How do you differentiate?
Whether an academic publication succeeds in attracting readers outside the seminar room depends on the extent to which it is able to provide answers to urgent questions in society using universally understandable language.
In any case, it is impossible to imagine the current public debate in Germany without the question posed by an anthology published this spring: Was ist Antisemitism's? ('What is anti-Semitism?')Even before 7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza, this question was on the minds of features-section writers in Germany who were dealing with themes such as postcolonialism, the Historikerstreit (historians' quarrel) 2.0 and the boycott movement against Israel. But later it took on a new edge in what can aptly be described as the "war discourse".
When talking about anti-Semitism in Germany, we are after all dealing not least with a shift of the Israel-Palestine conflict into the public sphere. And this sphere is not a neutral one, given that the German government is involved in the Gaza war in the name of its "reason of state" – a reason of state that also has an impact on domestic policies.
It therefore comes as no surprise that public discourse on anti-Semitism was already dominated by the question of anti-Semitism in relation to Israel even before 7 October. This, in turn, is often associated with left-wing, migrant or, more recently, "postcolonial" stakeholders.
Majority society anti-Semitism
The anti-Semitism of majority society therefore usually remains under the radar. Many are grateful for this, and not just the far-right forces in the orbit of the AfD party, because by embracing a decidedly pro-Israeli stance they can remove themselves from the debate and fuel it in their favour.
These deeper connections were evident in the European elections, in which the far-right AfD party came in second in Germany. Across Europe, parties to the right of the conservative spectrum made gains. The far-right Israeli government welcomed the election results in the hope that the growing criticism of the war in Gaza will now subside
After the massacre perpetrated by Hamas, anthologies were hastily compiled and books produced in a journalistic rush in an attempt to understand the events and suggest discussion points.
The present volume, by contrast, is the result of a multi-year research project funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and the Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism. Its publication after the bloodiest day in Jewish history since 1945, and in the midst of an existential war that makes all previous rounds of the Israel-Palestine conflict pale in comparison, is pure coincidence.
Is it possible to define anti-Semitism?
When a book title comes with a question mark, it is often a means of thinly disguising a provocation, or because we already know the answer. The motivation behind this title is different, though, as the question refers to the difficulty of defining a phenomenon that has pervaded many parts of the world for centuries.
In other words: which definition of anti-Semitism would be capable of encompassing anti-Semitism in Greco-Roman antiquity as well as the anti-Semitism of medieval pogromists and the Nazis? And what about anti-Semitism after Auschwitz, in its manifold forms? What about the anti-Semitic content of Islamist anti-Zionism?
Is a definition that seeks to reconcile several thousands of years of history, to incorporate various ideologies, actions and institutions, not inevitably doomed to fail due to the diversity of its subject? Holocaust researcher David Engels answered this question with an explicit yes in a well-known essay from 2009. The title: Away from a Definition of Anti-Semitism.
Germany's war discourse
The manner in which the escalation of violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip is being discussed is, in many ways, unsurprising
A successful approach
The contributors to this anthology do not take this radical step. Instead, as they write in the introduction, "the book illustrates the diversity of understandings of anti-Semitism and examines the difficulty of defining anti-Semitism". The book has a dual purpose: namely, "to make the complex knowledge of the different understandings of anti-Semitism available to a wider audience in accordance with the state of current research and, secondly, to organise these insights and overviews in a reflective manner for the expert public" (p. 10f.).
The structure of the book, which is divided into four sections, follows from this endeavour. The first three sections have the character of a handbook, while the fourth part, a summary of the research group's work, is aimed at an academic audience.
The first section, "Basic Concepts", explains forms and phases of anti-Semitism as they are discussed in public, such as Israel-related anti-Semitism and secondary anti-Semitism after Auschwitz, which operates with relativisation and the reversal of perpetrator and victim.
Problem areas and positions
This section contains many entries that help to shed light on current debates. In his article "Postcolonial Anti-Semitism", for example, Jan Weyand describes an almost mirror-image relationship to Israel that can be observed within the political right and left. While the New Right in Europe sees Israel as a "white" outpost of the "Judeo-Christian West", postcolonial leftists view Israel as a "white" European oppressor of an indigenous population. A relevant difference here is that the right-wing in Europe tries to reinterpret the Christian and modern history of persecuting Judaism as a common struggle for civilisation, while postcolonialists refer to a different history, one that few in Europe are truly cognizant of, namely the history of colonial oppression of the vast majority of the world (p. 54).
The second section is entitled "Problem Areas". It is about the range of answers that different understandings of anti-Semitism assign to certain problems. For example: what role does anti-Semitism play in the Middle East conflict and the way it is viewed? How can the relationship between anti-Semitism and racism be understood? What are the requirements of anti-Semitism-critical educational work? How relevant is one's own speaking position?
The third part, entitled "Positions", brings together essays by well-known protagonists predominantly from the sociological field of anti-Semitism research. The selection of figures is necessarily somewhat arbitrary and focused on the German-speaking world, but it still offers a successful introduction to various traditions of thought.
Elegant introduction to a complex debate
Co-editor Klaus Holz presents the as-yet-unrivalled theoretical achievements of Adorno and Horkheimer as well as the important concept of "national anti-Semitism", and Zygmunt Baumann's reflections on "allo-Semitism" are included, as are Judith Butler's statements.
The inclusion of the latter is likely to prove irritating for some, as Butler is not exactly known as a theorist of anti-Semitism, but rather as a critic of "the political instrumentalisation of accusations of anti-Semitism" (p. 179).
However, Butler, who no longer feels free to speak her mind in Germany, has earned her place in the book because she embodies a position that has a high profile in Anglo-American discourse. Hans-Joachim Hahn offers good reasons for Butler's critique but also points to her lack of distance from "the anti-Semitism of Hamas and its goal of destroying the state of Israel" (p. 186).
The editorial team – Peter Ullrich, Sina Arnold, Anna Danilina, Klaus Holz, Uffa Jensen, Ingolf Seidel and Jan Weyand – brings together considerable expertise. They are supplemented by others that have likewise made a name for themselves in German anti-Semitism research. The texts are precisely formulated, well-founded and provide a factual overview of some of the major controversial issues of our time. Outsiders are elegantly introduced here to a complex debate.
Philosophy of science for connoisseurs
This volume can therefore be highly recommended as a reference work and handbook. In this respect, the book is comparable to the thicker Lexikon der Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Deutschland (Lexicon on Coming to Terms with the Past in Germany), which manages to present a comparably unmanageable debate comprehensively and yet in-depth.
This sociologically oriented anthology on anti-Semitism would seem ideal for university teaching, and in some cases it may also be helpful in more advanced schools. But even those who merely want to educate, orient and arm themselves for German public debate will not be disappointed.
The fourth and final part of the book is geared toward the expert public. This section, written by Peter Ullrich, summarises the research group's findings and the entire book once again on a sociological meta-level.
From the perspective of the philosophy of science – here, too, the volume betrays its German context of origin – it deals, among other things, with the question of what a definition and a concept actually are, and what must be taken into account when working with a concept (a sub-chapter entitled "On the Concept of the Concept" indicates that the connoisseurs are addressed here).
Ullrich identifies eight problems with the conceptualisation of anti-Semitism and convincingly shows why it nevertheless makes sense to think systematically about the impossibility of such a concept.
From a historiographical point of view, it seems impossible from the outset to do what is merely problematic from a sociological perspective and often desirable from a political perspective, namely "to force the phenomenon of anti-Semitism into the straitjacket of a universally valid definition." (Peter Schaefer, Kurze Geschichte des Antisemitismus, 2022, S.11) Anti-Semitism is a variable ideology and practice that is constantly renewing itself historically, but in doing so draws on historically deeply rooted basic motifs.
In an essay, the French rabbi Delphine Horvilleur calls these anti-Semitic motifs that permeate European history "the despicable stuttering of history". (Delphine Horvilleur, Überlegungen zur Frage des Antisemitismus, 2020, p.19; published in English translation in 2021 under the title Anti-Semitism Revisited: How the Rabbis Made Sense of Hatred). It is no coincidence that Horvilleur begins her observations with a reference to the biblical Book of Esther, whose exegesis still today provides fundamental insights into the historically changeable nature of anti-Semitism.
Dual state formation: the Federal Republic of Germany and Israel
For the German debate addressed by this book, however, the central point of reference is not antiquity but the Holocaust and the founding of the state of Israel. Both mark a radical break in the history of anti-Semitism.
A clear differentiation from National Socialism is vital for the legitimisation of the Federal Republic of Germany, ironically more so today than it was in the post-war period. While "anti-Semite" was a self-designation in the nineteenth century, today it is regarded as what it is, namely a disgrace. This is why anti-Semitism can only exist today without anti-Semites, as Klaus Holz explains in the anthology (p. 33).
Solidarity with Israel – what German politicians have cited as a reason of state – also plays a fundamental role in the self-legitimisation of the Federal Republic. The founding of Israel in 1948 created a defensive nation-state that can be seen as a "solution" to anti-Semitism given that Zionism in a way took anti-Semitism more seriously than the competing approaches, such as socialism or assimilation.
In other words, as Jewish integration within the European nation-states was denied due to anti-Semitism, a separate nation had to be created. But that resulted in the Palestinian statelessness that continues to this day.
Universities must remain places of dialogue
Discussions about the Middle East conflict naturally tend towards polarisation. In Germany, showing empathy for victims of political violence in Israel while drawing attention to the suffering of Gazan and West Bank Palestinians, who bear the brunt of any major confrontation, is a tricky balancing act
Thorny situation
Thus emerged a thorny situation for Germany. On the one hand, anti-Semitism may manifest itself with regard to Israel. But this does not rule out criticism, including fundamental criticism. Thomas Haury writes in the anthology: "The decisive criterion for Israel-related anti-Semitism is not the radicalism of the rejection or the correctness of the arguments but whether they reproduce anti-Semitism." (pp. 42f).
On the other hand, a close relationship with Israel is central to the German desire for exoneration after Auschwitz. From the post-war period to the present day, the aim of German support for Israel has primarily been Germany's own rehabilitation, but there are also more tangible reasons related to geopolitics and arms policy.
The Middle East conflict, so often the subject of anti-Semitism debates in Germany, therefore in some respects serves as a template for domestic political identity and struggles between the various camps. But it is actually much more, because Germany is involved in the conflict in terms of foreign policy.
This also applies to the war in Gaza, which the German government has supported from the outset with arms supplies and political backing. Criticism of Israel's conduct of the war has been more restrained amongst the German public than in the USA or the UK, and it has also been suppressed much more strongly here – including by government agencies.
No one who reads the book will doubt that it offers an earnest and academically rigorous examination of the subject. Nevertheless, one of the editors was recently featured in the BILD tabloid newspaper with a printed profile picture.
The admittedly successful headline: "Universitäter" (University Perpetrators). It referred to an open letter from over 1,000 lecturers speaking out against police violence and the unceremonious eviction of a pro-Palestinian protest camp at the FU Berlin.
This episode has since sent out ripples. The German Minister of Education, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, wanted to have an internal review carried out to determine whether the lecturers who had signed the letter could possibly be denied research funding.
Such an attempted encroachment on academic freedom can have no place in liberal democracies. But it does demonstrate that in Germany the question "What is anti-Semitism?" is often about something other than combatting an evil that remains closely linked to the history of the German nation.
© Qantara.de 2024
Translated from the German by Jennifer Taylor