 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Arthur Miller |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 1945 (Book Find Club) |
| Publication place | United States |
Focus is a 1945 novel by Arthur Miller which deals with issues of racism, particularly antisemitism. In 2001, a film version, starring William H. Macy, was released.
The novel is set in New York towards the end of the Second World War. Its protagonist is a Gentile named Newman, a personnel manager for a large company, who lives with his mother. Newman shares the prejudices of his neighbor Fred, who is determined to deal with the "new element" in their neighborhood, particularly a Jewish candy store owner called Finkelstein. However, Newman is an essentially timid man who mostly wants to keep his head down and be left alone to get on with his life.
Newman's life changes when he gets a new pair of eyeglasses whose style is somehow "Jewish" to several bigoted observers, and they decide he may be Jewish himself. He hires a prospective secretary whom his boss thinks is an assimilated Jew using a WASP-sounding fake name, and is later informed that he won't get a promotion and will be moved to an interior office where people can't see him. He is furious about being mistreated (and it's strongly implied, being marked as Jewish at all) and quits; ironically, he later gets a new job at a company where the owner and many of the staff are actually Jewish.
As antisemitism mounts throughout the city, a Christian Front-type group organizes to turn general ill will into action, Newman marries a girl called Gertrude. She has seen antisemitism mobilized at close quarters before, when she lived with the ringleader of an organization that abused Jews in California (someone whose views that the U.S. will soon get rid of all Jews she notes without any editorial comment), and recognizes how risky a position Newman is in when his garbage can, as well as Finkelstein's, is turned over in the night. She has also been mistakenly identified as Jewish, and is angry at this, because she is a Christian and is disgusted that anyone would think she is Jewish, not because she thinks anti-Semitism is wrong and hateful.
Newman's principles and character mean that he would prefer to stand aside while the persecution of Finkelstein continues – his own latent antisemitism tacitly endorses it, while his reticence makes it hard for him to participate. But, accidentally caught up as a victim, non-participation is not an option.
An attempt by Newman to convince Fred and his collaborators of his allegiance to their cause by attending an antisemitic rally results only in his being again taken for a Jew, attacked and ejected. Approached afterwards by Finkelstein, Newman tries to politely sell Finkelstein on the idea of leaving the neighborhood and moving somewhere where he will not be threatened. Finkelstein forcefully tells Newman he will not move: the anti-Semitic forces want to take over the U.S. (confirming what Gertrude told him earlier) and their crusade against Jews does not make any sense in that context because Jews comprise a very small percentage of the population. Newman eventually tells Gertrude he's never really given his anti-Semitic thoughts any thought and now that he has, he has disavowed the bigotry and won't support it in any way, and he responds to her angry attempts to get him to change his mind by ignoring her.
Finally, Newman and Finkelstein are together attacked in the street by a gang of men, whom they fight off. Newman realizes he cannot count on Gertrude and walks away from their marriage, later going to the police to report the attack. Asked by an officer "How many of you people live there?" he stops trying to play along with bigotry and angrily repeats his account of the attack, leading the police to take down his statement and for Newman to move into a new chapter in his life.
In a sympathetic review, The Illustrated London News called it "very readable... An effective tract for the times". [1]
New antisemitism is a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist, and writer.
Kenneth S. Stern is an American attorney and an author. He is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, a program of the Human Rights Project at Bard College. From 2014 to 2018 he was the executive director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation. From 1989 to 2014 he was the director of antisemitism, hate studies and extremism for the American Jewish Committee. In 2000, Stern was a special advisor to the defense in the David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt trial. His 2020 book, The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, examines attempts of partisans of each side to censor the other, and the resulting damage to the academy.
The War on Britain's Jews? is a 2007 documentary film by British journalist, broadcaster, writer and Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn. It was first broadcast on Channel 4 television on 9 July 2007.
Different opinions exist among historians regarding the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism contrasted with its European counterpart. In contrast to the horrors of European history, John Higham states that in the United States "no decisive event, no deep crisis, no powerful social movement, no great individual is associated primarily with, or significant chiefly because of anti-Semitism." Accordingly, David A. Gerber concludes that antisemitism "has been a distinctly minor feature of the nation's historical development." Historian Britt Tevis argue that, "Handlin and Higham’s ideas remain influential, and many American Jewish historians continue to present antisemitism as largely insignificant, momentary, primarily social."
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents.
Focus is a 2001 American drama film starring William H. Macy, Laura Dern, David Paymer and Meat Loaf based on a 1945 novel by playwright Arthur Miller. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was given a limited release on October 19, 2001.
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist and activist. His primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Antisemitic incidents escalated worldwide in frequency and intensity during the Gaza War, and were widely considered to be a wave of reprisal attacks in response to the conflict.
Defamation is a 2009 documentary film by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. It examines antisemitism, the way perceptions of antisemitism affect Israeli and U.S. politics, and explores the suggestion that claims of antisemitism are exaggerated or weaponized to stifle dissent against Israel. A major focus of the film is the Anti-Defamation League. Defamation won Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its establishment in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Antisemitism in Greece manifests itself in religious, political and media discourse. The 2009–2018 Greek government-debt crisis has facilitated the rise of far right groups in Greece, most notably the formerly obscure Golden Dawn.
" 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" is a 2006 essay written by Alvin Hirsch Rosenfeld, director of Indiana University's Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and professor of English and Jewish Studies. It was published by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) with an introduction by AJC executive director David A. Harris. The essay claims that a "number of Jews, through their speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in virulent antisemitism by questioning whether Israel should even exist".
Belgium is a European country with a Jewish population of approximately 35,000 out of a total population of about 11.4 million. It is among the countries experiencing an increase in both antisemitic attitudes and in physical attacks on Jews.
There have been instances of antisemitism within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (UK) since its establishment. One such example is canards about "Jewish finance" during the Boer War. In the 2000s, controversies arose over comments made by Labour politicians regarding an alleged "Jewish lobby", a comparison by London Labour politician Ken Livingstone of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, and a 2005 Labour attack on Jewish Conservative Party politician Michael Howard.
Antisemitism is a growing problem in 21st-century Germany.
This timeline of antisemitism chronicles the facts of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, in the 21st century. It includes events in the history of antisemitic thought, actions taken to combat or relieve the effects of antisemitism, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.
Since the foundation of the Conservative Party in 1834, there have been numerous instances of antisemitism in the party, from both Conservative party leaders and other party figures.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism for political purposes, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel, may be described variously as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card. Such bad faith accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics. Some writers have compared this to playing the race card.
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
