genocide” of the Palestinians were originally concoctions of the Soviet propaganda apparatus. That is rarely understood and mostly forgotten.
PL: What has been the response of the Left to your book? Silence or disagreement?
RSW: Not surprisingly, there are few on the Left willing or able to accept the challenge that I’ve thrown down to them or to revise their tired and worn-out dogmas. The last thing that one can accuse the leftists I write about (and their heirs) of being is open-minded or self-critical.
PL: How does left-wing anti-Semitism fit into the history of anti-Semitism?
RSW: Left-wing anti-Semitism is a consistently underrated feature of the history of Jew-hatred since the mid-19th century. One aspect that makes it rather unusual is that it usually adopts a secular, rationalist and “universalist” standpoint; that it purports to be humanistic and in its “anti-Zionist” mutation usually clothes itself in the banner of human rights and preaches defense of the “oppressed” – especially the Palestinians. This world-view sounds nice on paper but in practice it does not immunize leftists from falling into a morass of self-delusion, bias and prejudice against Jews or Israelis, even though this is often vehemently contested. This is an anti-Semitism which denies its name.
PL: Do you see an alliance between the Left and Islamists based on their shared hatreds? If so, would you elaborate on that?
RSW: The radical Left and the Islamists do share a common hatred of the West (especially America) and of Israel as symbols of successful modernity, entrepreneurial capitalism and secular freedoms. They increasingly align with one another over “solidarity” with Palestine, rejection of any American involvement in the Middle East, and in their efforts to subvert the moral foundations of Western culture. Such is the potency of these irrational hatreds that they even trump the Left’s traditional support for causes like women’s emancipation and gay rights – which are total anathema to Islamists.
PL: What is at stake for those of us outside Israel in the Islamist war against Israel?
RSW: The Islamist onslaught against Israel is to a considerable extent a war by proxy against the West – in which defense of the Jewish State becomes the litmus-test for Islamic probing whether the Western world is really serious about commitment to its core-values of individual freedom and liberal democracy. The Islamic radicals are today not only the spearhead of an annihilationist anti-Jewish ideology but also of a fanatical jihadist war against civilization as it has hitherto been understood in the West.
PL: Anything else you’d like to add?
RSW: In conclusion, I would simply add that the contemporary Left can no longer claim any kind of moral high ground. It has never truly come to terms with the abominable crimes of the Stalinist regimes, with the Soviet Gulag and Communist totalitarianism. Its uncritical and selective solidarity with “victims” like the Palestinians is highly suspect; its relentless efforts to blacken the good name of America and Israel at all costs are often grotesque; its frequent whitewashing of Islamic extremism and naked terrorism are morally reprehensible; and its Judeophobic legacy requires urgent detoxification. Anti-Semitism, I would maintain, has always been a remarkably accurate barometer for measuring bigoted, prejudiced and dogmatic attitudes, not to mention blatant double standards. Much of the contemporary Left, when it comes to the Jews and especially to Israel, has miserably failed the test of elementary honesty and intellectual integrity.
I would recommend Dennis Prager’s Why The Jews he looks at this from every angle.
“Much of the contemporary Left, when it comes to the Jews and especially to Israel, has miserably failed the test of elementary honesty and intellectual integrity.”
Yes, definitely, and everything else it involves itself with.
The organizing principle of the left is now, and always has been, defect of character.
Cowardice, intellectual shiftiness, egotistical preoccupation with one’s perceived rightness, ever changing fantasies as a replacement for realities about self, society and history, projection of their flaws on others….
Yes, they do have some defects of character.
Thank you for revisiting this timely interview — articulate, compelling, discerning, laudable, nuanced,
This should be printed in every newspaper in the United States.
A large and terrible number of American universities and colleges across the are very anti_-Jewish and likewise anti-Israel. Therefore those institutions of “higher education” are ,in essence, very un-American.
This is a very clear reminder that the former President, William Howard Taft, in a speech rightly and wisely, declared, “Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America.”
Qatar supports Muslim terrorist organizations and it doesn’t stop with that insidious evil .Qatar has, the stealth jihad , has infiltrated and influenced many universities and colleges across the United States so now those “institutions of higher education” have indoctrinated many young impressionable students to be very anti-Jewish , ant-Israel and even pro- Hamas.
Many universities and colleges throughout the United States have been thoroughly infiltrated and influenced by the insidious stealth jihadists.
There may be little doubt that those stealth jihadists are backed and funded by Iran and Qatar as well as oil rich Saudi Arabia.
Those non–Muslims Americans, of university and college campuses through the United States, who are protesting against the State of Israel and who likewise greatly favor Hamas are people who are ,rightly , described ,as the “useful idiots” of the leaders of Hamas and their jihadist members who are dedicated to the cause of conquest for the cause of Islam.
Those Americans who aren’t Muslims the stooges of those Hamas chefs and the other Muslim terrorist, For those of Hamas view all people who are not Muslims as inferior creatures to them and refer to them .
Behind their backs as , “Kafirs,” which is the Islamic derogatory term for “disbelievers”
It’s tragic that those non-Muslims pro-Hamas America protesters against Israel are so very deluded by Hamas that this Islamic terror / murder organization so easily manipulates and uses them as their tools.
Those poor people are ,truly, their useful idiots.
The atheistic Left are in a demonic and diabolical alliance with the Muslims ; many of them are liberal women who deserve a darwin award for their stupidity
Your quote, ” Those poor people are ,truly, their useful idiots.”
The Islamists know this only too well, & that is why they use them.
A good book to read is ” United in Hate ” by Jamie Glazov. ( The marriage of the Left & Islam )
Here is a video to gain a greater understanding.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=jamie+glazov&mid=6500B645F97A8C36E5816500B645F97A8C36E581&FORM=VIRE
You want Palestine to be free; get rid of the terrorists.
theres no such place. thats the point. use a word over and over and the truth is obscured.
satanic islam is NOT an Abrahamic religion!!!
The fake god allah is NOT the same as the One True Living God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob… the Father of our Lord & Savior, Christ Jesus.
Totally agree. Muslims claim that the God of the Bible is identical with their Allah because of the Bible’s use of the word “El” but this is a generic term for deity, not a name – the Chaldeans had Il, and the Phoenicians had “alonim”. If El had been the actual name of God, then there would have been no need at the burning bush, for Moses to ask “Who shall I say sent me?” because he would already have known.
What makes Jews such a tempting target of destruction? Jewishness itself is not a satisfying answer. The Romani lost as high, if not a higher, percentage of their numbers during the Holocaust. We can be sure that it was not because the Romani were Jewish.
Both groups had something in common, they were insular minorities whose individual identities were collective. Against the charge that they were “different” and must therefore be destroyed, could only be answered with “We are different, therefore you must not destroy us”. By conceding their difference from other people, they were intellectually disarmed.
To an individualist, the fact that 6 million Jews and 1.5 million Romani died is not the issue, It is that 7.5 million people were brutally murdered that is significant.
It would appear that Judaism is not consistent with American individualism. See:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/judaism-vs-american-individualism/
Despite the authors incorrect idea of individualism he does go into detail relating the Bible and the Torah to social justice and other collectivist concepts. This might explain the paucity of Jewish individualist writers.
It also explained a statement by a friend of mine nearly 60 years ago when we were in college. I asked him why he, who was a fierce supporter of the free market, was such a strong supporter of Israel, which at the time was a socialist garrison state. He answered “Because Jews are different, they need socialism”.
That statement stuck in my mind for years as I tried to understand how someone could say that Jews were fundamentally different from other people. Jews didn’t need freedom, they needed community? It still sounds insane to me.
Jews in America are more prosperous and safer than in most other countries. Is it despite, or because America is fundamentally individualist?
Are you living under a rock or something? I do not feel safe in America at all. No Jew I know does. You are looking at a people from the outside in with your nose pressed up against the window pane and misunderstanding everything you think you see. And then you pontificate wrongly.
You seem prejudiced in some outdated way and as if you have zero insight into yourself or you just don’t care.
Whoever you are and whatever your background, why don’t I comment a paragraph of mistaken baloney all about you . Because `i cannot imagine a worthy background that would cause someone to write what you did and on this particular site.
This reply is not for chaya. He is not open to arguments. This is for anyone who is paying attention.
Ad hominem is not an argument.
Being afraid is not the same thing as being attacked physically.
By playing the victimhood card and crying in fear you are doing exactly what anti-semites want. It’s a confession of helplessness and hopelessness, not the attitude required to stop the attacks on you.
Arm yourselves and be prepared to kill anyone who physically attacks you. You will be denounced and hated, but you will survive. If you don’t start killing your attackers, you will still be denounced and hated and probably end up dead, so you have nothing to lose.
Show courage and stop voting for your enemies. Abandon the Democrat party and if no Republican will stand with you, then don’t vote at all.
Not safer in America? Trying obtaining a gun for self defense anywhere else. Try speaking out against your attackers anywhere else. There are no 1st and 2nd Amendments anywhere else on earth, not even Israel.
If you are charged with a crime when you defend yourself, hope that I, or someone like me, is on the jury.