The New Antisemitism
The Resurgence of an Ancient Hatred in the Modern World
1. Auflage Juni 2024
256 Seiten, Hardcover
Sachbuch
Kurzbeschreibung
Generations raised after the Second World War took for granted a world of stability and prosperity, and with it the waning of ancient hatreds. Recent decades have been more sobering. Instability and extremism have returned in force. As Shalom Lappin explains in this worrying book, an upsurge of antisemitism across the political spectrum has accompanied them. Recent events in the Middle East have transformed it into a tidal wave.
Lappin explores in particular the disturbing correlation between the expansion of economic globalization and the return of the anti-Jewish ideas that we thought had been consigned to the past. He examines this relationship within the context of the assault on democracy and social cohesion that anti-globalist reactions have launched in different parts of the world. To understand contemporary antisemitism, Lappin argues, it is essential to recognize the way in which its antecedents have become deeply embedded in Western and Middle Eastern cultures over millennia. This allows hostility to Jews to cross political boundaries easily, left and right, in a way that other forms of racism do not. Combatting antisemitism effectively requires a new progressive politics that addresses its root causes.
The New Antisemitism is crucial reading for anyone concerned with the social pathologies unleashed by our current economic and political discontents.
Generations raised after the Second World War took for granted a world of stability and prosperity, and with it the waning of ancient hatreds. Recent decades have been more sobering. Instability and extremism have returned in force. As Shalom Lappin explains in this worrying book, an upsurge of antisemitism across the political spectrum has accompanied them. Recent events in the Middle East have transformed it into a tidal wave.
Lappin explores in particular the disturbing correlation between the expansion of economic globalization and the return of the anti-Jewish ideas that we thought had been consigned to the past. He examines this relationship within the context of the assault on democracy and social cohesion that anti-globalist reactions have launched in different parts of the world. To understand contemporary antisemitism, Lappin argues, it is essential to recognize the way in which its antecedents have become deeply embedded in Western and Middle Eastern cultures over millennia. This allows hostility to Jews to cross political boundaries easily, left and right, in a way that other forms of racism do not. Combatting antisemitism effectively requires a new progressive politics that addresses its root causes.
The New Antisemitism is crucial reading for anyone concerned with the social pathologies unleashed by our current economic and political discontents.
Chapter 1: Introduction: Democracy in Crisis
Chapter 2: The Roots of Antisemitism in Western Culture
Chapter 3: The View from the Right
Chapter 4: The View from the Left
Chapter 5: The View from Radical Political Islamism
Chapter 6: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Re-Naturalised
Chapter 7: The Jewish Response to the Crisis
Chapter 8: Notes for a New Progressive Politics
Notes
References
Index
Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
"A deep and thoughtful analysis of a pernicious phenomenon that has made a tragic reappearance in intellectual life."
Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author of Rationality
"The New Antisemitism is beautifully written and theoretically brilliant. Lappin addresses the toxic, intimate relationship between antisemitism and global inequality, and analyses the pernicious, parallel role of the left and the right in fostering antisemitism worldwide. Unfortunately, I can't think of a more timely book."
Susie Linfield, Professor of Journalism at New York University and author of The Lions' Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky
"Much writing on contemporary antisemitism is limited by treating it as a free-floating discourse, by engaging only one expression of it - left, right or religious - and by despairing about the prospect of defeating it. Lappin's book offers us a critical and global political economy of contemporary antisemitism, a historically grounded account of its spread across the left and right, and a course set on hope: a new progressive politics that, by leaning into class, focusing on socializing globalization, and stimulating new social solidarities, can tear antisemitism up by the roots."
Alan Johnson, editor of Mapping Left Antisemitism: The Fathom Essays
