ZGram - 1/6/2003 - "Is anti-Semitism sweeping Canada?"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

January 6, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

An article worth pondering.  Take just this sentence, lifted from 
below:  "Holocaust
shame kept the demon corked. But now the atonement is passed."

[START]

Is anti-Semitism sweeping Canada?
                              
Michael R. Marrus <michael.marrus@utoronto.ca>

National Post | January 02, 2003

Anti-Semitism, warns The Jerusalem Post in last Wednesday's editorial, is
on the rise in Canada. Outsiders' views on such a serious subject command
attention, and when the commentator is an Israeli newspaper and the
evaluation of the situation so grave as it was in the Post, one cannot help
but consider the
matter carefully. Is there indeed a wave of anti-Semitism in Canada today?
The Jerusalem Post is certainly not the first to say so. Canadian Jews are
increasingly apprehensive. Certainly as well, as Saskatchewan native leader
David Ahenakew's rant confirmed sickeningly, a vicious anti-Jewish racism
still exists -- although it is not clear whether the now disgraced elder
hates Jews any more than he hates other minorities. What is much less clear
is
whether other recent anti-Jewish irruptions in Canada -- synagogue arsons,
cemetery desecrations, the still-unexplained murder of an Orthodox Jew in
Toronto, and Concordia University -- are linked to the long and
blood-soaked history of anti-Semitism, are expressions of deep-seated
popular antipathies to Jews, and whether they signal, as a recent statement
by some distinguished Canadians has it, that Jews are "at risk."

Worldwide, there seems to be a trend. Coinciding more or less with the
outbreak of the "Second Intifada" -- the uprising of Palestinians against
Israelis that began in September 2000 -- attacks on Jews and Jewish
institutions flared in parts of Europe with high concentrations of
immigrants from Muslim countries, notably in France. The following summer,
at the
UN-sponsored conference in Durban, South Africa, there was vociferous
anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist mobilization -- particularly shameful given
that the conference was on racism and that radical anti-Jewish activists
from dozens of NGOs seemed at times indistinguishable from government
delegates. Since then, pessimism has become received wisdom. "In Europe,"
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer has claimed, "it is not very
safe to be a Jew. What is odd is not the anti-Semitism of today but its
relative absence during the past half-century. That was the historical
anomaly. Holocaust
shame kept the demon corked. But now the atonement is passed."

Opposing such views, some urge caution. Writing in The New Republic about
American Jewry, Leon Wieseltier diagnosed "ethnic panic": "The community is
sunk in excitability, in the imagination of disaster. There is a loss of
intellectual control. Death is at every Jewish door. Fear is wild. Reason
is derailed. Anxiety is the supreme proof of authenticity. Imprecise and
inflammatory analogies abound. Holocaust imagery is everywhere." Even for
Europe, some seek to reassure. Here is Anthony Lerman: "There is no mass
discrimination against Jews, no state sponsored anti-Semitism, no
suppression of Jewish culture in the communist bloc, no anti-Semitism
encouraged by the hierarchies of either the Protestant or Catholic
churches. Jews are experiencing unprecedented freedom and success. Since
the end of the Second World War, a legal framework, at national and
international levels, has been created designed to punish racists and
anti-Semites." No one claims that anti-Semitism has disappeared, or that it
cannot occasionally surface, even at smart dinner parties in London. The
real question is what to make of the present flurry of anti-Semitic
incidents and how to read them in the present context.

My own sense is that we need a much more nuanced view than is customarily
pronounced in either of the two evaluations. First, we should not be
surprised that the conditioning context for anti-Semitism is global, with
local
manifestations suffused with powerful expressions deriving from
international conflicts. Material is hardly in short supply. From the
Middle East engines of classic anti-Semitic propaganda generate incitements
-- including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion with its blood-curdling
pedigree going back to the Czarist Empire. Anti-globalization campaigners
have spawned anti-Semitic fellow travellers, promoting an anti-Jewish
vision of the world internationally. Images of the atrocious struggle of
Israelis and Palestinians appear instantly,
broadcast around the world. How could these not become the grist for any
number of political mills? No one should be surprised when people without
any particular anti-Jewish priority identify spontaneously with Palestinian
insurgents and not their more powerful opponents. And so far as
international
conspiracies to control the world, how could at least some of the delirious
campaigners who want to blow up the World Bank not see Jews as
co-conspirators? In short, local conditions and deeply entrenched
proclivities may have much less to do with anti-Semitic expressions than
many think.

Second, recourse to international reference points means that the conflict
in the Middle East is inextricably linked with images of Jews. Many Jews,
having grown up with the heroic and benign vision of Zionism, fail to see
how any rational person of goodwill could have a different view. However,
leaving aside
the substance of the matter, for no other bloody political dispute do we
expect reason and goodwill to prevail in how conflicts are understood.
Particularly in Europe, there are predispositions to fixating upon Israel
deriving from
associations that have nothing originally to do with traditional
anti-Semitism -- a self-righteous hatred of the heritage of European
colonialism, a loathing of America, suspicions about Holocaust restitution,
an affinity with supposed anti-Western underdogs. From each of these
starting points some people
find their way not only to a disliking of Israel, but sometimes to grossly
unfair criticisms, and from there, occasionally, to attacks on the Jewish
people for whom Israel is a national expression.

Third, these twists and turns are extraordinarily difficult to measure in
terms of the strength of the anti-Semitic ingredient or the social
influence that they might represent. No one has ever been able to assess
the extent of "Holocaust guilt," the absence of which has allegedly
encouraged anti-Semitism, and some historians who have examined this
phenomenon have been hard-pressed to find any traces of such guilt in the
postwar period. Moreover, there is no solid evidence of a more permissive
climate for anti-Semitic activity now, than in the past; indeed, the
universal Canadian denunciation of David Ahenakew's ravings might well
suggest the opposite. More helpful explanations of what is going on may
well lie in comparing sources of anti-Semitic intensity in various
societies -- notably the marginalization of immigrants from Muslim
countries and the pathologies of unsuccessfully modernized communities.
Overall, it is well to keep in mind that extremist politics these days --
particularly with the example of al-Qaeda and 9/11 -- seem far more prone
than it ever was to
express itself violently. Indeed, the recourse to violence may be precisely
a reflection of the marginality of such extremism. Paradoxically,
anti-Jewish incidents can flare up despite a decline in anti-Semitic
attitudes among the general population -- a pattern that may well be the
case in Canada and certainly has been documented for the United States and
Europe.

Anti-Semitism has been called "the longest hatred" -- underscoring that
detestation of Jews has been both extraordinarily durable in Western
culture and stubbornly resistant to efforts to limit its destructive force.
It has
certainly not lost its ugly face or its dangerous potential. There is a
danger, however, that alarm can short circuit explanation, providing an
obstacle rather than an aid to understanding. What is happening now seems
to be the work of highly diverse, globally oriented bedfellows who
occasionally promote a Jewish theme, rather than a recrudescence of ancient
hatreds. Not every anti-Semitic expression is a reflection of the hoary
anti-Semitic tradition, not every
incident should evoke the Holocaust, and we need to be as clear-eyed as
possible in judging just what it is, as a society, that we face.


Michael Marrus is the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust
Studies at the University of Toronto and the author of The Holocaust in
History. <end>