Anti-Semitism without Jews
Anti-Semitism without Jews describes the fact that hostility towards Jews also exists in areas without a Jewish population or can even be more pronounced than in regions with a Jewish community. Anti-Semitism therefore does not only begin where Jewish people are attacked, but rather when anti-Semitic symbols are spread in images and language.
At the same time, the term denotes a form of enmity against Jews that does not always explicitly fall back on traditional anti-Semitism patterns of the enemy. “Anti-Semitism without Jews” thus covers a very wide spectrum of hostility towards Jews.
Concept formation
Anti-Semitism is undergoing constant change and appears in a new form in every era. Paul Lendvai coined the term “anti-Semitism without Jews” for contemporary anti-Semitism, which prefers veiled attacks instead of direct persecution. Traditional anti-Semitism, for example, takes on the mask of so-called anti - Zionism , which enables various resentments to be roused in the same way.
In addition, one can point out that the term “ Semites ” does not only refer to the Jews. A group of the Afro-Asian language family , including Arabic and Hebrew, has been known as Semitic languages since the late 18th century, as its members were believed to be descended from the biblical Shem , one of Noah's sons . The construct "Semite" was increasingly used by linguists and orientalists as an alternative to the constructs " Indo-German " or " Aryans ". From this theory of contradiction, the term and ideology of anti-Semitism developed in the late 19th century. However, this was explicitly directed against Jews, regardless of their mother tongue, and not against all speakers of Semitic languages. Edward Said, on the other hand, argues in his book Orientalism that anti-Semitic ideas and clichés were applied to Arabs after the Second World War (see Arab hostility ; overlap with Islamophobia ).
Example Japan
The denial of the Holocaust also finds supporters in Japan, a country in which traditionally almost no Jews live. A magazine called Marco Polo published an article denying the Holocaust in January 1995 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz . The protests that followed resulted in the dismissal of the editor-in-chief and the discontinuation of the magazine ( see Marco Polo case ).
See also
literature
- Claus Gatterer : Anti-Semitism without Jews. In: grandstand. Journal for the Understanding of Judaism . 1966
- Paul Lendvai : Anti-Semitism without Jews. Europaverlag, Vienna 1972, ISBN 3-203-50417-0 .
- Günther B. Ginzel (Ed.): Antisemitism. Manifestations of hostility towards Jews yesterday and today. Science and Politics, Bielefeld 1991.
- Manfred Böcker: Anti-Semitism without Jews. The second republic, the anti-republican right and the Jews. Spain 1931 to 1936 . (= Hispano-Americana. 23). Dissertation . Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2000, ISBN 3-631-36152-1 .
- Egon Pelikan: Anti-Semitism without Jews in Slovenia. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Yearbook for anti-Semitism research. Volume 15, Metropol, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-938690-46-1 , pp. 185-199.
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Lendvai: Antisemitism without Jews . Doubleday, Garden City 1971 (in German translation: Anti-Semitism without Jews. Developments and tendencies in Eastern Europe . Europe, Vienna 1972)