The Jewish Threat: Anti-semitic Politics Of The U.s. Army [Paperback]

Joseph W. Bendersky (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0465006183 | ISBN-13: 978-0465006182 | Publication Date: October 2, 2001

Very little has been written about America's own history of anti-Semitism. In this shocking book, the first documented examination of anti-Semitism in an American governmental institution, Joseph Bendersky shows that such racism permeated the highest ranks of the U.S. military throughout the past century, having a very real effect on policy decisions. Through ten years of research in more than thirty-five archives, the author uncovered irrefutable evidence of endemic and virulent anti-Semitism throughout the Army Corps from the turn of the century right up to the 1970s. This fully developed and clearly articulated perspective had a direct effect on policy discussions and decisions, affecting such matters as immigration, refugees, military strategy, and the establishment of Israel. Written with novelistic intensity and attention to intriguing detail, The "Jewish Threat" forces us to revise some of our cherished notions about our country and its most revered leaders.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The "Jewish Threat" makes the dramatic allegation that, throughout most of the last century, rampant racism in the highest ranks of the United States Army helped to shape important American public policies. Historian Joseph W. Bendersky bases most of his arguments on documents from Military Intelligence Division (MID) files that "identified a myriad of [Jewish] institutions and individuals that could be drawn upon and formed into various malleable combinations when necessary." The MID, says Bendersky, used these files to build conspiracy theories positing Jewish plans for world domination. Between 1918 and 1941, hundreds of officers contributed thousands of entries to the MID subject files indexed under the heading "Jews: Race." Bendersky's readings of these documents allege that the Army's campaign against Jewish immigration to the United States in the 1920s was motivated by racism, and that racism in the Army's highest ranks helps to explain America's slowness in responding to the Holocaust. Vigorously argued and rigorously researched, The "Jewish Threat" will fascinate students of World War II and of American race relations. --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Bendersky, author of History of Nazi Germany (1985), spent 10 years researching this important history of anti-Semitism in the U.S. Army. He offers evidence that vicious anti-Semitism permeated the highest ranks of the U.S. Army from the turn of the century through the 1970s. He found that the Army's Military Intelligence Division (NM) created a separate classification for Jews to accommodate pertinent reports, memoranda, and correspondence. Bendersky also discovered letters between officers, secret agents, state secretaries, and embassies abroad, in which information on Jews was exchanged, including lists of prominent Jews who supposedly dominated or influenced German banking, industry, and politics. These Jewish files, Bendersky shows, reveal that an anti-Semitic worldview persisted in the army officer corps throughout World War II. Although the presence of anti-Semitism in the army has never been a secret, Bendersky's documented study reveals for the first time the extent of this insidious policy of Judeophobia. This is truly a significant work. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 540 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (October 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465006183
• ISBN-13: 978-0465006182
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well researched but misses the "big picture", January 23, 2005

By 

mike duffy (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The "Jewish Threat": Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army (Hardcover)

It's hard to review this book simply because it is the only one that I know ever written on the subject of anti-Semitism and its influence on US Army poicy from the end of WWI through the end of WWII and into the 50's. It certainly is exhaustive - the research is incredible, and it is very well written. The author has dug up dozens of Army officers, mostly mid level careerists, who held anti-Jewish views. What Bendersky has failed to do was explain how a handful of anti-Semetic officers influenced American policy or changed the course of WWII.

7 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bendersky, for all of his obvious hatred toward his subjects, tells a compelling story, November 14, 2008

By 

Michael Santomauro "What sort of Truth is it ... (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The "Jewish Threat": Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army (Hardcover)

Bendersky, for all of his obvious hatred toward his subjects, tells a compelling story. Bendersky's sense of intellectual and moral superiority and his contempt for his Northern European subjects ooze on every page. One of the advantages of being on the winning side in these intellectual battles is that Bendersky can safely assume that any statement by a U.S. military officer that reflects negatively on Jews or Judaism is a reflection of the prejudices and bigotry of the officer and has nothing to do with the actual behavior of Jews or the nature of Judaism.

Bendersky also makes it appear that reports of Jewish-Bolshevik atrocities are fantasies. Reports stated that Jewish-Bolshevik methods included not only seizure and destruction of property but also "barbarism and butchery". Included in the reports were photographs of "naked bodies with butchered flesh, hanging upside down from trees, while 'the Bolsheviki soldiers were laughing and grinning and standing about'". Bendersky writes as if such claims are unworthy of being rebutted, yet there is more than enough evidence that such things did happen. Indeed, the recently published Black Book of Communism not only documents the horrific slaughter of some 20 million Soviet citizens, the widespread torture, mass deportations, and imprisonment in appalling conditions, but reproduces the photos from 1919 of a naked Polish officer impaled through the anus hanging upside down from trees while Bolshevik soldiers are laughing and grinning and standing about.

But, in the end, one just has to believe the officers whose views he chronicles and not their chronicler.

11 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important work, October 3, 2001

By 

J. A Magill (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The "Jewish Threat": Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army (Hardcover)

Much has been written recently about the previously unexplored history of racism in the US Army. My own favorite was "An Incident at West Point" though several books about the famed Tuskegee Airmen have also received wide praise. What has been given less attention is the history of anti-Semitism in the US Army. With this work, Joseph Bendersky, a noted history professor, ends that glaring omission.

Bendersky documents several layers of anti-Semitism in the US army, through most of the 20th century. In the early part of the century, it was reflected in opposition to immigration based on the belief that Jews represented a "bad and unchristian" element. Moving forward, the author exposes the army subscribing to such infamous anti-Semitic canards as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" that argues for a world wide Jewish conspiracy whose goal is the destruction of Christianity.

These beliefs had great impact on American policy. A great example being General Marshall's opposition to the State of Israel, when he served in Truman's cabinet.

Many, myself included, will find the subject of this book disquieting. That is all the more reason that we are fortunate that an excellent scholar with meticulous attention to research and citations wrote this very fine work. It is an excellent source for those interested in the history of the Jews in America.