What can be done to fight today’s iteration of antisemitism?
Graves vandalised with swastikas at the Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim, close to the border with Germany in the Alsace region, on the day of nationwide marches against a rise in antisemitic attacks on Feb. 19, 2019.We live in an age of democracy – at least, some of us. We live in an age of populism, fertile ground for conspiracy theories. We live in an age of identity politics destroying common aspirations and pitting us one against the other.
The antisemite believes he gives value to his mediocrity by joining with others to hate Jews. By so doing, he is no longer alone. He is no longer impotent. He is transformed. He has joined the elite of the ordinary. Occasionally, the mediocre man is not just mediocre. He is deranged, perhaps a psychopath. He may murder. He may join with others to murder.
Democracy is the best form of government for many reasons. Its attendant ideas – liberty, popular participation, self-determination and social equality – are much to be desired and cherished. But evil can flourish within democracy and feed off its attributes. Populists are attracted to conspiracy theories, and much antisemitism incorporates such theories. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, proclaimed in 2021 by an international group of distinguished scholars, says: “What is particular in classic antisemitism is the idea that Jews are linked to the forces of evil.
Populism is closely tied to modern identity politics. Identity politics is the natural home of groups that consider themselves marginalized. Identity politics rejects universalism in favour of particularism, liberalism in favour of tribalism. It emphasizes individual cultural issues and ignores the complex nature of major problems, such as climate change, which cut across particular identities.
Second, identity politics is exclusionary. It accentuates the idea of the Jew as the proverbial “Other.” Third, attempted assimilation into the broader community, a long-standing technique of Jewish minorities, is much more difficult in the age of identity politics. Meaningful broad communities that welcome others and ignore distinctions are dying rather than developing.
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