By Anthony Julius
“This is an essential history and so it’s fortunate it has been written by a man with the extraordinary fluency, staggering erudition, scholarly integrity, intellectual acumen, and moral discernment of Anthony Julius.” –Philip Roth
“Part history of an irrational hatred, part forensic analysis of a sophistical lie, part literary criticism – for, as Anthony Julius shows, anti-Semitism is a species of fantastical literature, all figure of speech, misquotation and fancy – this exhilarating work nails a defamation which, to humanity’s discredit, persists to this hour. Indispensable.” –Howard Jacobson
“Anthony Julius has produced a brilliant and readable account of a shameful stain on the national reputation. The best dissection I’ve seen of Britain’s oldest and least acknowledged racial prejudice.” –Nick Cohen
“Writing against a backdrop of rising violence and abuse directed at English Jews and the State of Israel, Anthony Julius insightfully and passionately traces antisemitism’s abject history in England from the medieval period until today. This eminently readable book is thoroughly researched and nuanced, and its take on contemporary antisemitism is a true tour de force.” –Jehuda Reinharz, Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History and President, Brandeis University
Trials of the Diaspora is a ground-breaking book that offers the first ever comprehensive history of anti-Semitism in England. Anthony Julius identifies four distinct versions of English anti-Semitism, which he then proceeds to investigate in detail. The first is the anti-Semitism of medieval England, a radical prejudice of defamation, expropriation, and murder, which culminated in 1290, the year of Edward I’s expulsion of the Jews from England, after which there were no Jews left to torment. The second major strand is literary anti-Semitism: an anti-Semitic account of Jews continuously present in the discourse of English literature, from the anonymous medieval ballad “Sir Hugh, or the Jew’s Daughter” through Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot and beyond. Thirdly, Julius addresses modern anti-Semitism, a quotidian anti-Semitism of insult and partial exclusion, pervasive but contained, experienced by Jews from their “readmission” to England in the mid-17th century through to the late 20th century. The final chapters then deal with contemporary anti-Semitism, a new configuration of anti-Zionisms, emerging in the late 1960s and the 1970s, which treats Zionism and the State of Israel as illegitimate Jewish enterprises. It is this final perspective which, in Julius’s opinion, now constitutes the greatest threat to Anglo-Jewish security and morale. This book, the first history of its kind, is sure to provoke much comment and debate, and comes as a timely reminder that English culture has been in no way immune to anti-Semitism – and in certain ways is still not to this day.
Previously published as a special issue of The Journal of Israeli History, this book presents the reflections of historians from Israel, Europe, Canada and the United States concerning the similarities and differences between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism primarily in Europe and the Middle East.
Spanning the past century, the essays explore the continuum of critique from early challenges to Zionism and they offer criteria to ascertain when criticism with particular policies has and has not coalesced into an “ism” of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Including studies of England, France, Germany, Poland, the United States, Iran and Israel, the volume also examines the elements of continuity and break in European traditions of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism when they diffused to the Arab and Islamic.
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A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement
By Jame Horrox
Against the backdrop of the early development of Palestinian-Jewish and Israeli society, James Horrox explores the history of the kibbutz movement: intentional communities based on cooperative social principles, deeply egalitarian and anarchist in their organisation.
“The defining influence of anarchist currents in the early kibbutz movement has been one of official Zionist historiography’s best-kept secrets…It is against this background of induced collective amnesia that A Living Revolution makes its vital contribution. James Horrox has drawn on archival research, interviews and political analysis to thread together the story of a period all but gone from living memory, presenting it for the first time to an English-reading audience. These pages bring to life the most radical and passionate voices that shaped the second and third waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine, and also encounter those contemporary projects working to revive the spirit of the kibbutz as it was intended to be, despite, and because of, their predecessors’ fate.” —Uri Gordon, from the foreword
“A brilliant study of anarchism in the kibbutz movement, particularly regarding economy and polity. Revealing the roots and processes of the influx of anarchist ideas and practices into the early Jewish labour movement, assessing the actual kibbutz practice and seeing the kibbutzim as both a model way to live and a set of experiments to learn from, Horrox gives this history the meticulous attention it deserves. A Living Revolution is comprehensive, caring and even passionate, but also critical. Horrox’s study is an exemplary undertaking we can learn much from.”—Michael Albert, editor Znet and Z Magazine
“James Horrox’s accessible and clear history of the kibbutz movement and its intellectual roots is interesting and informative. Sensitive to political contexts in which the movement has operated, it provides a refreshing reminder of the constructive possibilities of anarchist ideas.”—Ruth Kinna, editor Anarchist Studies
Read the forward here
Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia Hatreds Old and New in Europe
By Matti Bunzl
The apparent resurgence of hostility toward Jews has been a prominent theme in recent discussions of Europe; at the same time, the adversities faced by the continent’s Muslim population have received increasing attention. In Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, Matti Bunzl offers a historical and cultural clarification of the key terms in these ongoing problems. Arguing against the common impulse to analogize anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, it instead offers a framework that locates the two phenomena in different projects of exclusion.
According to Bunzl, anti-Semitism was invented in the late nineteenth century to police the ethnically pure nation-state. Islamophobia, by contrast, is a phenomenon of the present, marshaled to safeguard a supranational Europe. With the declining importance of the nation-state, traditional anti-Semitism has run its historical course, while Islamophobia threatens to become the defining condition of the new, unified Europe. By ridding us of misapprehensions, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia enables us to see these forces anew.
Dissonant Memories – Fragmented Present Exchanging Young Discourses between Israel and Germany
How does the younger generation exchange discourses between Israel and Germany? In this essay collection, authors from both societies elaborate on their memories of the Holocaust, the Nazi past and their present. They ponder experiences in German-Israeli exchange as well as social and political realities in both countries. By highlighting marginalised memories such as Palestinian and migrant ones, they challenge monolithic national memory discourses. Altogether, a trans-national memory discourse emerges – albeit a dissonant and highly subjective one, truthfully reflecting some of the fragmentations that actually exist in both societies.
From The University of Chicago Press:
In 1978, as the protests against the Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera and le Nouvel Observateur. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution is the first book-length analysis of these essays on Iran, the majority of which have never before appeared in English. Accompanying the analysis are annotated translations of the Iran writings in their entirety and the at times blistering responses from such contemporaneous critics as Middle East scholar Maxime Rodinson as well as comments on the revolution by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir.
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January 11th, 2008 | admin
Jan Gross’ new book “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation” is highly recommended for those who not only want to know more of the empirical facts of anti-Jewish persecution in Poland after the Holocaust, but also those who want to think about the causes of this intense animosity.
The book’s thesis is very provokative, as Gross does not rely on simple “eternal antisemitism” theses. He argues, quite convincingly that the intensity of post-Holocaust antisemitism in Poland, had specifically to do with the Poles’ Holocaust experience itself. I recommend Natan Sznaider’s review, “Chasing Away the Memory of Guilt: The End of Jewish Life in Poland.”
Also, in a very interesting section Gross evaluates “How the Working-Class Reacted to the Kielce Pogrom and What the Communist Party Made of It.” For those thinking about the failures of the Left to oppose antisemitism, this section has a lot to offer, as it exposes the Communist Party’s Real Politik approach to the issue, eventually siding with the Polish working-class against the Jews.
