The New Anti-Semitism

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The New Anti-Semitism
The New Anti-Semitism cover, 1974.jpg
Cover of the first edition
Author Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein
LanguageEnglish
Subject Antisemitism
Publisher McGraw Hill
Publication date
1974
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pagesxii+354
ISBN 0-07-021615-0
OCLC 796954
301.451924
LC Class DS146.U6 F67

The New Anti-Semitism is a 1974 book by Anti-Defamation League leaders Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein in which the authors present the term new antisemitism [a] and the idea that a new form of discrimination against Jews has emerged, especially with regard to Zionism and the State of Israel. [2] [3] [4] [5] The book chronicles what it presents as both Radical Right and Radical Left antisemitism. The book has been criticized for conflating anti-Zionism—opposition to Zionism—with antisemitism—discrimination against Jews. [4] [5]

Contents

Content

The authors describe the new antisemitism as "indifference to the most profound apprehensions of the Jewish people; a blandness and apathy in dealing with anti-Jewish behavior, a widespread incapacity or unwillingness to comprehend the necessity of the existence of Israel to Jewish safety and survival throughout the world." [6]

The book covers what it presents as both Radical Right and Radical Left antisemitism. Examples of the former are given as the George Wallace campaign and the John Birch Society, while the authors argue that there is also a Radical Left antisemitism that is a new and recent phenomenon. [7] : 1–19 

On criticism of Israel

The equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is an important aspect of the book. Forster and Epstein address the matter on page 17 of their book: [7] : 17 

Statements and propaganda manifestos calling for the destruction or dissolution of Israel, or equating Israeli defense with Arab assault, are seen by Jews as attacks against themselves and world Jewry and, along with other activities supporting those sworn to destroy Israel, are perceived as the ultimate anti-Semitism.

Of course one can be unsympathetic to or oppose Israel's position on specific issues without being anti-Jewish. But many of the anti-Israel statements from non-Jewish sources, often the most respectable, carry an undeniable anti-Jewish message....

... Just as Israel's survival depends in substantial measure on support from Jews in the United States and elsewhere, Jews in the Diaspora have come to feel that their own security and the only hope for their survival as a people, in a world from which anti-Semitism has never disappeared, depends in large measure on the survival of Israel. [8]

On antisemitism in the US

The book addresses matters in US popular culture that it labels antisemitic, including Daniel Berrigan, [8] Gerald L. K. Smith's project Christ of the Ozarks, [6] and the 1973 Norman Jewison film Jesus Christ Superstar. [6] [8]

The final two chapters focus on the "Radical Right" and "The Hatemongers", focusing on Willis Carto and his Liberty Lobby, and Smith, a white supremacist Christian writer who railed against Jews. It also focuses on several of his associates, including Ed Fields, the writer of The Thunderbolt racist newspaper, and J. B. Stoner, as well as the Ku Klux Klan. [7] : 285–307 

Reception

Australian journalist and author Robert Moss reviewed the book critically in The New Republic , writing: "The authors see Israel as vital 'to the safety and survival of Jews throughout the world,' and it is here that criticism of their work must begin. For although they concede that 'one can be unsympathetic to Zionism ... without being anti-Jewish,' they themselves continually blur or ignore this distinction." [9]

In her review for the Journal of Ecumenical Studies , Hilda Penman Greenwald wrote of it: "Poorly organized, poorly documented, anecdotal rather than analytical, unselective, and at times quite arbitrary in terms of what constitutes anti-Semitism, the total effect is to vitiate the authors' very real thesis, i.e., that overt anti-Semitism is indeed on the rise with possible consequences far more serious (to Jew and Christian alike) than the authors, because of the very limitations of their approach, can foresee." Greenwald added that the authors "persist in treating this virulent social disease as an epiphenomenon on the social fabric, which will go away if one is vigilant enough about it." [10]

American Methodist theologian and pastor A. Roy Eckardt (1918–1998) reviewed the book favorably, though noting: "Literary duty obliges me to interpose an anticlimactic note. The book is afflicted with shoddy proofreading. Typographical and other minor errors are legion. And, inexcusably, there is no index." [11]

In her review for the Middle East Research and Information Project, Sharon Rose wrote: "To large numbers of Americans, Daniel Berrigan is a hero; his anti-Zionist remarks are particularly threatening to Zionists.Thus they must be quickly branded "anti-Semitism," so that no one but the lunatic fringe will consider them worthy of further discussion. This approach is the basis of Forster and Epstein's work, and indeed, that of most of Berrigan's critics: whatever is anti-Zionist is by definition anti-Semitic." [8]

In Archives de sciences sociales des religions, Martine Cohen writes that the book is essentially descriptive, content to label attitudes as "antisemitic" without addressing the reasons or providing sufficient analysis, but that it "constitutes important foundational work for such a study". [12]

For the American Jewish Historical Quarterly , Morton Rosenstock, while describing the book as "a pot-pourri which does not fully support the authors' hypothesis in a vigorous manner," writes that it is "a useful summary of contemporary anti-Semitism, if not a completely viable theoretical framework." [6] [13]

Legacy

In 2003, Abraham Foxman, director of the ADL from 1987 to 2015, published Never again?: the threat of the new anti-Semitism, [14] in which he drew heavily on Forster and Epstein's book. [5]

Jewish American activist Simone Zimmerman writes that the ADL has "conflated the safety of Jews with support for the state of Israel" since the 1970s, and that it "has sought to popularize the concept of the 'new antisemitism,' the idea that Israel as 'the Jew on the world stage,' was being unfairly singled out for criticism in ways that echoed old school antisemitism." [4]

Notes

  1. ↑ The spelling without hyphenation is preferred according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, because the spelling with hyphenation implies that there is a valid opposite concept called "Semitism". [1]

References

  1. ↑ "Memo on Spelling of Antisemitism" (PDF). International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. April 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  2. ↑ Berkman, Matthew (2022). "The Conflict on Campus". In A. Siniver (ed.). Routledge Companion to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Taylor & Francis. p. 522. ISBN   978-0-429-64861-8 . Retrieved 2023-05-21. Attempts to rearticulate antisemitism to encompass opposition to Israel's "right to exist" or its character as a Jewish state date back to the 1970s, when the Anti-Defamation League first popularized a discourse on "the new antisemitism" (see Forster and Epstein 1974; on the subsequent development of that discourse see Judaken 2008). The identification of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has long been de rigueur in Jewish communal and broader pro-Israel circles, but only in the last two decades have Israel advocacy groups endeavoured to establish it as a principle of United States anti-discrimination law. The earliest step in this direction was taken in 2004, when Kenneth L. Marcus, the Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) under President George W. Bush, issued a game-changing policy guidance letter empowering OCR staff, for the first time, to investigate complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act alleging pervasive antisemitism on college campuses.
  3. ↑ Levin, Geoffery P. (2021). "Before the New Antisemitism: Arab Critics of Zionism and American Jewish Politics, 1917-1974" . American Jewish History. 105 (1–2): 103–126. doi:10.1353/ajh.2021.0005. ISSN   1086-3141. The response of American Jewish groups to the 1937 controversy may come as a surprise given that in recent decades, some of these same organizations have argued that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic and at times have specifically emphasized "Arab" and "Muslim" forms of antisemitism.5 In seeking to understand the origins of this rhetoric, scholars have focused on the emergence of the term "the new anti-Semitism" in the 1970s. Daniel Schroeter writes that in the aftermath of the 1967 war, advocates for Israel "alarmed at what they saw as growing sympathy for the Arabs and Palestinians began to use the term 'new anti-Semitism,' which they understood as antisemitism either expressed or disguised as anti-Zionism." Central to the "new anti-Semitism," Schroeter continues, "was Arab hostility to Israel and the Jews ('Arab anti-Semitism'), as well as Western support for the Arabs and Palestinians."6 The 1974 book The New Anti-Semitism by Anti-Defamation League (ADL) leaders Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein gave a name to the concept.7 "Islamic anti-Semitism" soon became part of the "new anti-Semitism" discourse as Islamism ascended in Middle Eastern politics.8 Some began portraying Muslims' opposition to Zionism as part of a long history of anti-Jewish feelings within Islam dating back to the medieval era, drawing from what Mark Cohen has termed the "neo-lachrymose conception of Jewish-Arab history," a revisionist narrative that emphasized the mistreatment of Jews in Islamic lands. According to Cohen and Schroeter, this "neo-lachrymose conception" had been developed in part to rebut Arab advocates' claims that Zionism had ruined an otherwise idyllic history of Jewish-Muslim relations.9
  4. 1 2 3 Zimmerman, Simone (August 2025). "Nakba denial and the future of American Judaism" . Critical Research on Religion. 13 (2): 247–253. doi:10.1177/20503032251344335. ISSN   2050-3032. In order to maintain ironclad support for Israel, many American Jewish organizations deny not just the reality of the Nakba, but also the fact that this unjust, unequal, and oppressive reality endangers all who live between the river and the sea—Jewish and Palestinian. They work overtime to preserve an image of a moral and beleaguered Israel, to insist that calls for accountability are an existential threat, and to silence voices of dissent. There is perhaps no organization more identified with this strategy than the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL says they're a neutral arbiter of antisemitism, no matter where it shows up, but that's not true. They have conflated the safety of Jews with support for the state of Israel. In so doing, they undermine their own stated mission of fighting antisemitism. How did this happen? Since the 1970s, the ADL has sought to popularize the concept of the "new antisemitism," the idea that Israel as "the Jew on the world stage," was being unfairly singled out for criticism in ways that echoed old school antisemitism (see Forster and Benjamin 1974).
  5. 1 2 3 Judaken, Jonathan (September 2008). "So what's new? Rethinking the 'new antisemitism' in a global age" . Patterns of Prejudice. 42 (4–5): 531–560. doi:10.1080/00313220802377453. ISSN   0031-322X.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Rosenstock, Morton (1975). "Review of The New Anti-Semitism". American Jewish Historical Quarterly. 64 (3): 274–275. ISSN   0002-9068.
  7. 1 2 3 Forster, Arnold; Epstein, Benjamin R. (1974). The New Anti-Semitism. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. ISBN   978-0-07-021615-0.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Rose, Sharon (1974). "Review of The New Anti-Semitism" . MERIP Reports (28): 28–30. doi:10.2307/3011297. ISSN   0047-7265.
  9. ↑ Moss, Robert F. “The New Anti-Semitism (Book).” New Republic 170, no. 16 (April 20, 1974): 30–31.
  10. ↑ Greenwald, Hilda P. “The New Anti-Semitism.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 12, no. 4 (December 31, 1975): 587–89.
  11. ↑ Eckardt, A. Roy (January 1975). "The New Anti-Semitism: By Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein : New York, McGraw Hill, 1974. 354 pp. $7.95" . Theology Today. 31 (4): 373–377. doi:10.1177/004057367503100422. ISSN   0040-5736.
  12. ↑ Cohen, Martine (1975). "Review of The New Anti-Semitism". Archives de sciences sociales des religions . 20 (40): 214–214. ISSN   0335-5985. Livre essentiellement descriptif donc, où les A.A. se contentent de qualifier ces attitudes d'« antisémites » mais n'en explicitent pas suffisamment les raisons. Les formes nouvelles de cet antisémitisme et ses motivations profondes sont de temps à autre notées, mais ne sont pas vraiment analysées. Il aurait été intéressant, par exemple, de développer l'hypothèse avancée en introduction d'une incapacité à percevoir, en même temps, plusieurs victimes ; incapacité qui conduirait les Américains à déplacer leur attention bienveillante des Juifs vers les Noirs, dès que ceux-là ne seraient plus l'objet d'attaques directes et s'insèreraient dans le processus de développement écono-mique. Mais une étude analytique n'était sans doute pas le but des A.A. Collecte d'informations et de citations, leur livre constitue un important travail de base pour une telle étude.
  13. ↑ Mills, Frederick V, Sr. “The New Anti-Semitism.” The Christian Century 91, no. 22 (December 31, 1974): 621–22.
  14. ↑ Foxman, Abraham H. (2003). Never again? : the threat of the new anti-Semitism. Internet Archive. [San Francisco] : HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN   978-0-06-054246-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
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