Customer Reviews

Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred

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Published in 1991, this book predicted the resurgence of the ancient hatred; it was unfortunately correct. In the introduction Wistrich discusses the problematic term Antisemitism then briefly explores its continuity and development down the ages. He does not believe that history provides definitive answers to the Why? of the phenomenon but emphasizes the importance of understanding the How? of it. The most enduring conspiracy theory of all times, it's a shape shifter and nothing seems able to stop it.

Part One examines its pagan roots, its lethal and influential infection of Christianity at an early date and the course it took in Western Europe until the early 1990s. This section includes the medieval legacy when the phenomenon took a particularly ugly turn, Martin Luther, the Holocaust and post-war attitudes in Germany and Austria where it evidently never died. Previously neither the Reformation nor the Enlightenment put an end to it. It instead just mutated along lines acceptable to the Zeitgeist. After World War II the pattern of European guilt-denial has led to increasing anti-Zionism in a process of displacement and projection. Hatred of the Jewish people is being transferred to the Jewish State.

Part Two looks at the history in Britain, France, Hungary, Rumania, Czech, Poland and Russia. Of interest here is how the thing persists even in the absence of Jewish people like in Poland in the late 1980s, and how the US strain has mercifully always been less virulent than the European. I am afraid that things have deteriorated since the publication of this book. The long history of popular and state antisemitism in Russia has been revived, with the country's open support of rogue states and terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. And in Old Europe, the large immigrant communities are in the vanguard.

Part Three deals with the Islamic world and includes chapters on the history which contained ups and downs as in the Christian world, the explosion of antisemitism in the literature and media of the Arab states since 1948, the issue of Palestine with reference to the notorious Haj Amin al-Husseini, and includes a chapter on Arabism, Semitism & Antisemitism. Peace: The Arabian Caricature of Anti-Semitic Imagery by Arieh Stav provides a window on the Arab press, proving that anti-Zionism is not merely a political instrument but an idea with cultural, racial and theological dimensions. Its most visible host on the international stage is the United Nations and its agencies.

Wistrich argues that the Western psyche is permeated by this ancient hatred, a deeply disturbing thought. The agnostic postmodern Westerner is just as susceptible as the medieval Christian because antisemitism was inherited by the new hosts: the religion's secular salvationist offspring like socialism, fascism, Marxism and environmentalism. In this regard, please see The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and Liberal Opinion by Bernard Harrison and Barry Horner's Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged. Nowadays its Christian hosts include the World Council of Churches and liberal mainstream Protestant denominations. Its spirit is a revived Replacement Theology propagated by Jimmy Carter and Anglican theologians associated with the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre of Naim Ateek.

As to the Why of it, I have found Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism by Dennis Prager & Joseph Telushkin quite instructive and illuminating. I agree with the French writer Andre Glucksmann that the concept of a contagion of hatred must be taken literally as a mental disorder that invades minds, bodies and society. Such an outbreak inoculates itself against those who oppose it and is immune to reason. Phyllis Chesler's The New Anti-Semitism shines a revealing light on its latest mutations. William Nicholls has done sterling work on the painful subject of Christian Antisemitism, whilst Paul Charles Merkley examines the state of Anti-Zionism and Philosemitism in the churches today in Christian Attitudes Towards the State of Israel. Drawing on ancient wisdom, Yoram Hazony looks at ways of dealing with it in The Dawn: Political Teachings of the Book of Esther.

Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred contains numerous photographs & illustrations. There are copious notes arranged by chapter, a glossary, extensive bibliography and index. Because the virus mutates so fast the book is a bit outdated by now but it still serves as a valuable reference source.

Wistrich is certainly correct in calling Antisemitism the longest hatred. Almost every culture, from ancient times to the present, has been infected with this philosophy. His book covers its history from Biblical times to the late 20th Century. The first two thirds look at Europan and western attitudes, and how they contributed to the holocaust and have changed since World War II. The final third examines the Islamic world and the present conflict over Israel. This last section is in many ways the most interesting, as it covers material many in the West may be less familiar with.

The greatest weakness here is that while the author gives us many facts, he offers very little in the way of explanation. We learn almost nothing about why antisemitism has been so prevelant or so intense, or why, like a natural disaster, it flares up in cycles every so often. No one expects Wistrich to have the final answer here, but he should have made at least some attempt to discover the reasons for the 'longest hatred'.

Robert Wistrich predicted the return of the ancient hatred in this book published in 1991. In the introduction he analyses the problematic term Antisemitism. More appropriate terms might be Judeopathy or Judeophobia. Wistrich does not believe that there are definitive answers to the Why? of the phenomenon but emphasizes the importance of understanding the How? of it. The most enduring conspiracy theory of all times, it's a highly mutable mental virus that infects cultures, movements, ideologies and religions.

Part One explores its roots in the pagan world, its lethal infection of Christianity at an early date and the course it has taken in Western Europe until the early 1990s. William Nicholls has thoroughly dissected Christian Antisemitism in his book by that title. The virus proliferated in the Middle Ages and during the reformation infected Martin Luther whose writings contributed to creating a climate that made the Holocaust possible. Not even the Enlightenment put an end to it. Post-war attitudes in Germany and Austria show that it never died in Europe. After World War II the pattern of European guilt-denial has enabled the growth of anti-Zionism in a process of displacement and projection. Hatred of the Jewish people is being transferred to the Jewish State. Anti-Zionism may even be considered the typical form of the virus in the 21st century.

In Part Two, Wistrich looks at the history in Britain, France, Hungary, Rumania, Czech, Poland and Russia. It is remarkable how the thing persists even in the absence of Jewish people like in Poland in the late 1980s, and in a place like Japan. The US strain has always been less virulent than the European but has now infected the universities to an alarming degree. Since the publication of this book the situation has deteriorated. Popular and state antisemitism in Russia has been revived as the country openly supports rogue states and terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. In Old Europe, the large immigrant communities are the major carriers.

Part Three deals with the Islamic world in chapters on the history which contained ups and downs as in the Christian world, the explosion of antisemitism in the literature and media of the Arab states since the birth of Israel, the issue of Palestine and the notorious Haj Amin al-Husseini. In the Middle East, anti-Zionism is not merely a political instrument but a force with cultural, racial and theological dimensions. Its nature is revealed in the book Peace: The Arabian Caricature of Anti-Semitic Imagery by Arieh Stav. The most prominent host of antisemitism on the international stage is the United Nations and its agencies.

It may be argued that the Western psyche is permeated by the disease. The agnostic postmodern Westerner is just as susceptible as the medieval Christian because the virus was inherited by the religion's secular salvationist offspring like socialism, fascism, liberalism, Marxism and its mutations like multiculturalism. This is confirmed in The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and Liberal Opinion by Bernard Harrison and Barry Horner's Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged. Its Christian hosts include the World Council of Churches and liberal mainstream Protestant denominations, driven by a resurgent Replacement Theology propagated by theologians associated with the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre of Naim Ateek, and aided and abetted by Jimmy Carter.

Like most mental illnesses, antisemitism is immune to reason and fact, making it a difficult disease to combat. Transmission from one mind to another often occurs by means of tones of voice, hints and gestures. In psychological terms it is a form of psychopathy whilst in spiritual terms it's a type of demonic possession. Analyses of the irrational outbursts against Israel reveal an erotic quality and a psychic compulsion in the accusers to displace their own fear and guilt on to the other. Despite the lessons of history that has repeatedly demonstrated the unspeakable suffering it brings on the guilty and the innocent alike, people still become infected.

As to the Why of it, Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism by Dennis Prager & Joseph Telushkin is instructive and illuminating, and in Christian Attitudes Towards the State of Israel Paul Charles Merkley exposes the state of Anti-Zionism and Philosemitism in the churches today. The alarming spread of the latest epidemic is examined by Phyllis Chesler in The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It and Abraham Foxman in Never Again?. Drawing on ancient wisdom, Yoram Hazony looks at ways of counteracting it in The Dawn: Political Teachings of the Book of Esther.

Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred contains numerous photographs & illustrations. There are copious notes arranged by chapter, a glossary, extensive bibliography and index. Because the virus mutates so fast the book may in some aspects be a little outdated by now but it still serves as an informative history and valuable reference.

This is an excellent study based on extensive, thorough research of both ancient and modern-day anti-Semitism that destroys any myth that anti-Semitism is now on the decline.

Introducing the definition of anti-Semitism as the hatred of Jews & Judaism (and not Semites in general), the writer displays a commendable knowledge of the subject while devoting a sizeable section of this book to revealing and analysing the re-emergence & immediacy of the virulent, racial hatred revived by the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

Many readers will find this book both painful and shocking. The writer approaching the many aspects of anti-Semitism through the ages, not least of which being those originating through some aspects of 'Christianity', which were subsequently adopted by Nazism, Bolshevism and Islam. Certain revealed myths shown to provide the seedbed on which Nazi and other racialist doctrines/prejudices could flourish, dehumanising Jews & subsequently removing all/any moral restraints that opposed a persecution or genocide of the Jewish people.

The book examines the erroneous, malignant myths like 'The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion', (of which the Arab world is now the largest supplier), and how these have now taken root in the Middle East as another Islamic weapon against the Jewish State.

The writer declaring that, despite being an absolute tissue of malicious lies, wherever there is a 'will' to believe such aberrations, events can always be made to fit the paranoid visions & homicidal hatred of a Jewish 'world conspiracy'.

A whole section of the book is devoted to Jews living in Islamic lands & the question of 'Palestine'. Of particular note here is the revelation that the enforced wearing of the 'Yellow Badge' by Jews actually originated in Baghdad and not Europe. The 'dhimmi' status of Jews under Islamic rule is also studied, together with the post 1948 enforced expulsion of the Jewish populations from these Arab lands, together with the confiscation of all Jewish property.

The author also describes how in recent years a vast anti-Jewish literature has appeared in Islamic/Arab countries, using theological, racial and 'demonological' motifs to vilify the Jews, including the revival of the 'blood libel' and the promotion of an image portraying Israel as a ruthless, oppressive nation . (Aryeh Stav's book "Peace; The Arabian Caricature" admirably covers this subject.). Anti-Jewish ideologies constantly being disseminated through books, newspapers, caricatures, radio and television, subsequently reaching mass audiences with this indoctrination.

The complicity of the Arab world and the Mufti in Hitler's Holocaust is also discussed along with the Palestinian National Covenant. The latter, which has still not been rescinded, containing a basic premise which demands within nearly half of it's 33 articles, that the State of Israel must cease to exist.

The present situation in the Middle East relating to the 'peace process' is also expounded with reference to the anti-Semitic diatribes within the International arena and the UN. In view of the study here, I cannot help but recall the statement of previous UN Secretary General Boutros-Gali which showed the real position of the UN;- "The Jews must give up their status as a nation and Israel as a state, and assimilate as a community in the Arab world."

Indeed, this essential study reveals that there is an underlying, universal precept at work pertaining to the Jews and the Middle East itself. I do not believe it is a desire for peace, but it is the distaste for the Jewish state. No other nation in the World is or has been treated in this way.

I concur with what the author I believe is trying to convey within his discourse about the Islamic/Arab towards Israel, in that the issue here is not 'land for peace'! It is the very existence of the Jewish state in the land of 'Islam' in the Middle East that is the issue. An existence that will never be accepted by the Moslem world, irrespective of any boundaries.

To elaborate slightly, when the Arab world demands a 'just peace', it is saying in effect that 'peace' can only come when Israel no longer exists and there are 'JUST' Arab nations in the Middle East. Perhaps readers will make up their own minds on this. This is one of the best works on anti-Semitism that I have come across to date and I highly recommend this book to everyone.

This is a very learned and convincing study of the history of Anti- Semitism. It is especially illuminating in its understanding of the new anti- Semitism which has come to the Islamic world. The bulk of the book however is devoted to European anti-Semitism and its disastrous culmination in Nazism. Wistrich is a very thorough and broad- ranging scholar and he writes with brilliance about one of the most recurrent evils in the life of mankind.

.. I haven't read this book (3 stars is the mid-point, not intended to mean anything), but would point out that, following this book, Lady Jane Birdwood in Britain published 'The Longest Hatred - Anti-Gentilism' as a booklet, which had a chequered history of prosecutions and harrassment. I assume the title was a riposte to Wistrich's book. Probably it's available on line with a bit of Googling.

Well written, but so way-off. This book's title can be used to address the long hatred that the Jews have towards the Gentiles.

I am firmly convinced that the separation demanded by Jewish religion is the primary cause of anti-semitism, simply because of the implied insult to the majority culture. If Jews would stop being separate, they would gradually stop being hated, but they would no longer be Jews, either. It's an uncomfortable situation for Jews, dealt with mostly by denying that there is any inherent insult in the traditional refusal to socialize, eat together, and intermarry.